The Little Red Hen

Parents were coming in from everywhere, and the little girl in the blue overalls turned round and round: where were hers? She stood on a stage in a clearing in a wooded area, next to Miss Patty and Miz Theresa, her nursery-school teachers. The other children were behind the stage in their costumes, with the Red Hen and the Big Black thing (who will help me bake the bread? Who will? Who will?). From the cars around the clearing came people through the trees, that became lines of parents filing single-file, like in a drill, into the benches. Ohh-there’s Ima, and Aba behind her with that big camera he makes pictures with. Eight minimitah, he calls it, and makes her laugh.
Aba and Ima are sitting down, smiling and pointing at her. Ima waves and makes kissy kissy in the air, and Aba plays with his camera, smiling and disappearing behind the box.

The little girl fingered her hat, a paper sunshine of yellow cardboard that was tied under her chin. She had stormed and pouted to get that hat, for all the other children in the skit had costumes that Miss Patty had made all by herself for three whole weeks, and she was the only one without a costume. She had blue overalls. Finally she had been given the sun hat. Miss Patty had knelt down to tie it around her neck, putting both hands on her shoulders and looking her in the eyes. She didn’t have a mask and could not talk funny like Eric through the animal head, because she was the only one who could read (and at such a young age!) and so she was the na-rra-tor, Miss Patty said, and people had to hear her. She could count every freckle on Miss Patty's face, and there were thousands of them. Aba was always so proud of how she could count into the thousands without using her fingers.

The benches were full of parents, and the little girl looked quickly back to the stand in front of her, twisted down to its lowest so she could reach, on which there was the story she was going to read. She was off to the right of the stage, the only child standing with the grownups, in front of the microphone and next to the piano where Miss Theresa would play. Behind her stood Miss Patty with the freckles and the blond hair always in a bow. Miss Patty would put her finger on the pages for her to follow as she read. She liked Miss Patty very much: Miss Patty was the one that had picked the story of the Little Red Hen for her three and four-year-olds. All the children in their costumes were backstage, antsy and trembling with excitement, but she was here with Ms. Patty and Miss Theresa. Eric, who had got to be the little Red Hen, was her favorite. She had wanted to be the grasshopper or the Big Black thing so she could scare nasty Justin with, but she was going to be the most important, said Ima: the na-rr-ator. Ima had said that she was going to be a narrator like inside a Greek strategy with chorus, and this had sounded important enough for the little girl to be convinced that a costume could wait for next time.

Miss Patty stood up and was saying thank you to all the mommies and daddies for coming today, and how proud and this year we have a surprise and thank you for coming. Now everybody was quiet, and Miss Patty bent in front of the little girl and placed the microphone in the stand. With Miss Patty’s finger pointing at the beginning of the story, the child blinked, swallowed, and began: “Once-upon-a-time in a farm there was a Little Red Hen”. The words were in big black print, and Miss Patty’s finger, with the pink nailpolish, was pushing along the rows of letters. The little girl could hear her own funny voice (Miss Theresa said she had a Hebrew accident) very loud through the air. She had read this story more than ten times, but this was very loud and filling her ears. And big. And she had read it to her playmates at nap time, not to thousands of mommies and Abas, that were not being very quiet. She was still the only child on stage, and stealing a look at the rows of parents, they looked very surprised. This was strange, because whatever Miss Patty’s surprise was, it surely couldn't have come yet. She continued reading, hearing some whispering from the benches, following the finger with determination. They were laughing at her accident, like the way Miss Patty and Miss Theresa would ask her to say what her favorite colors were so she would say Bwue and Olange, and they would kiss her and say how cute she was.

The colors were the colors of her favorite sweater, a picture of an orange circle on a blue background that Ima said looked like when the sun went down. It had been her brother’s sweater until the sweater got too small because her brother was too big, and now it was hers. She was big now in the overalls that Ima had bought especially for today. It was Parents’ day. And everybody was looking at her. The little girl really, really wanted the other children to come out now. She was reading the words along the finger, but soon there would be a song, and she said: “The Little Red Hen looked around and around for her friends to help her bake the bread.” Now the children would sing. They would come out and sing the song of who will help, but she could not sing. Miss Patty said that the children would sing and if she sang, it would be too loud and no one would hear the children. The children were clambering onstage in their big costumes, the Hen and the Chicks and the Ant and the Grasshopper, and the little girl stuck both hands in her pockets, and swayed from side to side.

“Who will help me sow the wheat? Who will? Who will?” The children sang and the little girl shut her mouth in a line like tough guys and her brother. Back and forth, back and forth went the who will for her, she couldn’t sing cause Miss Patty said. She had to stand on the side like when all the kids had their naps and she would read the books. The parents were now moving their heads and smiling, taking pictures. Miss Theresa was playing the piano and her brown hair was turning around and around. The little girl waited until the song was over, and lifted her eyebrows way up into her forehead to tell Eric that he was pretty in the Hen. Miss Patty’s hand was on her shoulder, which was good because she had felt like she might fall down, or even make peepee in her pants and this was better. ohhh the sheets are wet, should change before Aba and Ima see me and it smells. Gil doesn’t pee in the bed at night. He’s a boy.
The children had finished their song and all eyes were now on the little girl again. she was now uneasy on her legs, but her high-pitched voice continued to flag above the benches: “then Winter came.”

Winter was snow, and the little girl wanted snow to fall on the stage so that everything would be covered and she could leave the story and make butterflies and snowmen in the white mountains. There would be no costumes in the snow, no colors. All the children would be white and mushy with snow and cold, the Big Black Thing would be white and she could hide with Eric under a hill on stage and Miz Theresa would play the piano in the snow. She loved the cold of winter and the snow, except for one time when she had waited, all alone, in the lobby of the building for an hour and the yellow bus for nursery school hadn’t come. She had begun crying until a strange woman had come downstairs, seen the little girl standing forlorn in the middle of the lobby, and explained to her that the snow was making the bus late. Snow made everything white and people late and school closed and special wheels for cars. The bus had finally come with Miss Purple the counselor, who would take her hand and help her on the bus, and the driver that was the woman who sang on Aba’s radio.

It was very quiet, and Miss Patty was whispering something in her ear. “WHAT?” she said, and it came out loud and strong and big in her ears. The children were all standing in a circle, the Red Hen that was really Eric and the grasshopper and the Big Black Thing, and no one was moving. She looked at the parents. She couldn’t find Aba and Ima in the parents and they were all staring at the stage. Maybe now was time for the surprise. “Go on,” she could hear Miss Patty in the distance. Oohh the finger is back on the page.
“All the animals asked The Little Red Hen but she didn’t want to share the seeds she had so care-carefully p-planted.” Like when Justin won’t share the swings and he hogs them all day long. She read another sentence, following the pink fingernail. Miss Purple has purple fingernails. Ima has Peach fingernails which makes me laugh. How can you have peach on your nails. I want apple juice on my nails. I want to drink.
Her throat was getting very dry. Miss Patty had not let her have any apple juice before the show cause she might make pee-pee.

Now was the little girl’s favorite part: the Little Red Hen decided to share after all, because it was Eric and Eric was nice and he was a nice Little Red Hen, and the square dancing would be next. Funny it was called square dancing when all the children were in two lines: Aba says that’s not a square that’s a parable. Like the parables in the Bible, she could see all the Bible people standing in two lines hearing their stories.
“and so the little Red Hen decided to share her bread.”

Miss Theresa began playing again. The children all scrambled into two lines, the Big Black Thing bumping into the Squirrel and nearly toppling over. Eric’s Red Hen crown had fallen off and she could see him beaming underneath his big yellow costume beak. The little girl shifted her weight from foot to foot, eyeing the lines. This was her favorite song. In two lines, the children began their dance, each couple holding hands and skipping by the rest of the class.

She was not allowed to sing or dance, “because you are the narr-a-tor”, said Miss Patty. She wanted to sing, she wanted to dance in a line and hold Eric’s hand when they said “share the bread”. You can’t you can’t you can’t just like Gil says, you’re too small, you’re a girl, you’re too short you’re the narr-a-tor.

The little girl was a yellow and blue streak as she darted into center stage, her sunhat flying off her head, and bouncing gaily off her back, held down like a drunken hot air balloon. She could hear nothing, not Miss Patty’s gasp, not the parents’ rustles in the audience, nothing but the piano and the children singing dimly in the distance (share the bread, share the bread!), and as she looked up the blue sky swirled above her as she grasped Eric’s hand and skipped down the line. This was like Aba swinging her on the swingset. This was like the merry go round and the bicycle and sleeping very hard. She would close her eyes to a little crack and all the colors would mix. No one color could be set apart from the others, as she swish swished, cutting an arc in the air, knees almost touching the treetops. The brown belonged to the blue belonged to the green and all were together. She was now one of those colors, one of those costumes. The sun was now with the animals, winter was over, and she would always share the bread.