Or bells that jingle Ruairi said wistfully Or bells that jingle It’s a slap in the face Ruairi it has to stop Plus it’s a joke I’m absolutely positive he’ll find it funny And he’ll be proud of us Ruairi he loves it when students work for a long time to get a project just right First he’ll laugh then he’ll be proud Ruairi whispered as loud as he could over the atonal crooning of his parents in the front I’m not so sure about that Sing we joyous all together Fa la la la la la la la la Heedless of the wind and weather Fa la la la la la la la la wafted from the front seat like a bad smell This is fun Mum said screeching the car along the avenue of the wood surrounding their school We should do a Mr De Villiers and start singing Christmas songs on the first of November every year She did a U-turn by the school gates and sang one final fa-la-la while she stopped the car As the children bundled their school bags school shoes and their project out of the car Mum said Wait neither of you have Mr De Villiers for anything Quick as lightning Dani said Mum why are you dressed in a lab
coat and Granny’s old reading glasses Audition Break a leg Dani said slamming the car door shut Bye Mum Bye Dad Dani and Ruairi shouted and ran across the empty parking lot toward the school door Dani waited until she saw the car careen back down the tree-lined avenue before she said Today’s the day Ruairi my friend Today’s the day Ruairi had been having a similar conversation with his big sister every morning for about two months Because every morning for about two months Dani had been carrying out her plan Her long-term plan Ruairi liked to remind Dani that it involved great sacrifice from him because it meant arriving at school half an hour before everyone else and that meant getting out of bed a half hour too early every day And Ruairi did not appreciate that He could have let Dani carry out her plan herself but then who would be there to talk her out of the dangerous variations or to cover for her when she nearly got caught This morning like every morning for the past two months or so Dani took a bright red jumper with a gaudy green Christmas tree on the front out of her bag and put it on She scooped fistfuls of breadcrumbs from the Ziploc bag she had concealed in her book bag Then she spread
all the crumbs out over one particular parking space She looked up into the branches of the trees all around the car park and down the avenue and smiled Dani and Ruairi went inside to wait The day before this day and every day of the past two months just before the teachers arrived Dani took her phone out of her pocket and pressed Play on a particular recording it sounded a bit like a tinny click clack Then she and Ruairi went inside to their classrooms as normal Since today was the day Dani didn’t play her sound Instead just as the first teacher arrived and the first teacher to arrive was as always Mr De Villiers Dani and Ruairi slipped inside the school building Through the glass front door Dani and Ruairi watched Mr De Villiers’s large car nose through the gates toward his parking space Ruairi suddenly remembered something Dani The sign he said gesturing to the project in his hands I forgot He slipped outside and stuck the sign to the front of the door with the tape he had in his pocket He dashed back inside just as the teacher climbed out of his car wearing his bright red-and-green Christmas jumper Mr De Villiers was merrily singing the same song he sang every single day from November
first to the end of school and was almost at the end Follow me in merry measure Fa la la la la la la la la While I tell of Yuletide treasure Fa la la la la la la la la he sang as he approached the door to the school He climbed the first of three steps and reached his hand into his pocket On the second step he took his hand out of his pocket and raised his car alarm in the air On the third step just before he clicked his alarm right as he reached out for the door handle he stopped Please use other door eh he said reading out loud the sign that Ruairi had just that minute stuck onto the entrance to the building Mr De Villiers shrugged and turned back He descended the steps one by one and started to walk around the building to look for another open door As he passed his car he remembered his alarm and pressed the button The last thing Ruairi heard before the onslaught was the tinny click-clack of Mr De Villiers’s car alarm For as soon as he pressed the button the hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of pigeons and doves and hadedas that had been perched among the branches of the surrounding elms and oaks flew down and launched themselves at the crumbs Dani had scattered for them Since the bread crumbs had been strategically placed around about and under Mr De Villiers’s car all the
