Christmas Stalkings by Charlotte MacLeod Page B

could—and could not—be expected from the average senior at the school, shook her head at the selection available. “We’ll go on with two,” she whispered. Because as soon as the girls finished this interminable number, the entire school, from the babies in kindergarten up, would start a medley of traditional carols, and the pageant would begin its stately and gradual progression into the center of events.
    Everyone loved the graduating-class pageant, except the drama coach and the English teacher who were responsible for producing it. Every year it was exactly the same; every year the kindergarten babies would ooh in astonishment and parents would sniffle sentimentally. And every year it was seen by at least twenty-five hundred people, crowded into the largest church in the city, for the Kingsmede Festival of Carols was justly famous.
    “Is everything okay?” The high-pitched whisper came just as the modern carol was drawing to its pianissimo close, and earned a vicious glare from the conductor. It issued from a tall, thin, elegant woman with pale-red hair skewered into a bun—a beautiful woman with a voice of hideous timbre and formidable carrying power. “Sorry,” she went on, “I got talking to Jeff and lost track of the time.”
    Annabel Cousins winced before pivoting her head in the direction of the whisperer. For a moment, she froze, fixing her with a glassy-eyed stare, and then turned in amazement to Helen Armstrong, who nodded. “No,” said Annabel, “it isn’t okay. But you’re just in time.”
    “O Come, All Ye Faithful” saw Helen Armstrong in the narrow passageway behind the altar, herding Mary and Joseph ahead of her. Mary’s name was Mary and she looked more like an Icelander than an Israelite, but she had bagged the job because she was head of the Drama Club. Joseph’s name was Deborah, Deborah Levinson. She knew full well why she had suddenly been handed the part. It had been someone’s notion of broad-minded equality to choose a Jewish girl, and the vision of herself in a Christmas pageant tickled her so immensely that she was having trouble maintaining the gravity of expression proper to an old man with a pregnant wife who was on his way to pay his taxes. She conjured up a vision of her father at tax time and settled her countenance appropriately.
    The ending of “O Little Town of Bethlehem” brought on Mary and Joseph; with “Angels from the Realms of Glory,” Annabel shoved the three angels toward the wooden dais on which they would spend ten agonizing minutes with their hands raised aloft. Three heads of golden-red hair and three sets of wings moved with great care until they reached their posts. As they raised their arms on Annabel Cousins’s vigorous cue, Mary sank—a little too gracefully—into her chair and discovered, with much too much astonishment, the infant Jesus in the crib.
    “That’s the last time I let someone who thinks she’s Sarah Bernhardt play Mary,” muttered Annabel to Helen Armstrong, who had just finished creeping back from the other side of the altar. “Deborah makes a good Joseph, though.”
    Helen nodded. “Are the kings in position yet?”
    “ Omigod ,” said Annabel, “I haven’t checked their makeup.” And she tore downstairs.
    “Shepherds in the Fields Abiding” brought two light-footed shepherd boy-girls frolicking joyously up the side aisles, carrying an improbable number of toy lambs. Erica appeared last, careening up the center aisle as if she had been entered in the Bethlehem Olympics. Helen Armstrong sighed; she knew it had been a mistake to tell Erica Henry to run, no matter how gladsomely. The side-aisle shepherds caught sight of their speedy companion and broke into a panicked race for the front. All three came skidding to a halt at the chancel steps, giving the unfortunate impression that they were escaping prisoners who had just been nabbed by a posse of their schoolmates. Erica finally remembered to point at the angels