Parent Teacher Meeting Grade Three Miss Galloway's Class

Last week, it was the Grade Three's turn to entertain the parents at the Parent Teacher meeting. The girls had told me, incorrectly, that it was at the May meeting. They came home on Monday and said they had to be ready for Thursday. Mary Jane had the part in the play as the girl, so she was okay for a costume. But Suzanne was a fairy.

In desperation 1 called her former dancing teacher, and borrowed a turquoise ballet tutu from her young daughter. I made a wreath of roses on a base of pipe cleaners, wound it with ribbon for the fairy crown, covered a window rod with silver foil, laced it with pink ribbon, and managed the required star for the wand. I put pom poms on her old ballet shoes, and Suzanne was a fairy.

I had to work all day Thursday so I could be off in the evening for the affair. I began to feel odd during the afternoon. I threw away the aging daffodils on the desk thinking their rather high odor was affecting me. Then all of a sudden I had to run for the basement washroom and be violently sick. 1 struggled back upstairs and left Mary Forrester holding the desk and called Wilf to come and bring me home. I crawled into bed and didn't care whether I lived or died.

About six thirty I was sick again. I made it to the bathroom. Mother was passing the door, trailing the brood, and she held my throbbing head while I did my best to deposit my insides, whole and entire, into the toilet. 1 had an audience, too. I couldn't see them through the haze of illness, but I could hear their excited remarks. Mary Jane: Suzanne! Suzanne! Come and see mother. Is she ever sick! Suzanne: Gosh! Jirnmeee, Jimmie, come quick! Jimmy: Yippee! Michael: Momma! Mom! It wasn't any fun at all when I crawled back, exhausted, into bed.

 THAT show was over!

Then it started-- Aren't you coming to the show? Won't you come? You hafta come!

Although Mary had been phoned to take my place, I didn't have the strength to resist their pleas. And Mary would be there for emergencies, so I crawled out of bed, and got Mary Jane into her flowery best dress. Suzanne became a fairy, wistful and sweet. (No one would ever suspect the iron that runs through her system!)

Mother took Jimmy over and made a little gentleman out of him, complete with grey flannels and blazer. Michael, the two year old, stayed at home with his Granny. I was dragging myself into my suit when there was a feeble knock on the bedroom door. There stood Mary Jane, a key character of the P.T.A. play. "I don't feel very good." Oh, no, I thought. Miss Galloway will never forgive us. All those rehearsals. There was a mad dash into the bathroom and unmistakable sounds.

'Oh, Mary Jane! Mary Jane! Did you get any on your dress!" (A concerned mother?) "No, Morn", said Mary Jane between urps, "1 bent way over." She was standing in an arc, feet away from the john, arms wrapped around her full skirt, while she was oh, so sick.

I put her in the bed. Seven fifteen. We were to be at the school at seven thirty.

I frantically tried to find out if Suzanne knew Mary Jane's part. She knew it word for word, but she was a fairy for the night, and nothing else.

We were late, but Mary Jane recovered enough to go. 1 prayed her through the play; Mary was with me every word of the way. 

Suzanne recited her fairy poem.

"A fairy went a-marketing. She bought a silver fish.

She put it in a crystal bowl, upon a golden dish.

An hour she sat in wonderment

And watched its silver gleam,

And then she gently took it up

And put it in a stream."

She said it audibly, and not too fast, much to my amazement. She had raced through all the practice sessions, because, quote, "I am glad to get to the end of it."

There were three songs to be sung with all the cast on the stage. At the end of the first one Mary Jane took on a greenish tinge. Dear God, don't let her be sick all over Mary Catherine who is standing directly in front of her, decked out in feathered head dress and satin dancing costume. Dear God, get her off the stage. Please. And Dear God did just that. Mary Jane made a hurried exit, and managed to get to the washroom in time.

That was our finale. Mary said a relieved good-bye and I gathered the brood. We left to the tune of Suzanne setting up a very un-fairy-like howl because she was going to miss the party after the show.