It was the scariest thing I'd seen in a while: Mrs. Bradley paced back and forth across the church auditorium stage, indicating where everything would go once it came in. My siblings and I followed as we listened, even though it sounded like a bunch of gobbledygook.
"The inn is back here, offstage!" Mrs. Bradley dramatically gestured offstage. I still wasn't following. "...and the shepherds come in and gather around the manger..."
"Where'd all these shepherds come from, anyway?" I asked my siblings, confused.
"Yeah, and what's an inn?" Claude piped up.
Before Mrs. Bradley could answer, Elmer sat up.
"It's like a motel, where people go to spend the night..." He seemed like he wanted to be helpful, but was afraid to be.
"What people? Jesus?" Claude asked him.
"Oh, honestly!" The obnoxious voice that made my ears ring. We all looked over at Alice and her notebook. "Jesus wasn't even born yet! Mary and Joseph went there."
"Why?" Ralph asked.
"To pay their taxes," Elmer replied. I'm detecting some sarcasm. Not a smooth move.
"At a motel?!" Ollie exclaimed, bewildered. Obviously he didn't detect it.
Imogene stood by rubbing her temples as the ping-pong match bounced between my siblings and the roaches.
"Shut up, Ollie!" Imogene finally spoke up. "Everybody SHUT UP!"
Instantly the room went silent. That's my sister for you. I quietly eyed each of the kids with a lavish smile on my face. Fear: I absorb and feast on it.
"I want to hear her," Imogene walked over to Mrs. Bradley. "Begin at the beginning."
"The beginning?" Mrs. Bradley asked in clarification.
Imogene rolled her eyes.
"The beginning of the PLAY," Imogene mouthed out for her. "What happens first?"
"Imogene, this is the Christmas story from the Bible," Mrs. Bradley smiled, as if that answered the whole stinking question. "Haven't you heard the Christmas story from the Bible?"
Imogene looked at me, I looked at Ollie, Ollie looked at Claude, Claude looked at Ralph, Ralph looked at Gladys, Gladys gnawed her own shoe.
Doesn't ring the slightest bell.
"Well, that's what the Christmas pageant is...the Christmas story from the Bible..." Mrs. Bradley stuttered. "...I'd better read it to you."
Mrs. Bradley wandered offstage as my siblings and I took a seat. The kids around us moaned and grumbled. Clearly, they thought the pageant was as exciting as we thought it was.
Mrs. Bradley climbed up a small set of stairs back onto the stage with a Bible in her hand.
"Now, a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be taxed," Mrs. Bradley began. So that's the butt-ache that taxed us? What a wad.
We listened with full attention to the story...I was heavily awaiting some violence.
"...and Joseph from Galilee with Mary his wife, who was great with child..."
"PREGNANT!" Ralph suddenly cried. "She was pregnant!"
Oh! So 'great with child' meant 'pregnant'. Well if that's what they meant, why didn't they just say pregnant? Well, apparently, that was hilarious. The spawnroaches chuckled amongst themselves, whispering the word 'pregnant' to each other. How is that funny?!
"Okay, that's enough! We all know that Mary was pregnant," Mrs. Bradley's tone changed to annoyed. "...And it came to pass, while they were there, that the days were accomplished that she should be delivered, and she brought forth her firstborn son..."
What are Alice and Beth whispering about over there? I wondered.
"...and wrapped him in swaddling clothes and laid him in a manger because there was no room for them in the inn,"
Laid him in a what? How do you spell that? M-A-Y-N-J-E-R?
"My god! They didn't have room for JESUS?!" Imogene spouted out, mortified.
"Well, nobody knew the baby was going to be Jesus," Mrs. Bradley explained.
"Didn't he know?!" Imogene knocked Ralph over the head. "Didn't Mary know? What was the matter with Joseph that he didn't tell them? Her pregnant and everything..."
"What's a manger?" I managed to get a word in sideways. "Some kind of bed?"
"Well they didn't have a bed in the barn, so Mary had to use whatever there was," Mrs. Bradley answered. I guess she saw the confused look on my face, because she kept talking. "What would you do if you had a new baby and no bed to put it in?"
"We put Gladys in a bureau drawer," Imogene fished out an example.
"Oh...well...there you go!" Mrs. Bradley replied, slightly taken aback. "You didn't have a bed for Gladys, so you had to use something else!"
"Oh, we had a bed, only Ollie was still in it and he wouldn't get out," Ralph recounted. Ollie smiled awkwardly. "He didn't like Gladys...remember when you didn't like Gladys?"
I remember that incident! That was something else. My siblings and I got caught up in a big field of fluffy nostalgic laughter, except for Gladys, who only growled.
"Anyway," Mrs. Bradley yelled over us. "A manger is a large feeding trough for animals."
Imogene made a face.
"What were the wadded up clothes?" Claude asked.
"The what?" Mrs. Bradley ducked down to listen.
"It says in there!" Claude gestured to the book in Mrs. Bradley's hand. "She wrapped him in wadded up clothes."
"Oh!" Mrs. Bradley finally got it. "Swaddling clothes. People used to wrap babies up in big pieces of material to help them feel cozy..."
"You mean they tied him up and put him in a FEEDBOX?!" Imogene again cried out. "Where was the Child Welfare?!"
"Yeah! Gladys spoke up. "The Child Welfare's at our house every five minutes."
"There wasn't Child Welfare in Bethlehem!" Alice glared at us with narrow eyes.
"I'll say there wasn't!" Imogene shot back, causing Alice to shrink.
"And there were shepherds keeping watch over their flocks by night," Mrs. Bradley continued to read in order to keep the peace. "And lo, an Angel of the Lord appeared to them, and--"
"SHAZAM!" Gladys screamed at the top of her lungs, fists in the air.
There she goes. Gladys' life revolved around imitating the Mighty Marvo from the comic books we stole for her.
"What?!" Mrs. Bradley yelped, startled.
"Out of the black night! With HORRIBLE vengeance!" Gladys slowly took the beach goggles from around her head and placed them menacingly on her eyes. She played to the children in front of her, who held each other and wrote out their wills in their heads.
"I don't know what you're talking about, Gladys," Mrs. Bradley replied, soundly slightly annoyed, but still keeping her guard.
What an uncultured woman.
"The Mighty Marvo, in Amazing Comics," Gladys returned the annoyed tone, as if she were a teacher educating a 5-year-old. "Out of the black night, with horrible vengeance!"
"Gladys, this is the Angel of the Lord, who appeared to the shepherds," Mrs. Bradley persisted to pour a bucket of water over the fire of Gladys' entertainment.
"But...out of NOWHERE, right?" Gladys grinned. "In the BLACK NIGHT!...right?"
"Well..." Mrs. Bradley again searched her head. "In a way..."
Gladys nodded, as if to say, "There. I knew it."
"SHAZAM!" Gladys jumped into the air and soared towards the kids, who sailed immediately over to Mrs. Bradley, yelping as they went. My brothers and I cackled at this sight, and Imogene smirked past her cigar. Gladys plopped down in their place, satisfied with herself.
It was obvious that Mrs. Bradley's head was inches from exploding. You could see it in the way she fumbled with the pages of the biblie.
"Now, when Jesus was born," Mrs. Bradley spoke louder to calm the noise of the cockroaches. "there came Wise Men from the East, bearing gifts of gold, and frankincense..."
"What's that?" Claude's head tipped to the side.
"...and myrrh..." Mrs. Bradley tried to ignore Claude.
"What's that?" Ollie repeated.
Mrs. Bradley lowered her book, somewhat annoyed, to speak to us.
"They were special things," She replied. "Spices, precious oils--"
"OIL!?" Imogene cackled. "What kinda present is OIL? We get better presents from the welfare!"
"Were they the welfare? The Wise Men?" I asked.
I mean hey, they're bringing this baby free stuff, and obviously since they were in a barn, they were somewhat lower class, right?
"They were kings," Mrs. Bradley replied. "and they were sent--"
"Well it's about time somebody important showed up!" Imogene jumped up. "If they're kings, they can get the baby out of the barn..." –Imogene turned to Ralph and me with a wicked grin curling over her face. –"...and tell that innkeeper where to GET OFF!"
Ralph laughed in satisfaction, as if he had already done the job himself.
"They were sent by Herod," Mrs. Bradley continued. "Herod was...well, he was the main king, and he wanted to find Jesus and have him put to death."
Imogene's grin fell to the floor, and she spun around to Mrs. Bradley, who nearly jumped backwards at Imogene's sudden approach.
"MY GOD!" Imogene exclaimed in horror. "He just got born! They're gonna kill a baby?!"
Ralph gritted his teeth and rose to his feet. The kids in front of him cowered as he walked forward, glaring at each of them.
"Who's Herod in this play?" He yelled back to Mrs. Bradley.
"Herod isn't in the play," She replied, almost relieved.
WHAT? He wasn't?!
"So he's out to kill the baby and he isn't even in the play?" I couldn't believe what I was hearing. What joke wrote this mess?
"Well somebody better be Herod!" Imogene looked around the room.
Almost at once, we all looked at Charlie.
"Let Charlie be Herod!" Imogene extended a finger at Charlie, whose lip was now quivering. "And he says, 'Go get me that baby!' And they say okay, because he a king and all..."
It immediately turned into a round robin story.
"But then they don't do it!" Ollie jumped on. "They go back and get Herod!"
"I'm not going to be Herod!" Charlie hid behind mommy.
"No one is going to be Herod!" Mrs. Bradley eyed her spawn.
"NO!" Claude's voice silenced the chatter. He rose up at a painful, burning pace. "Joseph gets all the shepherds together...AND THEY GO WIPE OUT HEROD!"
Claude's arms turned into machine guns, and the children went flying throughout the auditorium, orchestrated by the sounds of Claude's gun and Ralph, Ollie and my demonic noises.
"See?!" Charlie's voice went high-pitched. "They're gonna put one in! And it's gonna be me! I'm gonna get killed!"
The whole room suddenly went silent with the absence of the brats, who had now fled the room. Imogene looked over at Charlie, and her face came inches from his.
"Boo."
Charlie took off running to who knows where, faster than any dog I've ever seen. Imogene tilted her head to the heavens and laughed in triumph.
"Forget about Herod! There's no Herod!" Mrs. Bradley was about to hit hysterics as she ran after Charlie.
"And I'll run away with the baby til the fight's over!" Imogene built on.
"You know, somebody oughta fix the innkeeper!" Ralph backtracked, making sure every villain met their proper maker. "Hey Gladys! You go wipe out the innkeeper!"
"But I can't!" Gladys walked over to him and whimpered. "I'm an angel."
"Well, I wouldn't just hang around in the barn!" Imogene huffed. "I'd go get a room."
"She said there wasn't any room!" Claude approached Imogene and talked down to her.
"Then I'd throw somebody out!" Imogene shoved him backwards in defense. "I'd tell them 'I got this baby and it's the middle of winter!' So either get out or move over!"
"I'd go after ol' Herod!" Ralph brushed his hair back pridefully.
"I'd send the angel after him!" I ran forward, knocking Ralph out of the way. "She could just point her electric finger"—Like so.—"and turn him into a like of ASHES!" I laughed in hysterics. Gladys stepped forward and zapped at different areas in the now empty auditorium.
"What's the name of this play?" Ollie's voice rose up to quiet us. "She never said."
"Chrismas pageant!" Claude now spoke down to Ollie.
Ollie turned to Claude and snatched up two fistfuls of Claude's shirt.
"That's no name! That's what it is!" Ollie threw Claude away from him, leaving Claude to barely catch himself onto his feet.
"I know a name! I know a name!" Gladys bounced up and down with a hand in the air. We crowded around to listen. "...REVENGE AT BETHLEHEM!"
I couldn't have named it better myself.