The Last Holiday Concert Page 9

  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.

  Twenty

  PEACE

  On 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.

  And riding in the sleigh was none other than Tim Miller dressed up as Elvis who was dressed up as Santa. Without a beard. Elvis swung his hips and sang at the top of his lungs, simultaneously blasting metallic twangs from a real electric guitar and a portable amplifier that was hooked onto the wagon with bungee cords. Tim as Elvis as Santa was a huge hit.

  During the sing-along Hart was standi
ng in his favorite concert spot—the back row of the chorus. The kids had wanted him to be like the director and stand out front during the songs. He had refused. There was enough to worry about without having to look stupid and pretend he knew how to direct a chorus.

  The words to “Jingle Bells” were coming out of his mouth, but Hart’s mind was flopping all over the place, whispering to itself, trying to remember a hundred things at once. So … so next comes the Shalom song. How’s the tune go? How’s it go? Oh yeah, oh yeah … Then the dreidel stuff. …and it’s a round … my group first, and then Billy’s—or is his first? Wait… No … Shalom is the round… Which … and the batteries? Did Dad get ‘em? ‘Cause fifty’s not enough … and the lights … ‘cause that means … or does the dreidel song come next?

  As muddled as it was inside Hart’s head, out in the hall behind the stage it was worse. The two kids inside the big dreidel costumes had been practicing their spinning, and one of them had just spread a good part of his dinner all over the floor. No one could find the custodian, and a mom and a dad were trying to manage the emergency cleanup with tissues and a bottle of spring water.

  Colleen, the stage director, had three different little walkie-talkies clipped to the front of her sweater: one to talk to the kid running the spotlight, one for the kids moving props around the stage, and one to keep in touch with Mr. Meinert. She grabbed one of them and said, “Mr. Meinert, Mr. Meinert! One of the dreidels just threw up! Play an extra verse of ‘Jingle Bells’!”

  So the sing-along went on a little longer, and no one seemed to mind, especially Tim Miller.

  Most of Hart’s worries were unnecessary. “Shalom Chevarim” began as Jenna explained the connection between Hanukkah and the hope for peace. Hart loved this song. It had become his favorite during the rehearsals because the chorus sang it as a three part round. There was such a simple dignity to the melody all by itself, but by the time Hart joined in singing with the third group, the full effect of the harmony and the interwoven strains was so beautiful, so powerful and real.

  Up onstage, facing the audience filled with his family and his neighbors, Hart was glad to be in the back row when they sang “Shalom Chevarim.” And he was glad there were so many other kids singing, because he felt his throat begin to tighten up. The music, the harmony, the way the whole concert was flowing along—it all filled his heart in a way he’d never felt before.

  Then “I Have a Little Dreidel” celebrated the lighter side of Hanukkah, and the big spinning dreidels got everyone laughing—except one small child in the front row who announced for all to hear, “Something smells like spit-up!”

  After the dreidels took their bows, all of the students in the chorus walked off the stage single file, half down one side of the gym, half down the other. When they had surrounded the audience, each about four feet from the next, the lights dimmed a little and Mr. Meinert hit one soft chord on the piano. With no introduction, the chorus began to sing.

  “O little town of Bethlehem,

  How still we see thee lie.

  Above thy deep and dreamless sleep,

  The silent stars go by.

  Yet in thy dark streets shineth

  The everlasting light.

  The hopes and fears of all the years

  Are met in thee tonight.”

  Then the spotlight came up on Allie Marston. She read from a single sheet of paper.

  “What are ‘the hopes and fears of all the years?’ Maybe the hope is our hope for peace. And maybe the fear is the fear that real peace will never come to the Earth. When the angels came to the shepherds near Bethlehem, they sang, ‘On Earth, Peace, goodwill toward men.’

  “This year, right now, that is our hope, and we share it with you.”

  The room went completely dark. Mr. Meinert played a short introduction on the piano, and at the front of the gym one girl turned on a flashlight and aimed it at her own face. It was Janie Kingston, and she sang the first two lines alone, her voice high and sweet. As more and more children joined the singing, each one lit a light.

  “Let there be peace on earth,

  And let it begin with me;

  Let there be peace on earth,

  The peace that was meant to be.

  “With God our Creator,

  Children all are we,

  Let us walk with each other

  In perfect harmony.”

  The piano played through the melody of the first two verses again, and seventy flashlight beams turned upward and met in the center, high above the audience. And into that brightness—with wings of gold and a silver gown—an angel descended.

  It wasn’t Lisa Morton. It was a doll she and her mom had made. Lisa’s dad and big brother were up in the bleachers controlling it with a system of pulleys and fishing line.

  As the angel began to fly a slow, graceful circle above the audience, all the flashlight beams followed it, and the singing resumed.

  “Let peace begin with me,

  Let this be the moment now;

  With every step I take

  Let this be my solemn vow:

  “To take each moment

  and live each moment

  In peace eternally.

  Let there be peace on earth

  And let it begin with me.”

  The chorus repeated the last two lines, and when it got to the words with me, Janie sang them alone, and then ten other kids on the other side of the audience repeated, “with me,” and then ten more sang it again, and it went on through six repetitions until the whole chorus sang the words one last time. “With me!”

  The lights came up, the chorus took a bow, and then the entire audience—every mom and dad, every grandmother and grandfather, aunt, uncle, neighbor, and friend—they all jumped to their feet and began to applaud. The applause went on for one minute, and then two, not wildly, not with hooting and stomping, but with deep feeling, and plenty of dabbing at the corners of the eyes.

  The applause went on because all the people knew they had just seen something extraordinary, and because they all knew that if they stopped clapping, the concert would be over. And no one wanted it to end.

  Mr. Meinert did not want it to end either.

  He sat on the bench behind the piano. He did not stand, and he took no bow. But he did look out and catch his wife’s eye as she stood there in the fourth row, tears running down her cheeks. He smiled, and so did she. And he knew that now Lucy Meinert understood. She understood why he hadn’t quit, and why he would always believe that there’s a future in teaching.

  The applause finally stopped.

  Hart Evans found his parents and endured a big hug from his mom. His sister Sarah made a face as she handed him a copy of the program. “Why does it say ‘Sixth Grade Chorus, Hart Evans, Director?”

  Hart shrugged. “Probably a joke.” But he carefully folded the program and put it in his back pocket.

  His dad grabbed Hart’s hand and shook it. “That was the best concert I have ever seen! ‘Hart Evans, Director’—it’s no joke. I am very proud of you.”

  Hart smiled, but he didn’t know what to say, and he felt his face getting red. His dad came to the rescue.

  “What do you say we all go out for some ice cream?”

  Hart said, “Yeah, great.” Then he turned quickly, looking for Mr. Meinert. He couldn’t spot him. “Listen, I’ve got to go backstage for a second. Be right back.”

  Mr. Meinert wasn’t on the stage or in the hallway behind it. Hart saw Colleen, and trotted over to her. “Colleen, nice job!”

  Colleen smiled and said, “Thanks. You too.”

  “You seen Mr. Meinert?”

  Colleen pointed. “He went that way with a stack of music. Probably going back to the music room.”

  Hart took off down the hallway.

  Twenty-one

  CODA

  When Hart peeked in the doorway of the music room, only one row of lights was on, down at the front of the room. Mr. Meinert was standing at his desk, stari
ng into a cardboard file box.

  Hart paused. It was something about the way the guy stood there, leaning slightly forward, both hands on the back of his chair. Hart felt like he was interrupting.

  He knocked on the door frame anyway.

  Mr. Meinert jumped a little, but when he saw it was Hart, his face broke into a big smile.

  “Mr. Meinert? Can I come in?”

  “Sure,” he said. “What a great concert, Hart. Really. One of the best ever, anywhere.”

  Hart smiled back. “Thanks. I looked for you over in the gym, but you’d already left. And Colleen said you might be here. Because I just wanted to thank you. ‘Cause if it hadn’t been for you, we’d have never had a concert—I mean, not like this one.” Hart suddenly felt embarrassed, felt another blush coming on. “So anyway … thanks.” Hart walked to the desk and held out his right hand, and Mr. Meinert reached over and shook it.

  And that’s when Hart saw what was in the file box. A pair of orange-handled scissors with D. Meinert written on them. Mr. Meinert’s “Great Musicians” desk calendar. A stack of Music Educator magazines, and six or seven books, each of them with D. Meinert scrawled on the cover.

  “How come you’re emptying your desk? You moving to a different room?”