The Twenty-four Days Before Christmas by Madeleine L'Engle Page B

and ready for bed, we stood around the piano singing Advent carols, but I had such a big lump in my throat that I couldn’t sing.
    Daddy put his arm around me. “What’s the matter with my girl?”
    Two tears slipped out of my eyes, and I told him about the rehearsal and what the director had said. He told me that he and Mother would help me to look and move more like an angel. “You can be a lovely angel, Vicky, but you’ll have to work at it.”
    â€œI’ll work. I promise.”

    On the ninth day of Advent we hung the Christmas bells from the beams in the living room, and then Mother worked with me on being an angel. She had me walk all over the house with a volume of the encyclopedia on my head. When I was finally able to walk all around without the encyclopedia falling, Mother showed me how to stand with my feet in ballet position, and how to hold my arms so they didn’t look all elbows.
    On the tenth day of December Mother got the cuddly Santa Claus doll out of the attic, and told Suzy and me we could take turns taking it to bed at night. I thought of the Pageant, and said, “Suzy can have it. May I take the Shu to Sub volume of the encyclopedia to bed with me?”

    Mother understood. “Yes. And now put it on your head and try walking up the front stairs and down the back stairs.”

    Each time I did it I managed more steps without having to catch the encyclopedia. Suzy went to bed with the cuddly Santa Claus doll. I put the Shu to Sub volume under my pillow.
    On the eleventh day the director beamed at me and said, “That was much better, Vicky. I think you’re going to be all right after all. Now let’s try it again. Good , Vicky, GOOD.”
    I was happy when I got home and Mother gave me a hug, and John said, “I don’t know why anybody ever thought you couldn’t do it. I knew you could.”
    Suzy jumped up and down and said, “What’re we going to do for Advent today?”

    Mother suggested, “Let’s make a Christmas chandelier.” We took the wire mesh lettuce basket and filled it with the Christmas decorations that were just a tiny bit broken but not shattered. We hung one of the prettiest, shiniest decorations on the bottom of the lettuce basket, and then Mother and John fitted the basket over the front hall light so that it glittered and sparkled with the color of all the Christmas baubles.

    And I walked up and down the front hall with the encyclopedia, Shu to Sub , balanced on my head; I tried to look at the Christmas chandelier out of the corner of my eye, but when I looked up, the encyclopedia slipped and I caught it just before it landed on the floor.

    On the twelfth day of December not only did it not snow, it rained. Rain poured in great torrents from the sodden skies and the gutters spouted like fountains. After school Mother discovered that we’d eaten up all the first batch of Christmas cookies, so we made more.
    On the thirteenth the skies were all washed clean and the sun was out and we had a Pageant rehearsal. The director surprised me by saying, “Vicky, dear, you’re doing so well that we’ve decided to give you some lines for the scene where you appear with the shepherds. Do you think you can memorize them?”

    I nodded happily. It may be hard for me to walk without tripping up, and to stand still without being all sharp corners and angles, but memorizing things is easy for me.
    The director explained, “These are the angel lines from an old play in the Chester Cycle. The Chester Cycle is a group of plays written in the Middle Ages in England, to be performed in the Cathedral in Chester, so we think it’s very appropriate for the Pageant. By the way, we miss your mother in the choir.”
    I explained, “It’s because of the new baby, you know.”
    â€œIsn’t that nice! I wonder if she’ll be in the hospital for Christmas? Now here are your lines,