Free Christmas At Thrush Green by Miss Read

that.’
    Phil bent down and gave her husband a little peck on the cheek. ‘I’ll see you at about eleven then.’
     
    When Phil arrived at the school on the other side of the green, she found a hive of activity. In one classroom, eight or ten young children were practising ‘Away in a Manger’ to the accompaniment of Miss Robinson at the piano.
    No, not Miss Robinson any more, remembered Phil. The young woman who taught the infants had got married that summer and was now Mrs Hope. Although the children had become quickly accustomed to her new name, some of the parents still found it difficult to remember so she was often called ‘Miss Robin-I-mean-Hope’.
    Phil went into the other classroom which had been turned into the temporary dressing-room. She stood in the doorway and surveyed the scene in front of her.
    Little Louise was sitting on a desk, her legs swinging in front of her. Behind her, the young probationary teacher was stitching something on the shoulder of the child’s long blue dress.
    ‘Oh bother!’ she exclaimed. ‘I’ve gone and sewn through to your vest, and will have to unpick it.’
    Margaret Lester had dressed Anthony Gibbons without too much trouble, and had gone off to see to the shepherds. Mrs Gibbons was left to deal with James, who was wriggling inside a bright red robe that had been dropped over his head.
    ‘Can’t find the armholes,’ came a muffled cry from inside.
    ‘Shall I shine a torch down the front, Jimmy?’ called his brother.
    ‘His name is James,’ snapped Mrs Gibbons, who was trying to sort out the muddle from underneath. ‘Now stop struggling,’ she commanded. ‘You’re like a ten-armed octopus inside there.’
    Finally, James’s head, hair all sticking up, emerged from the top of the robe, a rather pink face following. ‘Phew! Hot in there.’
    His mother tied a length of coloured cord round the boy’s waist. She straightened the robe on the shoulders, pulled the hem down a bit at the back, then stood back to check on the overall effect.
    ‘You’ll do,’ she announced. ‘Or, at least, you will once everything is ironed. Now, off you go to Mrs Hurst to sort out your headdresses.’
    Phil pulled a box marked ‘Headgear but not halos’ towards her. ‘Hello, you two, how’re things going?’
    ‘Awright, I suppose,’ mumbled James. He still wished he could be a sheep.
    ‘Now, which is which? I never can tell,’ asked Phil.
    ‘I’m Anthony,’ said James automatically. ‘And I’m James,’ replied his brother Anthony.
    The boys grinned as Phil turned back to the box to rummage inside for the crowns that were set aside for the kings.
    She put three crowns on the table and then looked at each of them in turn. ‘I think we might jettison that one,’ she said. ‘It’s got a bad tear in it. I’ll make a new one in time for next week.’

    Mrs Gibbons, who had stopped to have a chat with one of the other mothers, now arrived. ‘I’ll do it, if you like,’ she said to Phil. ‘You’ll be busy with other things. I’ll get some gold card on Monday.’
    Phil thanked her. Mrs Gibbons wasn’t so bad - her bark was much worse than her bite. And she had changed a bit since her husband had suddenly died the previous year. It almost seemed that she’d had to compete with her husband’s bossiness. Phil had gone out of her way to be friendly with the woman; after all, she’d known what it was like to be a single mother.
    At the far end of the room, Alan Lester clapped his hands together. ‘Is everyone ready? It’s past eleven o’clock and we should be getting on with the rehearsal.’
    Although this was not the official dress rehearsal, it was felt the children would perform better if they kept on the costumes they had been allocated, creased as they were. The angels, with neither wings nor halos yet attached, were a drab group.
    There was a cry from one corner of the room. ‘I’ve gone an’ lost me crook. ’As anyone seen me crook?’
    Margaret