Read The Twenty-four Days Before Christmas Online

Authors: Madeleine L'engle

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BOOK: The Twenty-four Days Before Christmas
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I clamped my teeth tight shut to try to keep from crying, and the director said, “Don't look so sullen, Vicky. An angel should be joyful, you know.”
I nodded, but I didn't dare unclench my teeth. One tear slipped out and trickled down my cheek, but I didn't think anybody saw.
When the rehearsal was over, Mr. Quinn, the minister, drove me home. He hadn't seen the rehearsal
and he kept talking about how the Pageant was going to be the best ever, and that I was going to be a beautiful angel. If he'd been at the rehearsal he wouldn't have said that.
The Advent surprise for that day was to have the Christmas mugs at dinner, the mugs that look like Santa Claus. But I still felt like crying, and the cheerful Santa Claus face didn't cheer me up at all. After we had baths and were in our warm pajamas and ready for bed, we stood around the piano singing Advent carols, but I had such a big lump in my throat that I couldn't sing.
Daddy put his arm around me. “What's the matter with my girl?”
Two tears slipped out of my eyes, and I told him about the rehearsal and what the director had said. He told me that he and Mother would help me to look and move more like an angel. “You can be a lovely angel, Vicky, but you'll have to work at it.”
“I'll work. I promise.”
On the ninth day of Advent we hung the Christmas bells from the beams in the living room, and then Mother worked with me on being an angel. She had me walk all over the house with a volume of the encyclopedia on my head. When I was finally able to walk all around without the encyclopedia falling, Mother showed me how to stand with my feet in ballet position, and how to hold my arms so they didn't look all elbows.
On the tenth day of December Mother got the cuddly Santa Claus doll out of the attic, and told Suzy and me we could take turns taking it to bed at night. I thought of the Pageant, and said, “Suzy can have it. May I take the
Shu
to
Sub
volume of the encyclopedia to bed with me?”
Mother understood. “Yes. And now put it on your head and try walking up the front stairs and down the back stairs.”
Each time I did it I managed more steps without having to catch the encyclopedia. Suzy went to bed with the cuddly Santa Claus doll. I put the
Shu
to
Sub
volume under my pillow.
On the eleventh day the director beamed at me and said, “That was
much
better, Vicky. I think you're going to be all right after all. Now let's try it again.
Good
, Vicky, GOOD.”
I was happy when I got home and Mother gave me a hug, and John said, “I don't know why anybody ever thought you couldn't do it. I knew you could.”
Suzy jumped up and down and said, “What're we going to do for Advent today?”
Mother suggested, “Let's make a Christmas chandelier.” We took the wire mesh lettuce basket and filled it with the Christmas decorations that were just a tiny bit broken but not shattered. We hung one of the prettiest, shiniest decorations on the bottom of the lettuce basket, and then Mother and John fitted the basket over the front hall light so that it glittered and sparkled with the color of all the Christmas baubles.
And I walked up and down the front hall with the encyclopedia,
Shu
to
Sub
, balanced on my head; I tried to look at the Christmas chandelier out of the corner of my eye, but when I looked up, the encyclopedia slipped and I caught it just before it landed on the floor.
On the twelfth day of December not only did it not snow, it rained. Rain poured in great torrents from the sodden skies and the gutters spouted like fountains. After school Mother discovered that we'd eaten up all the first batch of Christmas cookies, so we made more.
On the thirteenth the skies were all washed clean and the sun was out and we had a Pageant rehearsal. The director surprised me by saying, “Vicky, dear, you're doing so well that we've decided to give you some lines for the scene where you appear with the shepherds. Do you think you can memorize them?”
I nodded happily. It may be hard for me to walk without tripping up, and to stand still without being all sharp corners and angles, but memorizing things is easy for me.
The director explained, “These are the angel lines from an old play in the Chester Cycle. The Chester Cycle is a group of plays written in the Middle Ages in England, to be performed in the Cathedral in Chester, so we think it's very appropriate for the Pageant. By the way, we miss your mother in the choir.”
I explained, “It's because of the new baby, you know.”
“Isn't that nice! I wonder if she'll be in the hospital for Christmas? Now here are your lines, dear. Read them slowly and clearly.”
I read. Slowly and clearly. But I hardly heard myself. Mother in the hospital for Christmas? I knew Mother would go to the hospital to have the baby, just as she did for John and me and Suzy. But not for Christmas Eve! Not for Christmas day!
“Good, dear,” the director was saying. “Read it once more.
I read.
Shepherds, of this sight
Be ye not afright,
For this is God's might.
To Bethlehem now right;
There shall ye see in sight
That Christ is born tonight
To save all mankind.
If Mother was in the hospital it wouldn't be Christmas. Christmas is the
whole
family hanging up stockings, and Daddy reading
The Night Before Christmas
and Saint Luke, and Mother singing everybody to sleep with her guitar and carols. What about the stocking presents Christmas morning in Mother and Daddy's big bed? What about running downstairs all together to see the presents under the tree? What about—what about—everything?
Who would cook Christmas dinner? Make the stuffing? Roast the turkey? Fix the cranberry sauce? What about putting out cocoa and cookies for Santa
Claus the very last thing on Christmas Eve? What about—what about—everything?
“That's very good, dear,” the director approved. “You speak beautifully. Now read it again, just a little bit more slowly this time. Do you think you can memorize it for tomorrow?”
I nodded numbly. Somehow or other I managed to do everything the director told me, but all I could think was—Mother
has
to be home for Christmas!
Daddy picked me up after rehearsal that afternoon. As soon as he had the car started, I asked, “Daddy, Mother isn't going to be in the hospital for Christmas, is she?”
He answered quietly, “It's a distinct possibility.”
I shouted, “But she can't be!”
Daddy said calmly, “According to our calculations, the baby's due about the first of January, but babies don't always arrive exactly on schedule. John, for instance, was three weeks late, and you were exactly on time. Suzy was a few days early.”
“But—”
“Who knows, the baby may decide to come early
enough so that Mother'll be home for Christmas. Or it mightn't be till the new year. But we have to accept the fact that there's a chance that Mother'll be in the hospital over Christmas.”
“Let's not
have
the baby!” I cried. “If Mother has to be in the hospital on Christmas I don't want the baby!”
“Here, here,” Daddy said, “that's no way to talk.”
“There are enough of us already.” I choked over a sob. “Do we have to have the baby, Daddy?”
“Of course we do. We all want the baby. This isn't like you, Vicky Austin.”
“What about Christmas dinner?” I wailed.
“At the last count,” Daddy said, “we'd had seventeen invitations for dinner.”
It kept getting worse and worse. “But we can't go
out
for Christmas dinner! I'd rather have cornflakes and have them at home!”
Daddy turned the car up the hill to the house. “I quite agree with you there, Vic. I've turned down all the invitations. If Mother's in the hospital, I think you and John and Suzy and I can manage Christmas dinner, don't you? And I'll let you in on a secret: Mother made
our dinner and put it in the freezer. All we have to do is thaw it and heat it up in the oven,”
I hiccuped tiredly. “Well. All right. But it won't be Christmas if Mother isn't with us.”
BOOK: The Twenty-four Days Before Christmas
12.22Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
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