I shut my eyes tight. ‘Please, if there really is a Spirit of Christmas Past, a Spirit of Christmas Present and a Spirit of Christmas Yet to Come, help me now, and then I’ll out-do Tiny Tim with my “God bless you”s,’ I said inside my head.
I sensed someone standing beside me. I opened my eyes, hoping desperately that it might be Mum, with her lovely long golden curls, her big blue eyes, her glossy pink lips all ready to kiss me . . .
but I was staring at this small scruffy woman with short sticking-up hair.
‘Oh, it’s only you, Cam,’ I said wearily.
‘Happy Christmas to you too, Tracy,’ said Cam, laughing.
‘What are you doing here? The play’s not for hours yet.’
‘I know. I’ve come to help your Miss Simpkins do your make-up.’
‘But you don’t know anything about it! You never wear make-up.’
‘I’m great at stage make-up, you wait and see.’
She sat down cross-legged beside me. She was wearing her usual jeans and jersey – but they were her newest not-frayed-at-the-hems jeans and she was wearing her best jumper with the knitted cats.
She thrust a big box of chocolates at me.
‘Here. Have a nibble, then pass them round to all your pals.’
‘Oh, Cam. Did you buy them specially for me?’
‘Well, not exactly,’ said Cam. ‘They were going to be for my mum, when I went home for Christmas. Only I’m not actually going home as it turns out, so I thought we could have them now.’
‘Well, it’s very kind of you but I’m not a bit hungry. I feel kind of sick. Maybe I’m going to throw up on stage. If I do I hope it’s when Justine’s doing her Marley’s Ghost bit,’ I said.
I opened the box of chocolates all the same, simply out of curiosity. They were extra-special wonderful chocs, all sleek and shiny, some wrapped in pink and silver and gold paper, others dotted with cherries and nuts and little crystallized roses.
‘Oh, yum,’ I said automatically. My fingers reached out for the biggest cherry chocolate of their own accord. I gave it one little lick and then popped it in my mouth quick.
I chewed, and the most beautiful cherry chocolate taste oozed all over my tongue and round my teeth.
‘Mmm!’ I said. My hand reached out again.
‘I wouldn’t have too many if you’re feeling sick,’ said Cam.
‘Do you know something weird? I’m starting to feel just a tiny bit better. Hey, these are seriously scrumptious chocolates. Do I really have to hand them round? I’ll have just one more, OK? Your mum’s really missing out big-time. Why aren’t you going to see her at Christmas then?’
‘Oh. We had a row. We always have rows. I phoned her to ask if I could bring someone with me.’
‘Who? Not a boyfriend!’
‘I’ve told you, Tracy, I haven’t got a boyfriend. This was someone else, but anyway, she didn’t like that idea, and then she went on about this party she’s giving, and saying stuff like will I please have my hair done and could I wear a decent skirt and proper heels.’ Cam sighed. ‘She’s impossible.’
‘No, she’s not. You’d look heaps better with your hair done all fancy and a nice tight skirt, and why on earth don’t you wear heels? My mum always does.’
I shouldn’t have said the word mum. My tummy went tight all over again. I was on my fourth chocolate by this time. It didn’t seem such a great idea.
Cam held my hand. ‘Your mum’s obviously a glamorous girly mum. I’m more your casual woman. Though my mum would say there’s casual and there’s downright ragbag.’
‘Oh, Cam, do you think my mum will come to see me act Scrooge?’
Cam gripped my hand tightly. ‘I’m sure she wants to come, badly. It’s just . . . she could be tied up somewhere.’
‘I’m going to let her down if she does come.’ I crept closer to Cam. I hissed in her ear so none of the other kids could hear. ‘I was totally rubbish at the rehearsal at lunch time. I couldn’t remember a single word.’
‘That’s great, Tracy,’ said Cam brightly.
‘That’s great?’ I said. ‘Oh thanks, Cam! I thought you were supposed to be my friend? It’s great that Tracy Beaker is going to publicly humiliate herself in front of the whole school, all the parents, everyone from the Dumping Ground and her own mother?’
‘I am your friend and I’m talking sense. Everyone knows that it’s bad luck to have a dress rehearsal that goes really well. The worse it is, the better the actual performance.’
‘You’re kidding!’
‘No, no, it’s common knowledge in the acting profession. I’m surprised your mum hasn’t told you. So you’ll be great tonight, Tracy, you’ll see.’
‘But I can’t remember a single line! What am I meant to do? Mime it all?’
‘Well, I’m sure you’d mime very expressively, but I don’t think that will be necessary. The moment you get on stage I’m sure you’ll be word perfect again. The lines are all in there, Tracy.’ She swung our clasped hands upwards and gently tapped my head. ‘You just need to press the right button and they’ll come bursting out as easily as anything, believe me.’
I looked at her. I didn’t believe her – but I was touched that she was trying so hard to convince me. I looked at Cam’s best outfit. I looked at her earnest face and her funny scrubbing-brush haircut. I suddenly gave her a big hug right there in front of everyone.
Some skinny little kid playing Ignorance in the play piped up, ‘Is that your mum, Tracy?’
‘She’s not my real mum,’ I said. ‘But she’s kind of like a mum to me.’
Cam gave me a big hug back. ‘That’s the nicest thing you’ve ever said about me, Tracy,’ she said.
‘It’s all this Christmas Peace and Goodwill stuff. It’s getting to me,’ I said.
I passed all the chocolates round. I even offered one to Justine, which was a waste of time.
‘You’ve probably gobbed all over them, Tracy Beaker,’ she said.
Mrs Darlow came trit-trotting out of her office, in through the swing doors and over my beautifully shiny floor to wish us all luck.
Miss Simpkins came scurrying to my side, looking tense. I smiled at her reassuringly and offered Mrs Darlow a chocolate.
‘Good luck, Tracy Beaker,’ she said, popping a nut cluster in her mouth.
‘Mind how you go in those little heels, Mrs Darlow. We don’t want you slipping on the highly polished floor,’ I said politely.
‘Ah, yes. You’ve worked hard, Tracy. It’s a little patchy here and there, but on the whole you’ve done a splendid job. Nothing beats a bit of elbow grease. I’m almost tempted to do away with the electric polisher and employ you on a permanent basis.’
‘You have an electric polisher?’ I said faintly. ‘Yet you let me polish the entire floor by hand?’
‘Tracy!’ Cam hissed.
I took a deep breath. ‘So the hall floor could have been polished in a matter of minutes, Mrs Darlow?’
‘But that wouldn’t have been such an excellent . . . what was the phrase? A channel for your aggression!’ said Mrs Darlow, smiling at me. Triumphantly.
I looked at her. She looked at me. Cam was on one side of me, Miss Simpkins on the other. I knew both were holding their breath.
I suddenly burst out laughing. ‘Nice one, Mrs Darlow,’ I said. ‘You win.’
‘Thank you,’ said Mrs Darlow. ‘So you win tonight, Tracy Beaker. Act your little socks off.’
She zigzagged her way through the picnicking cast as if she was performing a complicated country dance and went out of the hall.
Cam and Miss Simpkins blew out their cheeks and sighed ‘Pheeeeeew’ simultaneously.
‘You both thought I was going to blow it, didn’t you?’ I said.
‘Well, the thought did just cross my mind,’ said Miss Simpkins.
‘It crossed and recrossed and danced up and down in my mind,’ said Cam. She scrabbled in the chocolate box, found another great big cherry cream and popped it in
my mouth. ‘Here, kiddo, you deserve it.’
‘Now, I suppose we’d better start getting the show on the road,’ said Miss Simpkins. ‘OK, kids, clear up your picnic stuff as quick as you can. I want all the stagehands to go up on the stage and start sorting out the backdrops. I’ll come and help in a minute. All the rest of you, come and find your costumes. Then, once you’re dressed, go to Cam to get made up.’
‘I wish we had proper costumes,’ Justine complained.
‘I do too, Justine, but we haven’t had the time, money or indeed expertise to assemble proper Victorian costumes for a large cast. We’ve done our best with limited resources,’ Miss Simpkins said crisply.
We all had to wear our ordinary school uniform, with coats on for everyone playing men. We had cardboard top hats and cardboard bonnets tied with ribbon. The children carol singers simply wound woolly scarves around their necks.
Miss Simpkins did her best to be inventive with the ghost costumes. Justine as Marley’s Ghost had a big bandage round her head and a long dog chain with keys and purses and cash-boxes attached to it with Scoubidou strings.
As the Spirit of Christmas Past, Louise had a white frock and a white veil and her hair brushed out loose past her shoulders. She danced round and round, pointing her toes.
‘I’m glad I’ve got a pretty costume,’ she said.
The Spirit of Christmas Present wore a Santa hat with a white cotton-wool beard and he had sprigs of holly pinned all over him. You couldn’t get too near or he’d prick you.
The Spirit of Christmas Yet to Come wore a long black velvet gown (actually Miss Simpkins’s dressing gown!) with a black scarf over his head.
That just left Peter and me. He didn’t have a special costume as Tiny Tim, just a little cap and a crutch made out of an old broom handle.
I had two costumes. I wore my school shirt and grey trousers and an old grey raincoat cut at the back to make proper tails. I also had a white nightshirt with a white cap and slippers with pompoms for my night-time scenes.
Everyone laughed when I tried on the nightshirt, and started spreading rumours that it was Mrs Darlow’s nightie. I started capering around doing a rude imitation of Mrs Darlow, sticking my bum right out and waggling it. Everyone laughed and I laughed too – though inside I felt so wound up I felt more like crying.
Was my mum going to come???
And if she did, would I let her down?
My capers got wilder. Cam collared me by the scruff of the nightshirt.
‘Hey, hey, how about saving the acting for when you go on stage? Get into your Scrooge day outfit and then come to Classroom One. I’ll do your make-up first, OK?’
‘I don’t want any experimenting! You’re a total novice when it comes to make-up, Cam.’
‘I tell you, I’m a dab hand at stage make-up, trust me. Come on, kiddo. You need to simmer down a little. There’s no point being diplomatic with Mrs Darlow one minute and then sending her up rotten the next. If she walked in on your impersonation you’d be toast, Ms Beaker.’
We went to Classroom One together and she got out this huge case of make-up. She plonked me down on a chair and put a towel round my shoulders. She brushed my hair and yanked it into a tight topknot and then crammed a weird wig on my head, half pink rubber for a big bald patch, with straggly grey bits trailing to my shoulders.
‘Now for your Scrooge face,’ she said, starting to rub pale panstick into my skin.
‘Hey, careful! You’re getting it in my eyes!’
‘Well close them, silly. Come on, Tracy, you want to look the part, don’t you? Stop squirming round and act sensible.’
I sat still as a statue, eyes closed, while Cam dabbed and smeared at my face and then stuck stuff all over my eyebrows. She breathed heavily with concentration, tutting if I so much as twitched. Then she patted me lightly under the chin.
‘There, Scrooge! You’re done.’
I opened my eyes. Cam was holding a mirror in front of me. A mean whey-faced old man with whiskery eyebrows and grey frown lines peered back at me. I gasped – and the old man’s thin lips gasped too.
It was me! I could hardly believe it I looked so different.
‘I don’t look like me any more!’
‘Of course you don’t. You’re not you. You’re Ebenezer Scrooge, the meanest man in the city.’
‘I look exactly like the picture in the book I sent my mum . . .’ My voice tailed away.
Cam put her face close to mine, her brown eyes big and pleading.
‘Tracy. Listen to me. You know sometimes your mum hasn’t been able to come to see you because she’s making a movie somewhere? Well, that’s because she knows how important it is to concentrate on her part. That’s what you’ve got to do now. You’re not Tracy Beaker any more, desperate to see her mum. You’re Scrooge, and you haven’t got a mum or a dad or anyone at all. You’re a mean old misery-guts who hates everyone, and you especially hate this time of year, Christmas, the season of goodwill, because you don’t wish anyone well and you think Christmas is total humbug. Think yourself into the character, Tracy. Don’t go and mess around with the others. Stay centred on what you’re doing.’
‘Bah!’ I said. ‘Out of my way, Missy. Let me get back to my counting house. I need to give that varmint clerk of mine, Bob Cratchit, a severe talking to.’
Cam grinned and bobbed her head at me. ‘Beg pardon, I’m sure, Mr Scrooge,’ she said.
So I sloped off into Classroom Two and paced up and down the room telling myself I was Scrooge Scrooge Scrooge. Peter popped his head round the door and asked if I was OK.
‘Bah! Humbug!’ I growled.
He jumped back, looking upset. ‘Sorry, Tracy!’
‘I’m not Tracy, I’m Scrooge, you ignorant little lad. When I’ve been visited by Old Marley and the three Christmas Ghosts I shall have a change of heart and look on you kindly, almost as my own son, but for the moment, hop it!’
Peter hopped it. Literally, using his crutch.
I was fine all the time I was by myself. I thought myself into being Scrooge and acted some of the scenes, bending over like a gnarled old man. But then Miss Simpkins came to find me.
‘Ah, Tracy, Cam said you were in here. You make an utterly splendid Scrooge – quite scary! OK, sweetheart, fifteen minutes to go till curtain up. Better whizz to the toilet and then come backstage with all the others.’
Suddenly I got so so so scared I stopped being Scrooge. I didn’t even feel like Tracy Beaker any more. I felt like this tiny trembly mini-mouse. My voice turned into a squeak. I had to fight not to hang onto Miss Simpkins’s hand like some silly little kid in the Infants. I wanted Cam but she was still making people up in Classroom One.
I had to go and join Justine Hate-Her-Guts Littlewood and Louise and Peter and all the others. They were supposed to be sitting cross-legged at the back of the stage, only speaking in whispers. Of course they were all over the place, giggling and gossiping, clowning around in their costumes. The red velvet stage curtains were pulled shut but Justine ran up to them and had a little peep out.
‘I can see him! There’s my dad! My dad’s right at the front! Hey, Dad, Dad, here I am!’
Then all the children rushed to the gap in the curtains, sticking their heads out and peering.
All the children except me.
I hung back. I thought of all those chairs, row after row to the back of the hall. I thought of my mum. I willed her to be sitting there right at the front, but not next to Justine’s dad. I wanted her to be there so much it was as if I had laser eyes that could bore right through the thick crimson velvet. There she was, sitting on the edge of her seat, smiling, waving, her pink heart gleaming round her neck . . .
I had to have one little look. Just to make sure.
I elbowed Justine Big-Bottom Littlewood out of the way and put one eye to the gap between the curtains. The hall was absolutely heaving, with almost every seat taken. I saw all the parents and the wriggly little brothers and sisters. I saw Jenny a
nd Mike. I saw Elaine. She’d taken off her antlers but she had a sprig of mistletoe tied rakishly over one ear (who would want to kiss Elaine?). I saw Cam shunting along the front row, finished with her make-up session, every last member of the cast pansticked into character. I saw Justine’s awful dad with his gold medallion and his tight leather jacket. I saw everyone . . . except my mum.
I looked right along every single row. She wasn’t there. She wasn’t in the front. She wasn’t in the middle. She wasn’t at the back.
Maybe she’d got held up. She’d be jumping out of her stretch limo right this minute, running precariously in her high heels, teeter-tottering up the school drive and now here she was . . .
Not yet.
Any second now.
I stared and stared and stared. Then I felt a hand on my shoulder.
‘Get into place on stage, Tracy. We’re about to start,’ Miss Simpkins said softly.
‘But my mum hasn’t come yet! Can’t we wait five minutes more? I don’t want her to miss the beginning.’
‘We’ll wait one minute then. You go and settle yourself in your counting-house chair. I’ll go and get the carol singers assembled. Then we’ll have to start, sweetheart.’
‘I can’t. Not without my mum.’
‘You’re going to have to, Tracy. The show must go on,’ said Miss Simpkins.
I didn’t care about the show now. There wasn’t any point acting Scrooge if my mum couldn’t see me. I clutched my chest. It really hurt. Maybe it was my heart breaking.
‘I couldn’t act to save my life,’ I said.
‘What about acting to save my life?’ said Miss Simpkins. ‘And what about Cam? What about little Peter and all the children who signed his petition? You can’t let them down, Tracy.’
The Jacqueline Wilson Christmas Cracker Page 10
