Molly Button and the School Play
Molly Button was seven years old and had a problem. A real proper, cry yourself to sleep at night kind of problem. She’d asked her Mum and Dad but they thought it was funny. She’d asked her Gran but with her false teeth and all she wasn’t much help either. She had two days left and if she didn’t solve her problem well….. It was just about going to be the end of the world.
You see….. Molly Button couldn’t whistle.
Now generally, Molly could accept that not being able to whistle might not appear to be an “end of the world” kind of problem but in her case it really was. Her school was putting on Pinocchio as their Christmas play and she was playing Jiminey Cricket. It was one of the main parts, with only Pinochio having more to say. Danny Harrison was playing Pinocchio and had to wear a false nose. He was welcome to that bit. Anyway, she knew all of her words and practised with mum and dad every night. Her Mum had made her a costume and she even had her own little umbrella. Molly found tears springing to her eyes even as she thought about it. THE SONG!
Oh, she knew all the words to that too. It was just the whistling part. She just couldn’t do it. She’d tried everything, puckering up, tongue behind the teeth, two fingers in the mouth and blow. None of it worked. All that came out after her “Give a little whistle” was a dribbly raspberry kind of noise which made everyone laugh. She didn’t want them to laugh. Not at all.
The evening before the first performance Molly was, yet again, talking to her Mum about the play
“But Mum, everyone will just laugh and I’ll look stupid”
“You will not look stupid. You’ll look like a very clever girl who’s learned all her words and has tried her hardest to whistle. People will love you for trying Moll”
“I can’t do it Mum” cried Molly “ the parents might not laugh at me but the kids in my class will. They do at every rehearsal” and with that Molly ran upstairs to her bedroom for more last minute whistling practice.
An hour later she emerged screaming from her room with blood dripping down her face.
“Oh my life Molly!” shrieked her Mum as she came to the bottom of the stairs to see whether a herd of elephants has just come down her stairs. “What on earth…. Come into the kitchen and let me have a look”
Molly’s Mum gently moved away the blood-stained tissue which Molly had been clutching to her mouth.
“Oh Molly, look” she cried suddenly smiling “You’ve lost your first tooth and sure enough, when Molly looked in the mirror there, staring back at her was a gap where her front tooth had previously been.
“The tooth fairy will bring you some money if you leave it under your pillow tonight” soothed her Mum “It happens every time you lose a tooth”.
“Great!” said Molly sighing heavily “That’s just great. Its bad enough that I can’t whistle but now I look like Grandma with half my teeth missing” Molly wasn’t crying any more. Her face was screwed up with rage. This was just taking the biscuit. The other kids would surely laugh at her now.
On the evening of the first performance of the play Molly’s parents took their seats with some trepidation. They had taken Molly to school earlier and had managed to persuade her that everything would be fine. No one would laugh, they would all be too busy remembering their lines. The tooth fairy, obviously (a) feeling sorry for Molly (b) wishing to mark the momentous occasion of the loss of a first tooth and (c) being somewhat short of change, had left her a £2 coin under her pillow in return for her tooth and this seemed to have cheered Molly up a great deal. They both just hoped that no one laughed too loudly at the whistling part of her song.
Molly needn’t have worried. The audience had plenty to laugh at without her inability to whistle. Pinocchio’s nose fell off several times before a rather flustered teacher ran on to the stage and wrapped sellotape right around his head to keep it on. Giepetto’s whiskers kept causing the small boy underneath them to sneeze and the fairy godmother’s crown sat lopsidedly over one of Lucy Tranter’s eyes so she couldn’t see where she was going properly and kept bumping into things. It was priceless.
Then came the song. Mrs Benting on piano played the introduction, Molly took a deep breath (as did her Mum and Dad) and started to sing
“When you get in trouble
and you don’t know right from wrong
Give a little whistle……
And to everyone’s complete amazement, whistle she did. A clear high pitched pucker whistle. She actually nearly stopped singing in shock but managed to carry on to the end of the song inserting perfect whistles all the way through. When she had finished the place erupted. Everyone knew that Molly had been trying to learn to whistle. Various parents and teachers had all given her their own tips. She received a standing ovation which lasted at least two minutes, during which Molly managed a secret yet beaming thumbs up to her Mum and Dad.
On the way home and much hugging and
congratulating later her Mum remarked
”It must have been losing that tooth Moll. The gap must have just made enough
difference”
“Do you think so Mum?” her daughter pondered for a while before continuing
“When do you think I will lose the next one then?” she asked, her brow creased into tiny furrows
“Oh I don’t know” replied her Mum “Could be any time, a month, six months, who knows”
“Well” said Molly firmly “It had better be
before the end of term because we’re doing the