Goodnight Mister Tom by Michelle Magorian

Author:Michelle Magorian
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780141964522
Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
Published: 2009-08-08T04:00:00+00:00

13

Carol Singing

‘Bah! ’Umbug!’ he cried as he paced the floor. It was at least the fiftieth time in the past hour that Willie had uttered the words. He paused and read the nephew’s lines, put down the script and began pacing the floor again.

‘If I could work me will, every idiot who goes abaht wiv Merry Christmuss on ’is lips should be boiled wiv his own puddin’, and buried wiv a stake of holly through his heart. He should!’

Willie sat down on the end of his bed and gave a sigh.

‘I nearly got it,’ he muttered to himself. ‘I got to be a bit more grumpy.’

He rose.

‘Nephew!’ he said brusquely. ‘You keep Christmuss in yer own way and let me keep it in mine.’ He stopped and hit the open palm of his hand with his fist. ‘No! It don’t feel right. I’m a bad tempered man and I don’t like bein’ interrupted like.’ He began again. ‘Nephew, you keep Christmuss in yer own way and let me keep it in mine.’

A loud knocking at the front door made him jump.

‘Blow it!’ he grumbled. ‘Jest when I wuz gettin’ it.’

He frowned and walked towards the trap-door. Immediately he realized how Scrooge must have felt when he was interrupted.

‘Nephew,’ he repeated angrily, ‘keep Christmuss in yer own way and let me keep it in mine.’ He gave a loud grunt and looked into his imaginary accounts book. ‘That’s it!’ he yelled. ‘I got it! I got it!’

A rally of louder knocks came from downstairs. Willie threw himself down the ladder and opened the door. It was George. He looked over Willie’s shoulder.

‘Who else is in there?’ he asked.

‘No one,’ answered Willie.

‘Who you yellin’ at then?’

Willie looked at him blankly for a moment.

‘Oh,’ he said, realizing what George was talking about. ‘I was jest goin’ over me words, like.’

‘I could hear you from here.’

Willie blushed.

‘Only from the front door, mind. Don’t s’pose no one else did. You comin’ then?’

‘What?’

‘Haven’t you remembered? It’s Thursdee, doughbag. We got Carols. Thought you’d be there first seein’ it’s Mr Oakley’s first practice, like.’

‘Oh, yeh,’ said Willie hurriedly, and he flung his scarf on. ‘Am I late?’

‘No. We’s all jest a bit early.’

Willie slammed the front door behind him. He ran after George along the pathway towards the back entrance of the church. Already there were people seated in the benches on either side of the altar. Tom was sitting at the organ, a large scowl on his face.

Willie caught his eye and smiled at him. He knew that the scowl meant he was just a bit shy.

Edward Fletcher and Alec Barnes came in at the front door and joined the men right of the altar. Edward’s voice had now evened out into a wobbly tenor. Alec, a large, dark-haired sixteen-year-old, was looking very embarrassed. Everyone wanted to know if his father had been using the King children as ‘slave labour’ or not.

Behind Alec sat Mr Miller and Hubert Pullet, the son-in-law of Charlie Ruddles. He was a poker-faced, pale man in his fifties.

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