‘Mr Phinn doesn’t collect anything, Sean,’ replied the nun smiling. ‘He’s not a collector, he’s an inspector. He inspects things.’
‘Sister Brendan,’ persisted the child, ‘what does Mr Phinn inspect?’
‘Oh, lots of things to do with school, but he’s not here this morning to inspect. Mr Phinn’s here to take you for drama.’
‘Could he inspect the gerbil, Sister?’
‘Of course not, Sean. Now be a good boy, sit up straight and leave the questions until later.’ The nun swivelled round and gave me a disarming smile. ‘We have a poorly gerbil, Mr Phinn. We think he’s eaten a piece of orange peel somebody put in his cage.’ She moved closer and whispered, ‘Keep an eye on Sean.’ She then joined the audience at the back of the hall.
‘Good morning, children,’ I said.
‘Good morning, Mr Phinn,’ they chorused. Before me was a sea of bright-eyed, eager infants ready for action.
‘People who perform drama are actors and they take on acting parts,’ I explained. ‘They pretend to be other people and use their bodies, faces and voices to make up a story for other people to watch, just like in a theatre or in the cinema or on the television. Later this morning we shall be acting out a story but first we are going to do a few warm-up activities to get us in the right frame of mind. In a moment, I want everyone to find a space in the hall and then look this way. All right, everyone find a space.’ The children did as I asked quietly and without any fuss.
‘Good,’ I said. ‘Now, for a start, let’s see if you can all listen really, really well. Some of you might have played “Simon Says” at your birthday party.’ A number of the children nodded excitedly. ‘Well, this exercise is a bit like that. You just have to do exactly as I say. So, let me see. Everyone ready? Hands on heads.’ All the children placed their hands on their heads. ‘Good. Hands on shoulders.’ Two children hugged each other. ‘No,’ I said, ‘your own shoulders. Don’t put your hands on anyone else’s. Hands on elbows. Hands on knees.’ This continued for a few minutes. The children followed my instructions and things were going really well until I said, ‘Hands on thighs,’ and all the children covered their eyes.
I decided to move on. ‘In a moment I will be asking you to walk around in the hall using all the space, but whenever I say the word “Freeze!” I want you to stop what you are doing immediately and imagine you are frozen. You must remain as silent and as still as the statue of St Bartholomew who looks down on you from the front of the hall.’ All eyes examined the large, olive-wood figure of the benign-looking man, with arms outstretched, who stood on a plinth. ‘Then, when I say “Relax!” I want you to return to normal. All right, is everybody ready?’ The children stood to attention. ‘You are walking through the woods on a bright, sunny day. The sun is streaming through the trees and you can hear the birds singing and the rustling of the leaves and the crackling of the branches underfoot. Freeze!’ Most children stood stock still but a few shuffled their feet, others scratched their heads and one large girl began to suck her thumb.
‘That was good for a first attempt, but let’s see if, when we do it again, we can all remain perfectly still.’ I repeated the commentary of the walk through the woods and this time all the children froze. ‘Very good. Relax!’
‘Mr Phinn, when we freeze, can we breathe?’ asked the small fair-haired boy who had enquired earlier if I could ‘inspect’ the gerbil.
‘Yes, Sean, you can breathe, but you mustn’t move. Now, this time we are on a cold, cold street. The crisp snow crunches under our feet and the icy wind makes our ears and cheeks tingle. We start to shiver and we rub our hands to make ourselves warm. Cars and lorries are whooshing along the road and you are splashed by a big bus. Freeze!’ The children froze. ‘Relax!’ All the children relaxed with the exception of Sean who remained inert, as if caught in amber. ‘You can relax now, Sean,’ I told him.
‘I can’t,’ he replied through tight lips. ‘My feet are frozen in a snowdrift.’
‘He might have got frostbite,’ chirped up a small girl. ‘My grandpa says you can get frostbite in snow.’
‘No, he hasn’t got frostbite,’ I explained, ‘because the snow has now melted and that’s why Sean can move.’ The little boy relaxed and began to rub his feet dramatically.
‘This time we are in a far-off desert,’ I continued. ‘The hot, hot sun is burning down on our heads. We wipe the perspiration from our foreheads and we start to pant. Our mouths are as dry as the sand and we feel faint with the heat. Freeze!’ Every child froze except fair-haired Sean.
‘But, Mr Phinn, you wouldn’t freeze in a desert. You’d burn up or melt.’
‘And might get sunburn,’ piped up the small girl for a second time. ‘My grandpa says you can get burnt in the sun.’
‘Yes, that’s true, Sean, but this is a magic desert and we are freezing. So freeze, please. Right everyone, relax!’
‘My Auntie June came out in blisters in Majorca,’ the small girl informed me, nodding seriously.
‘Freeze!’ I barked and she turned to stone.
Until morning playtime I took the children through a series of different activities and they responded really well. We visited dark dungeons and dusty attics, braved storms and swam rivers, climbed mountains and crawled through caves, dug gardens and threaded needles – a whole range of mimed performances which they clearly enjoyed undertaking. At break-time in the staff room, Sister Brendan seemed happy at the way things were going, as did Monsignor Leonard.
‘The children are doing very well,’ commented the priest, taking a sip from a large mug of coffee. ‘I wonder if I might remain for the rest of the morning to see how the work develops? I just need to drop Miss Fenoughty off in town but I’ll be back, if that is all right.’
Before I could answer, Miss Fenoughty, whose hearing seemed to have undergone a remarkable improvement, placed her cup down carefully before saying, ‘I think I might stay, if that’s all the same to you, Monsignor. I’m certainly enjoying this morning. It’s better than the bingo.’ Sister Brendan raised her eyes to heaven. ‘Is there a biscuit to go with the coffee, Sister?’ asked Miss Fenoughty sweetly.
I was feeling a great deal more confident after playtime. The children had been exemplary and taken part in the activities with genuine interest and excitement. I explained to them that we had used our bodies to mime various actions, our faces to express our feelings and now we were going to add some words. As the focus of our drama I picked the poem by Robert Browning, ‘The Pied Piper of Hamelin’. The poem has fifteen long verses and, as I was limited for time and the text is sometimes quite difficult, I decided that I would read a little of the original to give the children a feel for the richness of the language but re-tell the story to move things along. The children gathered around me in a half-circle and I began.
Hamelin Town’s in Brunswick,
By famous Hanover city;
The river Weser, deep and wide,
Washes its wall on the southern side;
A pleasanter spot you never spied;
But, when begins my ditty,
Almost five hundred years ago,
To see the townsfolk suffer so
From vermin, was a pity.
Rats!
They fought the dogs, and killed the cats,
And bit the babies in their cradles,
And ate the cheeses out of vats,
And licked the soup from the cooks’ own ladles,
Split open kegs of salted sprats,
Made nests inside men’s Sunday hats,
And even spoiled the women’s chats,
By drowning their speaking
With shrieking and squeaking
In fifty different sharps and flats.
At this point I saw Monsignor Leonard give Sister Brendan a knowing look before staring at Miss Fenoughty, who was sublimely oblivious to the unintended reference to her – ‘drowning their speaking in fifty different sharps and flats’.
I then related the exciting story
to my hushed and fascinated little audience: how the people crowded into the Council Chamber demanding action from the Mayor and Corporation, how the strange, tall figure with ‘the sharp blue eyes and light loose hair’, draped in his coat of yellow and red, agreed to rid the town of the rats for the sum of a thousand guilders, how he blew his pipe until his lips ‘wrinkled’ and the rats emerged.
And ere three shrill notes the pipe uttered,
You heard as if an army muttered;
And the muttering grew to a grumbling;
And the grumbling grew to a mighty rumbling:
And out of the houses the rats came tumbling.
Great rats, small rats, lean rats, brawny rats,
Brown rats, black rats, great rats, tawny rats,
Grave old plodders, gay young friskers,
Fathers, mothers, uncles, cousins,
Cocking tails and pricking whiskers…
I then told the children how the people rejoiced and how the piper danced on and on, playing his shrill notes, through the narrow streets and across the square, followed by a sea of squealing rats. I told them how he took the rats to the river’s edge and described how the creatures desperately, blindly, hurled themselves into the murky waters. I told them how the Pied Piper came for his money and how the Mayor laughed in his face.
The children listened with wide eyes and open mouths when I related how the Pied Piper’s face had darkened with anger and how he shook his fist at the city and the skies clouded over and an icy wind began to blow.
And so we came to the dramatic conclusion to the tale: how the Pied Piper lifted his pipe to his lips and blew three long clear notes. Then the children came out of the houses, laughing and chattering, lifting their little feet, skipping and running and dancing and clapping their hands. You could have heard a pin drop when I concluded the story of how the little children followed the strange man in his coat of yellow and red up to the mountainside where a great door opened and swallowed them all, all except for the little lame boy who was left behind.
Alas, alas for Hamelin!
There came into many a burgher’s pate
A text which says that heaven’s gate
Opes to the rich as at easy rate
As the needle’s eye takes a camel in!
‘Now, there’s a couple of difficult words in this verse,’ I explained. ‘ “Pate” is the old word for head and a “burgher” is –’
A boy with large, round eyes and equally large round glasses waved his hand madly in the air. ‘Mr Phinn! Mr Phinn!’ he cried. ‘I know that. It’s something you eat with chips. You can have chickenburgers, beefburgers and hamburgers.’
Another child, with more interest in the impending lunch-time than the Pied Piper, enquired loudly if they were having burgers for dinner.
‘That’s another kind of burger,’ I told her. ‘In “The Pied Piper”, a burgher is a sort of council official, a bit like a mayor, a very important person who makes all the laws. It was the burghers who refused to give the Pied Piper his thousand guilders.’
The children did not look as if they were any the wiser but I pressed on. I organised the children into various groups to act out scenes from the story: the scurrying, squeaking rats, the mothers and children, cooks and councillors, shopkeepers and chattering women, the Mayor and, of course, the Pied Piper. Everything seemed to be going smoothly. Even the rather sad-looking girl, who asked me if she could be a cow rather than a rat, went away appeased when I explained that there were no cows in the story and she could be a cat. I asked several of the groups to perform their part of the poem for the others to watch. The children came out to the front of the hall just as the dinner ladies entered to set the tables out for dinner, the caretaker to help them, the crossing patrol warden to collect her ‘Stop!’ sign and a number of parents to wait for their children. The rear of the hall was full of interested adults who were obviously greatly entertained by the children’s performances.
The last group was to act out that part of the story when the Mayor refuses to give the Pied Piper his thousand guilders. The little boy playing the Pied Piper was the child with the great, round eyes and enormous pair of glasses, who had volunteered the answer about the burghers earlier. Now, with all eyes upon him, he looked extremely shy and nervous. The Mayor was none other than Sean, and if he was nervous he certainly did not show it.
‘Well, Pied Piper, what do you want?’ he called confidently from the centre of the hall.
‘I have come for my money,’ mumbled the Pied Piper who had sidled nervously across the floor towards him.
‘Well, you’re not having it!’ shouted the Mayor.
‘OK,’ said the Pied Piper and walked quickly away.
‘No! No! No!’ shouted the other child. ‘That’s not what you do!’ He appealed to me. ‘Mr Phinn! Mr Phinn! That’s not right, is it? He wouldn’t just say “OK” and walk off, would he? He’d go barmy!’ The little boy was getting into a real state himself, his face red with rage.
‘Freeze!’ I commanded. It was as if a magic spell had been put on him. The child was transformed and became completely motionless. ‘Relax!’ I turned to the child with the large glasses. ‘You would get quite angry, you know,’ I said. ‘You have got rid of all the rats and the Mayor promised you the thousand guilders. Now he has refused to pay so you would not be very happy about that, would you?’ The child shook his head. ‘Let’s try it again.’
For the second time the Mayor stood confidently in the centre of the hall. ‘Well, Pied Piper, what do you want?’ he demanded.
The Pied Piper moved across the hall to him. ‘I have come for my money,’ he said with not much more conviction than the previous effort.
‘Well, you’re not having it!’ shouted the Mayor.
‘Why?’
‘Because you’re not, that’s why. I’ve changed my mind.’
‘Go on, give me my money. You said you would.’
‘Well, you’re not having it!’
‘But that’s not fair.’
‘Tough luck!’
‘I’ll blow my pipe then.’
‘You can blow your pipe until you burst but you’re not having any money and that’s that!’
‘OK then,’ sighed the Pied Piper walking away, ‘but you’ll be sorry.’
Sean’s face went crimson with fury. ‘No! No! No!’ he shouted again. ‘That’s not what you do!’ He appealed to me for a second time. ‘Mr Phinn! Mr Phinn! That’s not right, is it? He’s still saying “OK” and walking away! He’d go bonkers!’
‘Freeze!’ I cried again. It was as if the child had been turned to stone. ‘Relax! Now look, Pied Piper,’ I said to the child with the large glasses, ‘it was a lot better than last time but you do need to show how annoyed you are with the Mayor. Try again, and this time when you leave the Council Chamber, you must show how angry you are.’ The child stared up at me vacantly through the large glasses. ‘Try and think of a time when you were mad with someone. Can you do that?’ He nodded. ‘Last go then, because it’s nearly dinner-time.’
All faces were turned to the Pied Piper as he stamped into the Council Chamber. His eyes were now slits behind the large glasses, his lips were pressed tightly together, his little body looked stiff and he held up a fist threateningly.
‘Well, Pied Piper, what do you want?’ demanded the Mayor for the third time.
‘I have come for my money,’ shouted the Pied Piper.
‘Well, you’re not having it!’ retorted the Mayor.
‘Go on, give me my money. You said you would.’
‘Well, I’ve changed my mind. You’re not having it!’
‘But that’s not fair.’
‘Tough luck!’
‘I’ll blow my pipe then.’
‘You can blow your pipe until you burst, pal, you’re not having any money and that’s that!’
‘Give me my money!’
‘No!’
‘You said you would.’
‘Well, you’r
e not having it!’
‘I want my money!’
‘Clear off!’ boomed the Mayor.
‘Well, you can stuff your thousand guilders!’ roared the Pied Piper. ‘You’re a tight-fisted old bugger!’
I did not need to say ‘Freeze!’ Everyone in the hall had already fallen into a stunned, frozen silence. Monsignor Leonard, Sister Brendan, the supply teacher and Miss Fenoughty were like a tableau at the back. None of them moved a muscle.
Then, into the deathly silence, the small boy with the large glasses and a smile like a Cheshire cat, piped up. ‘Is that better, Mr Phinn?’ he asked.
Later, as I said my farewells in the school hall, I attempted to direct the conversation away from the morning’s drama but without success. Miss Fenoughty was determined to discuss proceedings.
‘Drama is like singing, isn’t it, Mr Flynn? It gives the children a chance to express themselves through their voices. I did enjoy this morning. I do so love that poem. I thought the little ones did very well, didn’t you?’
‘I did,’ I replied, smiling weakly.
‘And that little boy who played the part of the Pied Piper, he was a natural little actor. My goodness he really did sound the part, didn’t you think?’
‘I did,’ I replied again.
‘Fancy remembering that word.’
‘Word?’ I repeated.
‘The word he asked you about.’
‘I’m sorry, Miss Fenoughty…’
‘ “Burgher”. He remembered the word “burgher”. Don’t you recall at the end, didn’t he shout at the Mayor, “Give me my money, you mean old burgher”?’
I heard Monsignor Leonard splutter beside me, hastily plucking a handkerchief from his pocket and burying his face in it. Even Sister Brendan had to suppress a smile. Their obvious enjoyment, however, was very short lived.
‘You know, Sister,’ exclaimed Miss Fenoughty, with a wild gleam in her eye, ‘I’ve been thinking. I’ve got the score somewhere for the musical version of “The Pied Piper”. Wouldn’t it be a good idea to perform it for the parents? I would, of course, be pleased to act as musical director and perhaps Mr Flynn here could deal with the acting. What do you all think?’
Over Hill and Dale Page 20
