Free An Irish Country Christmas by Patrick Taylor

hospital, but to the victims they were every bit as annoying as the exotic complaints Barry had been exposed to during his training.
    Once in the surgery Barry sat himself on the swivel chair and waited for mother and child to be seated. There was no obvious clue to what might ail the boy, assuming he was the patient today. No coughing, no snotty nose, no sweating.
    “How’s your paw, Colin?” Barry asked.
    The boy whipped off his cap, held it in one hand, and silently offered the other for inspection. Barry could see the scar across the palm. It had been a nasty cut, inflicted by a chisel, and had required several stitches. It had healed well.
    “Looks good.” He turned to the mother and smiled. “And so what can I do for you today?”
    “It’s Colin, so it is.”
    “I see. And what seems to be the trouble.” The child looked perfectly healthy.
    “He doesn’t want to go to school, so he doesn’t.”
    “Does he not?” Barry’s immediate thought was, neither did I at his age. For the second time that morning his ability to keep a straight face was called upon. In all of his medical training years there had been no attention paid by his teachers to the emotions of childhood. “Hmmm . . .,” Barry said, leaning forward, putting one elbow on his knee, and resting his chin on one hand. He squinted at Colin and, hoping for the best, asked, “And why would that be, Colin?”
    “Dunno.”
    That was a great help. Think, Barry told himself. Why didn’t you want to go when you were his age? “Is it one of the teachers?”
    Colin hung his head and shook it.
    “Maybe the work’s too hard? I wasn’t very good at sums.”
    More head shaking.
    “Is one of the big boys picking on you?”
    “No.”
    Barry, who in local parlance didn’t know where to go next for corn, sat back and asked the mother, “Can you think of why, Mrs. Brown?”
    She leaned forward and shook Colin’s shoulder. “You tell the nice doctor about the Nativity play.”
    “Don’t wanna.”
    “Maybe,” Mrs. Brown enquired, the solicitude in her tones belying her words, “maybe you’d rather get a good clip round the ears?”
    “No.” Colin pursed his lips, frowned, and narrowed his eyes at his mother.
    One thing about kids’ emotions, Barry thought, they don’t wrap them up behind bland expressions.
    “I’m warning you, so I am.”
    Barry had to intervene. “Is there something the matter at the play?” he asked, looking Colin straight in the eye and turning his back on Mrs. Brown. Funny, that was the second time the event had been mentioned this morning, and O’Reilly had said something about a Christmas pageant last night.
    Colin nodded.
    Barry waited. Colin remained silent.
    “Would you like to tell me about it?” He cocked his head to one side. “Would you?”
    “It’s that wee gurrier Micky Corry,” Colin sniffed. “He’s going to be Joseph. It’s not fair, so it’s not.” A tear ran down one cheek. “Teacher said I could be Joseph again.” He prodded himself on the chest. “I have the robes and the Arab headdress and everything from last year.”
    “You see, Doctor Laverty, Colin was Joseph last year. Everybody said he done the part very well,” Mrs. Brown added.
    “That’s right. But now Miss Nolan’s changed her mind and says it’s somebody else’s turn. It’s not fair.” Colin stamped his foot, and his knee-length sock slid down his calf like the skin falling off a shedding snake. “I don’t wanna be the innkeeper. He only has three lines. ‘Who’s there? Mary and Joseph?’ and ‘Well, you can go into the stable.’ ”
    Nations, Barry knew, had gone to war over less, and he was blowed if he could see an acceptable solution. Should he offer to go and see Miss Nolan and try to intercede? No, because if she changed her mind again, he’d probably have Micky Corry and his mother in here tomorrow. “Um,” he said, knitting his brow and regretting that he didn’t have a pair of half-moon glasses to