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“You can do all you please, but everyone is going to look at me because I have the most beautiful blue cloak in the whole show.”
    “Nobody’s gonna know it’s you because you’re playing Joseph and that’ll throw them off. Ha,” Leroy gloated.
    “That’s just why they’ll all notice me, because I’ll have to be specially skilled to be a good Joseph.Anyway, who is going to notice Virgin Mary, all she does is sit by the crib and rock Baby Jesus. She doesn’t say much. Any dumb person can be Virgin Mary, all you have to do is put a halo over her head. It takes real talent to be Joseph, especially when you’re a girl.”
    The conversation didn’t get finished because Miss Potter bustled backstage. “Hush, children, curtain’s almost ready to go up. Molly, Cheryl, get in your places.”
    When the curtain was raised there was a rustle of anticipation in the maternal audience. Megaphone Mouth said above all the whispers, “Isn’t she dear up there?”
    And dear I was. I looked at Baby Jesus with the tenderest looks I could manufacture and all the while my antagonist, Cheryl, had her hand on my shoulder digging me with her fingernails and a staff in her right hand. A record went on the phonograph and “Noel” began to play. The Wise Men came in most solemnly. Leroy carried a big gold box and presented it to me. I said, “Thank you, O King, for you have traveled far.” And Cheryl, that rat, says, “And traveled far,” as loud as she could. She wasn’t supposed to say that. She started saying whatever came in her head that sounded religious. Leroy was choking in his beard and I was rocking the cradle so hard that the Jesus doll fell on the floor. So I decided two can play this game. I leaned over the doll and said in my most gentle voice, “O, dearest babe, I hope you have not hurt yourself. Come let Mother put you back to bed.” Well, Leroy was near to dying of perplexity and he started to say something too, but Cheryl cut him off with, “Don’t worry, Mary,babies fall out of the cradle all the time.” That wasn’t enough for greedy-guts, she then goes on about how she was a carpenter in a foreign land and how we had to travel many miles just so I could have my baby. She rattled on and on. All that time she spent in Sunday School was paying off because she had one story after another. I couldn’t stand it any longer so I blurted out in the middle of her tale about the tax collectors, “Joseph, you shut up or you’ll wake the baby.” Miss Potter was aghast in the wings, and the shepherds didn’t know what to do because they were back there waiting to come on. As soon as I told Joseph to shut up, Miss Potter pushed the shepherds on the stage. “We saw a star from afar,” Robert Prather warbled, “and we came to worship the newborn Prince.” Just then Barry Aldridge, another shepherd, peed right there on the stage he was so scared. Joseph saw her chance and said in an imperious voice, “You can’t pee in front of little Lord Jesus, go back to the hills.” That made me mad. “He can pee where he wants to, this is a stable, ain’t it?” Joseph stretched to her full height, and began to push Barry off the stage with her staff. I jumped out of my chair, and wrenched the staff out of her hand. She grabbed it back. “Go sit down, you’re supposed to watch out for the baby. What kind of mother are you?”
    “I ain’t sittin’ nowhere until you button your fat lip and do this right.”
    We struggled and pushed each other, until I caught her off balance and she tripped on her long cloak. As she started to fall, I gave her a shove and she flew off the stage into the audience. Miss Potter zoomed out on the stage, took myhand and said in a calm voice, “Now ladies and gentlemen, let’s sing songs appropriate to the season.” Miss Martin at the piano struck up “O Come All Ye Faithful.”
    Cheryl was down there among the folding chairs bawling her eyes out. Miss Potter pulled me off stage,