My son has a remarkable memory. Back when he was at nursery, he memorised every line for all the school performances, so no one ever knew until the day itself which costume hed be wearing. He could have filled in for anyone, given how often kids catch bugs, as he knew everyones parts by heart.
For the Christmas play, my five-year-old was first assigned to be a cucumber. I only found out the night before my shift at the hospital. I rushed out, bought a green t-shirt and coloured card, and spent half the night sewing little green shorts to match. I lovingly crafted a jaunty green hat out of card with a curly tail made from wire wrapped in fabric.
On the day, it was up to his dad to take him to the playa prospect I didnt entirely trustso that morning, I gave him detailed instructions on how to dress him up, and how to fasten the hat, walking him through the steps before he left for work.
Halfway through my ward round, I received a trembling phone call from Mrs Thompson, my sons teacher. The main star had come down with chickenpox, and my son was now to bethe Gingerbread Man. When I asked, a little desperately, if the Gingerbread Man might possibly wear a cucumber costume, Mrs Thompson let the silence speak for itself.
I rang my husband at work to break the bad news. He was positively thrilled about this emergency, which really should have set off more alarm bells than it did. Not to worry, he said; hed round up his matestwo fellow surgeonsand they, a crack team of three, would pop home and sort everything. “We surgeons are a practical bunch,” he told me. My intuition, unfortunately, had the night off.
After a frantic shift at the hospital, I phoned home at nine. My son answered. Theyd bought a white t-shirt, Dad was glueing yellow card, Uncle Charlie was rustling up dinner, and Uncle Peter was apparently giggling in the background.
An hour later, my son called to say he was off to bed. Uncle Peter had cut out a yellow cardboard circle and was painting eyes on it, Uncle Charlie was tucking into a jar of pickled gherkins, and Dad was hiccuping with laughter.
At midnight, I rang again. My husband said Uncle Charlie and Uncle Peter had worn themselves out on the Gingerbread Man and were asleep. There were a few details, though.
Apparently, Uncle Charlie had accidentally stuck the yellow face onto the white t-shirt with industrial-strength glue and a rather drunken hand, which meant it was on at a disturbing angle. So, when Uncle Peter tried to peel it off, the t-shirt ripped, and thus theyd stitched the yellow face onto the original green cucumber t-shirt using surgical silk.
Somehow, they reckoned it looked rather fetching, though I couldnt quite picture it. Oh, and theyd given the Gingerbread Man thirty teeth, except theyd run out of white card for the last two, so he was a little short. “Not to worry,” I sighed, “nobody’ll notice two missing amongst thirty.”
My nerves thoroughly frayed, I tried to focus at work, comforting myself with the thought that at least my son would have the most memorable costume. And that loud snoring in the background? That would be Uncle Peter, whod fallen asleep mid-card-tooth-cutting.
That night, doubts gnawed at me. As soon as my shift ended, I all but begged the head matron to let me slip away and catch at least a bit of my sons performance.
I arrived late. From down the corridor, laughter and peals of bewildered sobs tumbled out of the assembly hall. I slipped inside.
There, next to a grand Christmas tree, the Gingerbread Man attempted a hop. My son sported an enormous, misshapen yellow moon of a face stitched from chin to knees, with eyes pointing in different directions. Three long horizontal stitches above the eyes looked suspiciously like the wrinkles of a world-weary Gingerbread Man.
The real pièce de résistance, though, was the absence of two front teeth in the toothy grinprecisely the top front ones! What stood there looked like a cheery, well-weathered, slightly disreputable Gingerbread Man, returning from a stint in Her Majestys Prison, topped off with a cucumber-green hat and a jolly wired tail.
Right then, my boy began to recite his lines: Where else can you find one like me? (It went on about only in a story or at a Christmas play, but at this point, the entire hall was weeping with laughter.) Mrs Thompson had collapsed onto her knees, gasping for breath.
Looking back, what I learned is that even the best-laid plans can veer off the rails in the most creative and hilarious ways. And sometimes, all you can do is laughand cherish the memory.
