Choir Practice

For audio click here

Morning has broken, like the first morning, I sang along with gusto, belting out the words even if I wasn't belting out the tune. I loved choir, and it wasn't just because it got me out of another game of football at lunch time, I just loved singing. I wasn't a great singer, but surely it was the taking part that counted. After all, that's what they told me when the positioned me at right back on the football field, when all I wanted to be left back in the changing rooms. And unlike football what I lacked in singing ability, I more than made up for in enthusiasm. Mrs. Jones the music teacher played the tune with one hand on the keyboard while she conducted with the other.

Mine is the sunlight. Mine is the morning. Born of the one light. I was swaying as I sung, enjoying the rhythm.

“Stop.” Mrs. Jones screamed.

Eden saw pla… we ground to a halt.

“Girls, sing that line again.” The girls sang.

“Now boys.” The three of us sang.

“David, just you.”

“Mark, you.”

“Gareth you.”

Mine is the sunlight. Mine is the morning.

“Okay Gareth, can you just mime from now on?”

“What Miss?” My eleven-year-old brain didn't quite understand.

“Mime boy, move your lips but don't sing.”

The girls giggled, And I felt myself getting redder and redder.

“One, two, three.”

My mouth moved like a fish while the others sang around me. It hurt like hell, but I was going to show that bitch.

“Davies you Twat,” Deano thumped my arm as the other team celebrated a goal. “Why didn't you stop that?” he shouted. 

We could hear morning has broken coming beautifully out of the windows of the hall behind us. No gawky eleven-year-old male voice to ruin it. I missed my choir practice, but there was no way I was going to stand there and mime, even football was better than that.

 Deano punched my arm again. It hurt like hell but I was going to show him.

“Get back to choir practice,” he said.

I don't know what came over me, maybe it was because I'd lost my creative outlet, or maybe I'd just had enough, but I swung around with my fist clenched and screaming like a man possessed. I connected flush on Deano's nose; a geyser of blood erupting like a volcano. He squealed and dropped to the floor.

I didn't even get into that much trouble. They didn’t even call my parents. Mostly because I had a bruise like a map of Australia on my arm, that showed he had started it. My only punishment was to stay inside during breaks and lunchtime for a week, which meant I didn't have to play football. That wasn’t any punishment at all. But what made it most sweet, was that Deano was Mrs. Jones's son.