I’m The Star
written by: Andrew McCormick
We didn’t put on tire chains because Channel Six had forecast light snow. We should have watched Channel Four.
***
Headlights burned a dim hole in the blizzard, a narrow snow-lined burrow not even reaching the sidewalks. Mom gripped the steering wheel with knuckles the color of chalk.
“A spot here, Peter,” Mom rasped. “You missed a spot over here.” Her voice struggled to stay on an even keel. Ever since the divorce, Mom tended toward panic.
I desperately scrapped away ice forming on the inside of the windshield as best I could with a piece of wet cardboard. My eyeglasses fogged again.
I wished I was old enough to drive. Sara’s elementary school was less than eight blocks away but at the rate we were going, it might as well have been back in Encino.
“You okay, Sara?” I said, over my shoulder. All alone in the back seat, my sister, small for a six-year-old, said nothing. I risked a look back. Sara watched the swirling snowflakes as if they were dancing on her grave.
***
Four days ago, on Monday, Sara chattered all through breakfast, telling me and Mom all about the Christmas decorations she was making with Mrs. Paxton’s class, and all about the elf hat picture she drew in Mrs. Paxton’s class, and all about the bright yellow dress that Mrs. Paxton wore. I nodded and listened.
The very next breakfast, she stared silently into her Cheerios. I tried to talk to her a couple times, but I needed to finish up my eighth-grade Social Studies report on President Reagan’s reelection. Mom noticed Sara’s silence, too, but she concentrated on ironing her Denny’s waitress uniform. When I said it was time to get ready, Sara just put her bowl in the sink and went out into the hallway.
“Anything wrong, Sara?” I said as we walked to the hallway. I guided her little arm into her faded blue winter coat. I then turned her to face me and buttoned the coat up tight. Before I put on my gloves, I straightened her collar.
She bit her lower lip before saying, “I’m the star, Petey.”
I had opened the front door. The frosty morning breeze swept in bitter cold air.
“What’d you say, Sara?”
She had gone past me and stepped off the porch gingerly. She turned.
“I’m the star,” she said.
“The star? The star of what?”
“Our Christmas program. Friday. Yesterday, Mrs. Paxton made me the star.
She made me the star in front of the whole class.”
“Really? That’s great, Sara. Mrs. Paxton must like you a lot.”
“I thought so.”
She said nothing further. We walked together down to the corner, my gloved hand brushing off snowflakes from Sara’s hair from time to time. She had lost her cap at the park the week before. No snow had been in the forecast so we thought it could wait.
Though light snow fell, we could see Sara’s school bus making a left-hand turn on our street. I told Sara to walk a little faster, steadying her with my arm on her shoulder. I’d be late for my class. I always was. My junior high school was down on Taft Street.
Last year, my private school’s van picked me up at our front door.
“So. Your program is Friday?” My feet felt like blocks of ice. I wasn’t used to snow. Or to cold. Mom had wanted a fresh start with some art design school in Dayton but she hadn’t checked how hard it was to get in.
“Ah-huh.”
“Does that give you enough time to be the star, Sara?” I tried not to sound winded. Back home, I had been a second-string tackle. I had to enroll mid-semester here at Peterson Junior High, so football tryouts were over. Just as well, since there wasn’t anybody else to pick up Sara after school.
“Mrs. Paxton thinks so.” Sara kept watching her boots walk on the snow.
“Do you need any help with your lines, Sara?”
She didn’t answer right away. “We’re doing a song, Petey.”
“Oh.” Dad had said once that both of us sang like wounded bullfrogs.
“I could listen to you practice.”
“No, Petey, that’s okay.”
We got to the stop just before the bus. Sara’s scuffed blue boots shuffled the pavement snow in small circles, the black buckles dusted by large white flakes. Several
kids waited for the bus. Two girls Sara’s age tried to catch snowflakes with their tongues, squealing with delight. Sara looked over at them, and then slowly looked away. I gave her shoulder a soft pat.
“When Mrs. Paxton made me the star yesterday, Cindy Mahon and Susan Cole, those girls, they both wanted to be the star, but Mrs. Paxton picked me.” Sara glanced back at the girls, who looked like they were purposely not paying any attention to her.
“Well, that’s great, Sara,” I said. “Being the star is really a big deal, huh?”
“Ah-huh.” The school bus pulled up to the stop, brakes screeching like fingernails on a chalkboard. The bus door folded open, gushing out warm air. Though the door
opened right in front of us, Sara stepped aside and waited until everyone else got on. When her turn came, she took each step as if resisting a magnet.
“You’ll be fine, Sara.” I said, but the door closed, and the bus drove away. I kicked at snow drifts whenever I could as I tramped down the icy sidewalks. Being the man of the house wasn’t nearly as easy as Dad had said it would be.
***
Mom drove even slower as the snow fell faster. Occasionally, the tires slipped to the wrong side of the street. Mom would whimper, eyes wide with anxiety. Before the divorce, the only blizzards she had ever seen were inside snow globes.
Mom turned left on Walters Street when she should have turned right. She said a word that I hoped Sara didn’t know. While backing up, she got us stuck in a snow bank as big as a rhino. “Don’t worry,” I said to Sara as I opened my door. She said nothing.
I put my gloved hands on the trunk. “Now, Mom,” I called out as I pushed. The wheels spun loudly but the car didn’t move. Again and again, we tried but we were wedged in too tight.
Mom rolled down the car window. She looked back at me with a miserable frown, her eyebrows rapidly becoming white with snow. “How we doing, Peter?”
“Ah.” We were never going to get out. I couldn’t see Sara in the back seat; the back window was covered with icy flakes. “Almost, Mom,” I called back.
Just then, two men came out of the house whose driveway we were blocking. “Need some help, lady?” one called out, his tone as jolly as his Christmas stocking hat.
“Yes!” I yelled, answering for her. I didn’t want them to leave. Mom would just say that we’re okay.
“Let’s give it a try,” the other man said, smiling. He was pretty fat and smelled like beer, but he looked like the Bionic Man to me.
“Give us a hand, kid,” he said to me. I nodded eagerly. We pushed the Gremlin forward, let the car roll backwards, and then pushed it again. Both men laughed with the chuckles that bubble up from knowing you’re doing a good deed. It only took a minute or two before the wheels spun free.
They just smiled and said, “No problem” to Mom’s frantic thank you’s, and wished us a Merry Christmas as they returned to their warm house. I smiled at their backs. Since then, every time I smell beer, I first think of Walters Street.
All through the car ride, Sara kept quiet.
***
The lights of the school auditorium shined through the snowstorm like a beacon from a lighthouse. Mom drove up and let us out, not hiding a loud sigh. She said she’d park the car and that I should get Sara to her little classmates. My sister took my hand as we made our way through a boot-worn path through the snow. Her eyes stayed down.
People huddled together in small clumps, puffing on last-minute cigarettes. I guessed aloud to Sara that the program hadn’t started yet, that we had made it on time.
Sara nodded slowly. As we approached the auditorium, Sara pointed with her right arm to a side door. I noticed around her wrist that she was wearing an angel charm bracelet. I had bought her that bracelet for her sixth birthday on lay-away at Walgreens.
“I have to go in that door, Petey.” Her small brown eyes puddled up at me.
“Okay.” I paused. “You’ll be great, Sara. We’ll be cheering for you. Remember, you’re the star.”
“I’m the star,” she repeated. Her small body shook a little.
My insides dropped like a stone. I brushed her hair free of snow and made a man-of-the-house decision.
“Let’s go back home, Sara,” I said. “We can say we got stuck in the snow. It’s kinda true, you know.”
Sara looked down at the snow and moved her head slowly from side to side.
“People are counting on me, Petey,” she said softly. She started walking, her blue boots making soft imprints in the fresh-fallen snow.
“We’ll wait for you out here. You’ll be great.” The back of her head bobbed in reluctant agreement. Judging by the amount of snow covering the footprints by the side
door, everybody must have been inside for some time. I saw her grab the door handle with both hands, pull it open with some effort, and then disappear inside.
By the time we entered the auditorium, they had run out of programs. We sat in the last row, even though the auditorium was only about half full. Snatches of conversations drifted throughout. People talked about Cabbage Patch dolls, the Cincinnati Bengals, and the Band-Aid concert.
The cream-colored walls were covered with large decorative Christmas banners.
One showed smiling elves placing large-ribboned presents underneath an enormous Christmas tree. Below the tree was written, in crayon colors, ‘Merry Christmas, from Mrs. Paxton’s First Grade Class.’ I pointed to one tiny elf which had a simple smile but wore an oversized pointy green hat, with a big gold buckle on its middle. Mom followed my hand and chuckled.
“Sara just loves to draw hats, doesn’t she?” Mom said. It was the first time that whole evening that Mom had laughed.
Thick purple curtains hid the stage. The school band warmed up below, mixing up stanzas from several Christmas songs. We hunched into our coats, trying to stay warm, and not saying much more.
The band stopped playing and a lady walked out on stage. The lady introduced herself as Principal De Long. Applause scattered from around the hall. She thanked everyone for coming out on such a snowy evening and told us the sixth-grade band had worked real, real hard for tonight’s program, so we applauded them, too. She reminded everyone to buy Christmas cookies and punch at the intermission to help support the PTA. Then she cleared her throat and announced Miss Leopold’s Kindergarten class would start tonight’s program with, “Up on the Rooftop.” When she left, the purple curtains parted.
The Kindergarten class, numbering about thirty kids, stood in rows upon three long raised platforms. In front of them stood Miss Leopold, short and elderly with a stern frown on her face. The boys wore red shirts and black pants, the girls wore green dresses. A few wiped their noses on their sleeves. Pushing back a loose strand of white hair, Miss Leopold smiled and nodded to the band leader, a man about Mom’s age who wore his grey hair in a ponytail. He lifted his baton as Miss Leopold turned and raised her hands. When she dropped them, the band and the Kindergarten class started pretty much at the same time.
Up on the Rooftop
Reindeer Paws.
Down comes good old Santa Claus.
Flashbulbs went off all around the hall.
“Oh, God, Peter,” Mom moaned. “I forgot the camera.”
It was still packed away, in a box in the attic labeled, ‘Misc.’ I had thought about taking the camera but decided that it would just make Sara even more nervous.
Miss Leopold’s class sang their lyrics with fierce expressions, like kids do when they have to focus. But when they got to the refrains, their throats just exploded all the “Ho! Ho! Ho!”s with unrestrained eagerness. Mom and I laughed along with the audience. When the song moved back to the rooftop, the kids returned to rote and just sang the way they were supposed to. But, when the refrain came around again, they again became enthusiastic and animated.
We applauded their finish. The kids took their rehearsed bow together although one boy with red hair and freckles clasped his hands above his head and shook them like a boxer winning his bout. Puzzled, Miss Leopold followed the spontaneous audience laughter to its source. With her firm look, the boy lowered his hands, but still grinned.
He was missing a front tooth.
The purple curtains closed and Principal De Long returned to the stage. With a huge, forced smile, she remarked on how much she really enjoyed the song. Some audience members chuckled. The principal then consulted a white index card in her hand and said that, now, Mrs. Paxton’s first grade class would sing one of her favorite Christmas songs, ‘Do You Hear What I Hear?’
Mom touched my arm. “Did you know what she was going to be singing, Peter?”
“No. Sara wouldn’t tell me anything.”
“She gets that from her father.”
The curtains parted to reveal Sara’s class. Quickly, I scanned the stage, from middle to ends.
“Where’s Sara?” Mom whispered.
“I don’t see her.”
“Neither do I. Do you think she refused to go on?”
“I don’t know, Mom.”
“Oh, God, they’re not going to fly her in, like she was Peter Pan or something?”
“I hope not.” When Dad flew me and Sara down to Orlando on Thanksgiving, Sara had gotten terribly airsick.
A woman who must be Mrs. Paxton was standing to the right of the class. I was surprised. From the way Sara described her, I thought that she would have been taller.
The teacher smiled at us and then faced her pupils. The class immediately stood up straighter. A wave of her head indicated that it was time to sing.
Mrs. Paxton moved her hands gently through the air, reminding me of a hula dancer. Even with her back to us, I could tell she was smiling.
Said the night wind to the little lamb,
Do you see what I see?
(Do you see what I see?)
‘Way up in the sky, little lamb?
“Where could she be?” Mom said. “She’s the star.”
“I don’t know, Mom. I saw her go inside that door.” Did she run back outside? Is that where she’s now, shivering in the snow, crying her eyes out?
I stopped probing the stage. Sara definitely was not there. I did recognize the two girls I had seen earlier in the week at the bus stop. They were singing in the front row, wearing matching emerald-green dresses.
“I better go see if she’s okay.” But as I got up, the class sang,
Do you see what I see?
(Do you see what I see?)
A star! A star! Dancing in the night.
From behind the rows of singers, on a long brown stick, emerged a large, yellow paper Mache star. A large white piece of ribbon was attached to it. Holding the star stick over the singers’ heads was a small hand. Around that hand, even in the back of the auditorium, I could see an angel charm bracelet, shining with the reflected light.
With a tail as big as a kite!
With a tail as big as a kite!
As we watched, the bracelet began to sway, in splendid time with the music.
***
The snow rested on the ground like a white blanket. There was no wind, the air was clear, and the stars twinkled like welcome beacons in the fresh night sky.
“I’ll get the car. Stay with Petey, okay?” Mom’s breath came out in foggy wisps.
“Okay, Mommy.”
She smiled down at Sara, skipping in place in the snow.
“You did great, sweetheart.”
“I was the star, Mommy.” Sara’s smile sparkled in the lampposts’ glow.
“Yes, you were, honey,” Mom said. “The best star I’ve ever seen.” Shaking her head, Mom left.
The two girls with the matching green dresses walked by with their parents. One waved to Sara. “Good night, Sara. Merry Christmas,” she said.
“Good night, Cindy,” Sara said, eyes suddenly wide.
The other girl waved. “Good night, Susan,” Sara said.
Sara watched them walk away, and then started jumping up and down in place. Powdered snow fell upwards, covering her dress like white badges.
“Mrs. Paxton said I was really good. She said so in front of the whole class.”
“You were terrific, Sara.” I resisted the urge to straighten a wrinkle in her coat.
“Thanks, Petey.” She straightened her winkled dress and then began skipping backwards in the snow. “I’m the star. I’m the star,” she giggled as she flapped her arms like she could fly. Miraculously, she didn’t fall down.
- I’m The Star - December 19, 2024
