By the time we finally made it backstage, the program had already begun. Mr. Bosco had hung a gigantic papier-mâché dreidel from the ceiling. The kids from the class next door were making it spin. They danced around it singing “The Dreidel Song.”
“Where have you been?” asked Tonya when she saw Boris. She had been waiting to hold a conference with the three kings.
Now that she was playing the baby Jesus’s mother, Tonya thought that gave her the right to inspect the baby’s gifts ahead of time.
“What are you bringing the baby?” she asked Boris.
Boris wiped away a tear. He held up a bag of caramels tied with a ribbon.
“Boris,” she hissed, “you can’t bring candy to a newborn baby!” She tried to grab the bag, but Boris hugged it to his heart.
Tonya approved of Sofie’s present, a stuffed unicorn. “The baby Jesus will love that one,” she said.
Yoshi was eager to show his present, a big fat book.
“Little Women?” Tonya smacked her forehead. “Hello, Yoshi. Jesus is a boy!”
Yoshi’s face turned bright red. “I meant to grab Little Men.” Yoshi took off his glasses and studied the cover. It was mean of Tonya to yell, because she knew he couldn’t read yet.
“Don’t worry, I’ll turn it around backward,” he said.
Tonya snatched the book away from Yoshi and rooted around in her purse. “Here, give him this.”
“But Jesus can’t use a hairbrush!”
Tonya snapped her purse shut. “It’s getting hot in Bethlehem,” she said. She marched over to the back door and used Little Women to prop it open.
Suddenly there was a huge commotion. We heard shrieks of laughter, running, and stomping. I peeked out from behind the curtain.
It was raining gold coins! Those crazy kids were throwing handfuls of chocolate coins into the audience, and the audience was going nuts.
“Hanukkah gelt,” whispered Sofie.
Backstage, we all looked at one another. This was going to be a tough act to follow.