Page 104 of A Manny for Christmas

‘Do I?’ I screw up my nose. ‘That sounds very boring.’

She laughs and pokes me. ‘You’re so cheeky.’

‘He certainly is,’ her beautiful mother agrees on a sigh. I give Mol a wink. She loves it.

As the pianist strikes up a jaunty intro toSanta Claus is Coming to Town, Daisy twists around and puts her tiny finger to my mouth. ‘Shh,’ she tells me sternly.

I stick out my tongue, and she yelps as it collides with her finger.

‘Behave, you two,’ Molly says sternly. I squeeze Daisy’s waist and turn her so she’s facing forward, planting a kiss on the back of her head.

I tense as the kids file onto the stage. Beside me, Molly entwines her fingers with mine and lays our joint hands on the seat between us. I shoot her a look I hope conveys both my gratitude and my adoration.

‘It’ll be fine,’ she mouths.

It had better fucking be fine. I gave Mr Pratt a piece of my mind the other morning, and he assured me that he’d have another chat to Tristan, he’d keep an eye on the two of them, and he’d make sure they weren’t standing anywhere near each other at the show.

Let’s see. I have to say, the guy inspires zero confidence in me. He seems totally clueless.

Bloody hell. Tobes looks seriously tiny next to some of the boys in his year group as they shuffle in in a quiet line. His headdress is already askew, the front bit flapping over one lens. All the shepherds are dressed in a mix of muddy brown and some kind of teal. It’s possibly the most revolting colour combination I’ve ever seen.

I keep an eye out for the dreaded Tristan. There look to be up to twenty shepherds. Two kids behind Toby is a tall boy shuffling in a particularly oafish manner. I lean in towards Molly.

‘That Tristan? The tall one?’

‘Yeah,’ she says.

‘He’s fucking massive.’

‘He stayed back a year, I believe, so he must be going on ten if he hasn’t had his birthday so far this year.’

I nod grimly and straighten up. So he’s been kept down a year and thrives on making life miserable for the smaller kids like Tobes whose quiet, unshowy, and completely fucking harmless form of intelligence makes him feel threatened.

Figures.

The shepherds and angels belt outSanta Claus is Coming to Townwith impressive volume and little regard for pitch as the leads strut onto stage. It’s not the most obvious theme tune for the birth of Christ, but whatever.

Mary and Joseph take their places by the manger as the Three Wise Men jostle self-consciously for position behind them. They’re not as tiny and inadvertently amusing as Daisy’s peers were yesterday, but they’re still cute as fuck. Toby’s singing his little heart out, arms flapping, glasses shining, and my heart expands behind my rib cage.

This is what I was most afraid of when it came to parenting—the uncontrollable, overwhelming rush of emotions about which fuck all can be done. What I hadn’t factored in was that it’s as joyous as it is terrifying. I suppose nature has to give you some perks.

Aside from the actual act of procreation, that is.

It’s when the shepherds go to sit that mybullying little shitradar starts beeping. The action moves to Mary, Joseph and the innkeeper, while the shepherds sit cross-legged on the stage behind them. They go from a line to a cluster, and fucking Tristan plonks himself downrightbehind Toby.

I can’t help it. I shoot Molly a worried look, and she meets my eyes and squeezes my hand like she’s already ahead of me. The stilted dialogue, more panto than nativity, washes straight over me as I lean forward, cheek to cheek with Daze, and watch.

The first sign something’s wrong is a flinch from Tobes that coincides with a smirk from Tristan, but I don’t see anything else. WTF?

It happens again a moment later. Toby full-body recoils from something I can’t see. What the actual hell is that little turdbag doing behind him? My best guess would be that he’s poking him in the side or something else equally pesky.

Toby’s little face is panicked, and he’s looking beseechingly at someone who I know is Mr Pratt. I can’t see him through the bodies of the front row, because he’s sitting cross-legged on the floor in front of the kids, but I’m guessing his pea-brain is focused solely on making sure the lines are flowing smoothly and not remotely on any insidious efforts at bullying that are going onin front of his fucking eyes.

‘Are you seeing this?’ I mutter grimly to Mol from the corner of my mouth.

‘Yep,’ she says.

The shepherds are clambering to their feet now, and the entire cast launches into one of those godforsaken modern, made-up-sounding and totally discordant carols that schools somehow find for these occasions. The shepherds stand in a tight cluster, Tristan still loitering right behind our boy.

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