The Last Holiday Concert (12 page)

“Right,” said Hart, “only it doesn't have to be real long. But it's going to take some work. Still, I think it's a good idea, don't you? Anybody here who's not in favor of peace?”

Olivia raised her hand. Hart knew what was coming, and he was ready.

She said, “What about the election yesterday? Was all that just a joke?”

Hart shook his head. “No. That election was fair and square. So all the things that won have to be part of the concert now … unless we
all
decide otherwise. We just have to figure out a way to make everything work together. And …
and that's the whole idea of peace, anyway, to make everything get along together. With no fighting.”

Mr. Meinert felt the mood of the room begin to change. It was like a midwinter thaw, a warm front sweeping across the group, one kid at a time.

Hart felt it too, and he kept talking. “I know we can do this. And peace is a huge idea. It's really important. We all have to think and work together until we figure it out. For the concert. We can do this. We really can.”

Everyone bought in. The kids didn't just believe Hart. They trusted him. And they also trusted themselves.

T
he earth kept turning, and every time it did, December 22 got one day closer. Hart kept one eye on the calendar, and the other on the frantic preparations.

Anyone else observing the chorus during those last eleven days would have had a tough time guessing the theme of the concert. Not one of the remaining class periods, not one of the hours before and after school spent working on decorations, not one of the long weekend sessions practicing new songs and preparing the old gym—nothing even remotely resembled peace.

It took real work to keep the theme in view. To Hart, those eleven days often looked more like a major military operation—and sometimes it was all out war.

There were battles about which songs worked with the theme and which ones didn't. There was open conflict about which nonmusical
events could be included, and once that was settled, there were heated disputes about the order of the program.

There were clashes about who should write the narration, and then disagreement about what the narration should be, followed by controversies over who should read which parts. Alliances and coalitions developed, ruled the world for a day or so, and then splintered into rival factions and collapsed. There were tussles and scuffles, quarrels and spats, tiffs and squabbles.

The road to peace wasn't easy. But thankfully, all the conflict happened within the framework of a fragile, but miraculously effective, sixth grade democracy.

And amid the wrangling and bickering, Hart also saw progress, hour by hour, day by day.

School concerts rarely happen without help from parents. This one was no exception, and when the parent brigade began to work side by side with the kids, Hart felt certain for the first time that this concert was actually going to happen. True, it might still end up being a huge embarrassment, but it was definitely going to happen.

At least a dozen moms and dads began helping Colleen and her decorating crew, some directly, and some just donating materials. Cardboard and Styrofoam and paint and glue and glitter and string and wire began to pile up so much that the whole decorating operation had to be moved from the chorus room to the stage in the old gym.

One mom brought a portable sewing machine and stitched three king-size sheets together. Under Allison's direction three other parents helped a group of kids paint the huge banner. Then they began working on several smaller banners and signs.

On the Sunday before the Wednesday concert, six moms and four dads showed up to help hang the decorations and adjust the sound system and set up the folding chairs in the pattern that Jim Barker had designed. There weren't going to be any raised platforms, and the lighting wasn't going to remind anyone of a TV show, but Jim had presented some creative ideas, and the chorus had voted and approved.

Lisa Morton's dad had decided not to spend twelve thousand dollars on wiring and harnesses
so his little girl could fly like an angel, but he and Lisa had come up with something else almost as dramatic. And on that last Sunday afternoon they were both hard at work in the old gym.

Mr. Meinert kept to the background, but he was hard at work too. He was the one convincing the P. E. teachers to double up their classes and stay out of the old gym for a few days. He was the one convincing teachers with lunch duty to take the kids to the playground instead of the old gym on these blustery December days. He was the one assuring the principal that he hadn't lost his mind and that he wasn't trying to give the school a black eye by letting sixth graders run their own concert. He was the one showing up at school early, and working with the soloists during his lunch period, and staying late almost every evening. He was the one making sure the doors of the old gym were open on Saturday morning and Sunday afternoon, and then locked again after everyone else had gone home.

Mr. Meinert was the one who also had to try to find some peace in his own home. The extra
time he spent at school was not helping him find a new job. His wife was not happy about the long hours, and Lucy Meinert had plenty to say about it.

“You told me that you'd thrown this whole holiday concert mess back at those ungrateful kids, and what did I do? I applauded. I praised you. I thought, ‘My wonderful husband is finally getting smart. He's finally getting fed up with the way that miserable school system has been treating him.' And now this. Honestly, David. You know what? It's a good thing you're getting fired, that's what. Because if you weren't, I don't know if I could just stand by and watch someone I love struggle so hard to keep on teaching when he knows his whole career is swirling away down the drain!”

And Mr. Meinert was the one patiently playing the piano, accompanying the chorus every class period as they scrambled to learn a bunch of new songs in far too little time. At Hart's invitation, he had offered suggestions about songs that might work with their theme, and he'd made some suggestions about the very last song, too. But once the chorus had made
their choices, he was just the accompanist. That was the hardest part for him. He wanted to begin giving orders. He wanted to make the kids learn their harmony parts. It wasn't going to happen. He faced the fact that almost all the singing would be in unison—the way first graders usually sound.

As the chorus destroyed pronunciations and slurred words together and slid from note to note instead of making crisp transitions, he ignored his years of musical training. He kept his yearning for choral perfection to himself. He stayed focused on the fact that with very little help from him or anyone else, these kids were creating something unique—maybe even wonderful. Well …
wonderful
was probably too much to expect.

But regardless, Mr. Meinert looked forward to Wednesday night the way a parent looks forward to seeing a child take those first few steps alone—alone, but not really.

O
n the evening of December 22, Palmer Intermediate School was packed. More than four hundred parents and teachers and relatives had come to the holiday concert.

Beginning promptly at 7 PM, the sixth grade band performed their selections well, and the applause rang out long and loud.

The sixth grade orchestra struggled a bit with Mozart, and then had a real wrestling match with Beethoven. But in the end, it was good music and good education, and again, applause filled the auditorium.

Following the instructions on their program sheets, the crowd went to the cafeteria, enjoyed their intermission refreshments, and then began following the signs leading to the old gym. Some of the families with younger children went home after intermission, and some families with no kids singing in the chorus left too. But more than three hundred
people found their way to the second half of the concert.

The sixth grade chorus was ready.

A corner of the area outside the gym had been decorated to look like a U.S.O. hall, a place soldiers can visit when they're away from home. There were red, white, and blue streamers all over, and big banners.

PEACE! PEACE!

THE WARS ARE OVER!

EVERYONE IS GOING HOME FOR THE HOLIDAYS! FREE SHOW TONIGHT!

A small stage made out of risers had been set up in the corner, and a group of kids from the chorus—including Ed Farley and three other goofers—were dressed up like soldiers, standing there watching the show. And the show was Carl Preston, in his full magician's costume. During the intermission he performed his card trick plus four of his best magic routines. The little kids loved it, and so did Carl's grandfather.

As the crowd worked its way past the show in the foyer and entered the gym, people took their seats quietly. It would have been rude to
talk, because on the stage at the end of the gym, Shannon and Olivia were performing the Dance of the Marzipan Shepherdesses. The lights above the stage threw a reddish glow onto the girls as they danced. The music was bright and festive, but peaceful, which was the idea. And even Tom Denby would have had to admit that the girls looked graceful—and talented. Beautiful, too. The dance was only about three minutes long, so they performed the entire dance four times before the whole audience had arrived, and then they bowed for their applause.

When the hallway was empty and the ballerinas had taken their final bows, the curtain closed and the lights began to dim. The old gym fell into darkness, lit only by the faint red glow of the
EXIT
signs.

From far away, out in the echoing hallway, a deep bell rang—
dong, dong, dong
—and the audience hushed, straining to hear the distant sound.

As the bell in the hall kept ringing, another one with a different tone began to toll from behind the curtains on the stage. And then a
third bell began to chime from the far corner of the long room, way up on the bleachers near the ceiling. A fourth bell, hidden in a utility closet along the east wall of the gym, added its voice.

The bells got softer, and the curtain opened. Hundreds of glittering stars seemed to hang in midair above the children onstage. The sixth grade chorus took three steps forward, waited for one chord from the piano, and then began to sing.

 

“
I heard the bells on Christmas day
,

Their old familiar carols play
.

And wild and sweet the words repeat
,

of peace on earth, good will to men
.”

 

The chorus continued humming the tune, and a single spotlight swung toward the side of the stage and focused on Carolyn Payton. She read from a paper, squinting into the brightness as she stepped to the microphone.

 

“This year the chorus got to choose its own songs and make its own decorations and come up with its own ideas.
And we chose one simple idea as the theme of our concert, a very important idea: Peace.

 

“The holidays are a time for traditions. Some holiday traditions go back thousands of years, like Christmas and Hanukkah and Ramadan. Some holiday traditions are newer, like Thanksgiving and Kwanzaa.

“But old or new, all over the world, holiday traditions bring us closer to our beliefs and closer to our families. Holidays remind us that every family wants to live and worship in freedom and peace.

 

“Peace. That is what families everywhere hope for. And that is why our chorus program has a special name this year.”

 

As the huge banner unrolled above the front of the stage, Carolyn said,

 

“Welcome … to ‘Winterhope'!”

 

The piano hit a chord, the chorus split left and right, and in the brightly lit center of the stage, four tall panels of cardboard rose up from the floor—a Christmas tree painted on one, a gold menorah on the second, a silver crescent on the third, and a black, red, and green kinara on the fourth.

 

“We wish you a Happy Holidays!

We wish you a Happy Holidays!

We wish you a Happy Holidays
,

And a Happy New Year!

 

Good tidings we bring
,

to you and your kin
.

Good tidings for the holidays
,

And a Happy New Year
!”

 

Applause burst out, and as it died down, Ross stepped to the microphone.

 

“If there was no hope for peace, would we walk around saying, ‘Happy Holidays' to each other? And without peace, would there be any happy songs at all?

“What if ‘Jingle Bells' had been written in a time of war?

 

The lights faded to a murky blue, and the chorus limped slowly around the stage, moaning the words while Mr. Meinert played the tune in a minor key.

 

“Things are bad, things are bad
,

Nothing makes me glad
.

All the news is scary
,

and I don't know where my dad is
.

I'm so sad, I'm so sad
,

I don't want to play
.

If the war was over

I would have a better day.”

 

The spotlight came up on Ross again.

 

“But the song was written in a time of peace, and it's filled with fun. So here's the real ‘Jingle Bells,' and it's a sing-along!”

 

The words of the song flashed onto a screen on the wall beside the stage, and as hundreds
of people began to sing, the side doors opened, and into the gym burst a one-horse open sleigh—a child's wagon transformed by cardboard and paint. Tom Denby wore a plastic horse's head and a tail made of frayed rope. He trotted up and down the aisles in rhythm to the music, pulling the sleigh and whinnying at random intervals.