by Julie Cohen
Mouse Morrison was leaning over a sink on her tiptoes, applying a black eyeliner pencil to her snub nose. On her chubby legs she also wore black tights, and she had a black jumper covered with cotton wool, though hers was more carefully stuck on than mine. She looked like a round cotton ball. I wasn’t as fat as she was, but I looked nearly as stupid. Maybe even more, because Mouse wouldn’t have her identical double standing in blue robes looking beautiful and proud.
My face burned with humiliation. Mouse caught my eye in the mirror and quickly looked away. ‘Hi,’ she mumbled in her quiet mouse voice.
I had no desire to fraternise with a fellow sheep. Without a word I pulled my hair back into a tight ponytail and left the toilets.
Ma Gamble must have seen the desire to bolt in my eyes because she was outside the door waiting for me, and guided me with a firm hand on my arm down the corridor and through the doors at the back of the hall. This was the backstage area, full to the brim of children in costume jostling each other. Through a black curtain, I could glimpse the stage. Though the teenagers of Stoneguard had managed to escape Pageant Hell, they’d been co-opted to build the set. The stable and manger were made out of scrap wood, painted a variety of shades of brown. Some bales of hay had been piled around it, so Mary and Joseph would have someplace to sit while everyone came to pay their respects. Dust and chaff floated in the air.
‘The sheep are standing over there, near the curtain,’ Ma Gamble said to me, pointing to a few little kids in cotton wool who were standing picking their noses. I took one step in that direction, which appeased her enough for her to turn her attention elsewhere.
I threaded through the children until I found my sister. She was standing near the curtain, carefully holding little Muriel Johnson, who was standing in for the baby Jesus. Muriel sucked on her dummy with such fierceness that I suspected she’d burst into wails the minute someone tried to remove it for historical accuracy. I tried to imagine anybody ever entrusting me with a three-month-old baby, and failed.
‘Isn’t she gorgeous?’ Lee whispered to me.
‘She looks like a prune that’s been soaked in water.’
‘Your costume looks good.’
‘No it doesn’t.’
‘You’re not going to do anything horrible, are you?’ Her eyes met mine, pleading. ‘It really won’t be that bad. It could be fun.’
‘Here’s your husband,’ I said, as the crowd parted like the sea for Moses and Will Naughton strode in, clad in brown robes the same colour as his hair. Lee’s face immediately flushed and her eyes got even starrier.
He was two years older than us, nearly a teenager, and much taller; in fact he was taller than all of the other children, no doubt because of his superior genes. He hadn’t done that messy thing with his hair today, and it flopped around his face so he looked just like the public schoolboy that he was. He carried sandals and had a pair of sunglasses perched on top of his head.
I snorted. During rehearsals, he’d appeared late, with headphones on, and hardly talked to anyone. That didn’t stop my sister from gazing at him as if he were her own personal Prince Charming. ‘Hi,’ he said to Lee, and sat down to take off his expensive trainers.
‘Hello, Will,’ Lee breathed.
‘Places, everyone!’ boomed Ma Gamble. There was a Mexican wave of movement as the children all tried to organise themselves. ‘Over there, over there,’ said Ma Gamble, wading through the chaos, waving her hands at the costumed youth of Stoneguard. ‘Joseph and Mary, in the front. Lee, right up there where no one will jostle the baby. Candace, come over here so I can adjust your harness. Wise men, to the left. Sheep and shepherds, to the right.’
The crowd pushed me away from Lee, but before I let it take me, I slipped behind Will and plucked his sunglasses from his head. I put them under my jumper and twisted through the other kids, losing bits of wool in the process. The air was a potent mixture of glue, sweat and excitement. The shepherds, Stone and Rock Hamlin, stood holding crooks near the shadowy stage curtain. Their long hair was hanging down around their faces and they actually did sort of look like shepherds, probably because their parents were those hippies on Rainbow Farm and as far as I knew they spent much of their lives communing with livestock. Mouse had joined the little kids; she was about twice as wide as anyone else. I went straight to the front and peered through the curtain at the audience. The lights were still on, and adults were picking through the rows of folding chairs. They were talking more loudly than the children, which made me think many of them had already sampled a bit of Christmas cheer from the tables in the back of the room. I spotted our mother, standing poker-straight and shaking hands. Representing the business.
A sudden hush fell in the audience and I craned my neck to see what was happening. Two figures came through the open double doors, a tall man and a slight woman with her arm through his.
‘Lord and Lady Naughton,’ someone said, ostensibly in greeting but more in the manner of an announcement, and the hush grew, in proper respect for the aristocracy amongst us. Lord Naughton ducked his head, Lady Naughton smiled, and they were accosted by Ma Gamble. How she managed to get out there so quickly, I had no idea; the woman had supernatural powers when it came to organisation.
Though they lived just outside the village in their enormous ancestral home, the Naughtons rarely mixed with the commoners. It was typical that Ma Gamble would rush to take responsibility for their appearing here tonight. I watched as she led them to two seats specially reserved in the front row, on the far end from my mother. Lord and Lady Naughton didn’t say anything to any of the other people in the audience; they just smiled and sat down in their seats. They didn’t glance in my mother’s direction, though she did look at them. I wondered if she wanted Lee to marry Will, too. Probably. She’d love to be related to posh people. The Ice Cream Queen’s daughter and the local Lord’s son; how perfect.
‘I think we’re supposed to lead you sheep on?’ Stone said to me in his gentle voice.
‘I’ll follow you,’ I said. I stopped watching the adults and gazed around the school hall. I’d had a vague idea of grabbing one of the gym ropes and making my entrance by swinging across the stage, Tarzan-style. But they’d been secured high up on the wall, and I couldn’t get to them without climbing over the audience.
I’d have to do the best I could with what I had.
‘Are you scared?’ one of the little kids asked Mouse. I didn’t hear her reply, because Ma Gamble had come back stage and whispered in a sort of shout, ‘Places everyone, curtain in thirty seconds!’
Across from me I could see Candace in her star costume, shimmering and looking nervously around her. I wouldn’t have been nervous. I stood up straight and stared at her, showing her how I would have acted in her place, and she spotted me and averted her eyes.
Everything went very quiet, and from the front of the stage I heard Ma Gamble’s voice. ‘Welcome, everyone. All of our children have worked very hard to produce this show for you, and I hope you’ll agree that we’re all very proud of their efforts. So without further ado, I’d like to introduce what I hope will become another one of our beloved Christmas traditions here in the village: the First Annual Stoneguard Children’s Christmas Pageant.’
‘Agh,’ I choked. This was going to happen every year if I didn’t do something about it.
Applause from the adults. Above the resumed fidgets and whispers of the backstage children, I heard the shuffle of feet as the choir went onstage and sang ‘It Came Upon A Midnight Clear’. Thank God I hadn’t been put in the choir; the only worse thing than being a sheep was standing up there on stage in a nightgown for the whole show, singing.
While Charlie Munt read the bit from the Bible about there being no places at the inn, I peeped round the curtain again and watched my sister and Will Naughton slowly make their way across the stage. Lee cradled baby Muriel in her arms; the dummy was gone, somehow, and the baby was fast asleep. Lee looked serene and radiantly happy, like someone who’d
just given birth to the baby Jesus. Will was watching them both with assumed adoration on his face.
Silently on my tights-clad feet, I went round to the back of the sheep while the choir sang some more. I didn’t want to watch Candace get to soar up on high in her harness. One of the little kids, or maybe Mouse, had farted and I wrinkled my nose.
I took the lipstick from my waistband. I’d nicked it without a real sense of purpose, just because it was there, sitting on my mother’s vanity. I’d thought about writing ‘BAA’ in big bloody letters on my forehead before I swung across the stage on a rope. But the cigarettes and the sunglasses gave me another idea. I applied the lipstick carefully to my mouth, as I’d seen my mother do. It tasted waxy as I mashed my lips together to spread it out. Then I put on Will’s sunglasses, and the dark backstage went pitch black. All I could see were the children clustered near the curtain, where the stage lights leaked through.
‘And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night.’ Charlie Munt lisped on ‘shepherds’. That was our cue. I flipped open the box of B&Hs, took out a fag and put it carefully between my red lips. The sheep flocked forward, towards the stage, and I followed last. As he reached the curtain, I saw shepherd Rock Hamlin glance behind him. He must have spotted me because his eyes went wide. Then he nodded, slightly, and I saw him say something before he turned away and went on stage. It looked like it was ‘Cool.’
Yes. That was it. I was a cool sheep. I paused on the edge of the stage, to use Jonny Whitehair’s lighter to light the fag. I drew in, slightly, as I’d seen adults do, but I was careful to hold the smoke in my mouth so I wouldn’t cough. The last thing I needed to do was to blow my entrance by looking like a novice.
Then I sauntered onto the stage, red-lipped, wearing shades, smoking a cigarette. A sheep the likes of which Stoneguard had never seen before.
In front of me, the assembled grown-ups of Stoneguard were silhouettes. I heard a gasp. It made me smile. I walked forward, my spine straight, wiggling my hips in the way I’d seen sexy women do on television. I sucked on the cigarette and puffed out the smoke. I wished, briefly, that I knew how to blow smoke rings.
‘Liza Haven!’ screeched Ma Gamble from the wings. ‘You get off that stage right now!’
One by one, the other children realised something was wrong and their heads swivelled to look at me. I smiled at them, and then smiled at the audience. A big, cheesy grin.
An ‘I-won’ grin.
I couldn’t see my mother’s face, especially while I was wearing the sunglasses, but I knew where she was sitting. Leisurely, I tapped the ash off the end of my cigarette, and walked to the front of the stage. Past the hippy shepherds and the other sheep and the Holy Family. I struck a pose, hand on hip, lips pursed around my fag. I blew out a long stream of smoke, directly at my mother.
‘Baa,’ I said.
It wasn’t quiet any more. The audience was talking, moving; I heard someone, somewhere near the back, stifle a laugh. I heard Ma Gamble still screeching; she was getting closer to me, but I knew she would have to push past the choir and the Wise Men to get to me. I had no desire to get caught, so I waved to the audience, dropped my fag, and bolted for the wings.
I’d nearly got there when I heard the scream.
It wasn’t an outraged scream, and it wasn’t Ma Gamble, either; it was high-pitched, from a child, and it was quickly joined by more screams. I whirled around. At first I couldn’t see anything but smoke, all around the heads of the sheep, and I thought, wow, did all of that come out of my mouth?
But then I saw the flames. Some of the loose hay on the floor had caught, and the corner of one of the bales, too.
My cigarette. The sheep were backing away; a little kid pushed against Stone and he stumbled. Lee clutched baby Muriel to her chest and retreated behind the manger; her exit path was blocked by the choir and the Wise Men and now, by Ma Gamble too, who was striding forward shouting, ‘Fire! Fire! Someone grab the extinguisher! Children, leave the stage in an orderly fashion!’
I pushed the sunglasses up onto my forehead. Should I run? Should I stay and try to put out the fire? I took a step towards it, and then one away, and then I looked out into the audience. Some parents were storming the stage, some were running for the exits, some were standing yelling directions to their offspring. Doris Pinchbeck had a red fire extinguisher in her hand and she was climbing the steps up to the stage.
The only person in her seat was my mother. She sat, her lips thin with fury, her hands fisted in her lap, staring at me. The black sheep who’d ruined her reputation in the village.
I’d be punished for this, for certain. I’d probably be grounded for the rest of my natural life, and forget about pocket money. I’d get all the dirty jobs at home and at the factory.
I smiled at my mother, tasting her lipstick on my mouth. I didn’t care about the punishment. It was worth almost anything not to be a sheep.
Getting Away With It
If you liked this story, and would like to know more about what happened to Liza and Lee when they were grown up, please check out Getting Away With It.
‘Wherever there’s trouble, there’s Liza Haven...’
That’s what the villagers of Stoneguard used to say. But when your identical twin sister’s the local golden girl, sometimes it’s more fun to be the bad twin.
Now working in LA as a stuntwoman, Liza can be as wild as she wants. But when she loses her job, and almost her life, she’s forced to return home.
Only, things have changed in Stoneguard and her sister Lee has gone, deserting their difficult mother, a flagging family business and a dangerously attractive boyfriend. What’s more, the whole village thinks that Liza is Lee.
Can Liza get away with pretending to be the good twin? Or is it finally time to discover who she really is?
A hilarious and heartbreaking story about running away and finding your way home again.
‘A good twin, a bad twin, a hot bloke and an ice-cream business...what’s not to love?’ Heat magazine
Download Getting Away With It for Kindle
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Buy Getting Away With It in paperback
Author’s Note
I wrote this story as a flashback within the main body of Getting Away With It; it’s a memory of the main character, Liza. I absolutely loved writing it. I laughed like crazy and wished that I’d had the guts to do something similar in some of the more misguided amateur dramatics I was in as a girl.
But when the book was finished, it was quite long and I realised that this flashback wasn’t really necessary to move the action forward. So I cut it, with much pain. I’m really pleased to be able to offer it as a standalone read now. And I hope it will interest you in the book.
All of the characters in this short story appear in the book as well. Some of them, like Liza’s mother, have changed quite a bit. Others, like Mouse or Rock or Ma Gamble, are very much the same twenty years on. And Will Naughton...ah, Will Naughton is a case all his own.
If you’re interested in geeky things like this, The Bad Sheep was originally in the book just before the chapter entitled Return to Stoneguard, on page 99 of the paperback edition. The incidents in this story are referred to in the chapters Prince Charming and Going Round in Circles.
Thanks for reading.
Julie x
http://www.julie-cohen.com
