‘Dad, you are still not standing right,’ George chastised as I realised I’d been thinking and therefore not concentrating.
‘Sorry,’ I said.
‘Honestly people, you need to take this seriously. We are doing a show, we are raising money for charity and we are also going to be all over social media, so I would suggest we all pull our socks up, and work harder.’
‘I don’t wear socks,’ Snowball said. She was getting impatient with George, but she was amused at the same time.
‘You know what I mean. Right, let’s take it from the top. Annnnd stand. Now look up. Now look down. Now pretend to eat grass. Oh my goodness, how hard can it be? I knew working with amateurs wasn’t going to be easy but still … it’s a disaster.’
Hana, Snowball, and I watched as George flounced off, and then we all laughed. I felt bad but he was really too funny.
‘He’s really trying,’ Hana said, she was the softest out of all of us.
‘A bit too trying,’ Snowball said.
‘I said it earlier, we’ve created a monster.’
‘A monster in sheep’s clothing,’ Snowball finished and we all grinned.
Chapter Seventeen
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We were wrapped in Christmas suddenly, although not literally. Because of the show, our Christmas started even earlier than normal. At home, we played Christmas songs all the time, and at the hall we played Christmas songs all the time. By the time we were ready to hold the first rehearsal, I was fully in Christmas mode.
As they were opening the show, the first rehearsal involved the dancers and the singers. They had decided to do a routine to‘Santa Claus is Coming to Town’, and they’d found a version which was fast and more modern. The crew – that was what they called themselves – were made up of boys and girls from the same dance class. Their teacher, a relatively young man called Nicky who wore very low-cut baggy trousers, coached them and they were actually pretty good from what I could tell. Aleksy, Connie, Claire, and myself were watching and George had insisted on tagging along. Polly was thankfully able to look after the children and Pickles. Tommy couldn’t make it as he actually had to do some urgent homework,so Aleksy was filming bits so he could upload to social media later. We were getting quite an online following, apparently, and us cats had naturally caused quite a stir after the auditions. They hadn’t actually thanked us yet, but they were very busy at the moment so I was going to let it go. For now.
After they ran through the routine, with only a couple of mistakes which I didn’t actually notice, they sat on the stage to talk to us.
‘We’ve got the parents all buying tickets as soon as they’re available,’ Nicky said.
‘You know, we might need to do more than one show, I mean more than one paying show. We’re doing the dress rehearsal for the people from the shelter to come and see,’ Claire said. ‘But if we have enough ticket sales we could maybe do two nights?’
‘We’ll definitely sell enough tickets for two nights,’ Aleksy said, confidently. ‘What if we do Friday and Saturday night?’
‘We could do a third on the Saturday afternoon, I mean it will be a bit tiring but that’s what they do in the theatre,’ Franceska, who was helping with stage management, suggested.
‘Yes, and younger children would maybe come to the earlier show, that’s a good idea,’ Connie said.
‘So now we have to sell out three shows?’ Nicky said.
‘Yup, and we will somehow do it,’ Connie said. She sounded full of determination. We had quickly gone from a one-off show to three shows. Could we do it? Of course we could.
‘And what a great opening to the show this is going to be,’ Claire said. ‘You guys are amazing so, if you’re happy to do three shows?’
‘It’s really good experience for us,’ Nicky said. ‘We might go on a TV talent show next year.’
‘Well you are definitely good enough,’ Claire said kindly.
‘You see,’ George hissed. ‘If we tried harder – and by we, I mean you, Snowball, and Hana – we could maybe be on a TV talent show. Although, thinking about it, maybe I would be better as a solo act.’
I raised my whiskers but kept quiet.
‘Before you leave, we want the people in the show to visit the shelter at some point, so we all understand what we are raising money for. I know most of you are quite young and it’s quite hard to see, but would you be willing to?’
‘Hey, how about the crew take a shift helping serve food one weekend? We could then document it on our social media as well as the show’s,’ Nicky said. The dancers all chorused their agreement.
‘Brilliant, we’ll get a date in,’ Claire said, making another note in the big notebook that she carried around for all things show related.
After rehearsal, Claire went home and switched with Polly, while Tomasz, Franceska, and Matt discussed the sets. Franceska had said she would rather not be in the show but she was doing lots of different things and she was also sort of job sharing with Claire when she couldn’t be there. It was doing her good, because she was so worried about Tommy that this seemed to be making her a little more relaxed, which made me happy, because I did hate to see anyone – but especially Franceska, who was the kindest person ever – upset.
There was an awful lot to do. They were making a forest of decorated Christmas trees, which the dancers would emerge from in the first song, that would stay there until the Nativity scene. Then there would be a big shed-like shelter, which had to be made out of light wood so it could be easily transported on stage. For the Santa scene at the end, there would be a living room with a fully decorated six-foot tree, presents around it, and an armchair. It all sounded ambitious to me but as they all chatted through it, they seemed to think they would be able to do it. Polly and Franceska wrote down estimated costs as they had to run them by Jonathan, who continued to rule the budgets with an iron fist.
‘The idea is to make money for the shelter, not spend it,’ was Jonathan’s new favourite catch phrase.
Claire tried to point out that spending money on the show would mean we made more money, but Jonathan wasn’t too keen on that logic.
Most of the materials– the trees etc. – had been donated, so the costs were pretty low. It was all going so well, and I was feeling very optimistic. Excited, too. I really couldn’t wait for this show. Even being a sheep was something I looked forward to now. Because being in the hall, seeing the first act rehearse and also everyone discussing sets, it felt real. More and more real by the minute.
But although it felt as if we were obsessed by the show, normal life still went on– we still had lots to do outside of it. It was Sunday and time for our Sunday Lunch Club. Jonathan went to pick Doris and Clive up while Claire cooked a really lovely roast dinner. The children, although only Summer and Toby, were planning on doing their Rudolph song for them, and George was annoyed because again he had been roped in to play Rudolph in place of Pickles. I thought I had escaped and could just spend a quiet day watching and resting, but no, because Doris had kept her promise and brought me my ‘cat bonnet’. It was bright green – to match my eyes, she said.
‘Doesn’t she look gorgeous?’ Doris said.
‘Meow?’ She?
‘Alfie’s a boy, Doris,’ Claire said quickly before Jonathan could make an inappropriate joke.
‘Oh, I know, but he’s so pretty, I shall call him a she.’
I raised my tail. Not only was I wearing a bonnet but I was now a girl? George almost fell off the arm of the sofa he was trying so hard to contain himself; and then he did fall off.