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Tommy groaned and I saw Claire, who was babysitting baby Theo, stifle a giggle. Aleksy left, and Claire went to the living room with Theo. Pickles followed her, and George said he was going to go next door because Theo was here, so it would probably be nice and quiet. That left me as really the only adult left supervising the poster making.

‘Right, let’s get on with this because the sooner it’s done the better,’ Tommy moaned.

‘What should I draw?’ Henry asked.

‘Whatever,’ Tommy replied with a sigh.

‘Why are you so mean now? You used to be our friend,’ Henry said, sounding sad.

‘Yeah,’ Toby agreed. ‘You used to be fun.’

‘Oh, boys, he’s still our friend, he’s just going through some stuff,’ Summer said. We all turned to look at her, including Tommy.

‘What stuff?’ Martha asked.

‘You know, teenage stuff. We’ll be like that one day, although I don’t think I will, because I am far too nice to become like him,’ Summer explained. I jumped on the table, and nuzzled Summer. I mean, she was a genius sometimes. Even Tommy’s lips twitched.

‘And how do you know I am “going through some stuff”?’ he asked, but more kindly.

‘I heard Mummy and Daddy talk and they said you were a good kid underneath it all, so it would probably be OK. Although Daddy said if it wasn’t then we’d have to visit you in jail.’

Tommy burst out laughing. The others looked at him a little hesitantly and then they joined in. I’m not sure they understood why they were laughing. Neither did I. I had heard about jail and it didn’t sound fun. You were kept in cages, like cats were when they were in the shelter, but at least in a shelter lovely caring people looked after you; in jail they did not.

‘OK guys, you’re right. I am your friend and I have been a bit unhappy lately but I’m fine. I know, let’s make these the best posters ever and then Aleksy will be so pleased with us he’ll stop bossing us around.’

‘He won’t,’ Martha said. ‘Because we are going to audition and he said he and Connie are in charge of choosing the talent.’

‘Does that mean he might not choose us?’ Toby sounded worried.

‘Of course he will,’ Henry reassured him.

‘Yes, because we’re brilliant,’ Summer finished.

‘What are you going to do?’

‘The four of us are going to sing “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer”,’ Toby said. ‘We wanted to do something cooler, like rapping, but Mum said it had to be Christmas songs.’

‘You could write a rap to go in the song,’ Tommy suggested.

‘But we don’t exactly know how to write a rap,’ Henry pointed out.

‘OK, how about we do the posters and then before the audition I can help you write a rap for the song? Are you all going to dress as reindeers?’

‘If we have to,’ Henry muttered.

‘We do,’ Summer declared.

‘And Pickles is going to be Rudolph, we have to figure out how to make his nose red and I’ve got antlers to put on him, but Mum’s worried he’ll eat them,’ Martha said.

‘He probably will,’ Tommy said with a laugh. Every time he laughed I saw my old Tommy again. I went to give him a fuss, to reward him. He was still there, I was right.

‘So you’ll really help us?’ Toby asked, still not convinced. Toby wasn’t as easily persuaded as the others.

‘Yeah, we can write a rap, like “Rudolph’s nose was so red, he couldn’t play with others, had to go to bed, but one night it was dark and stormy and Rudolph was the hero of the story.” Wow, I just did that off the top of my head, I’m pretty good at this.’ Tommy laughed again.

‘It’s brilliant,’ Martha said, sweetly. ‘The boys can do the rap and we can all do the singing.’

‘And Pickles will be so cute as Rudolph,’ Summer finished. That was all well and good but what about me, George, Snowball and Hana? No one had given any hint as to what our parts would be yet.

Aleksy was amazed when he came back and found a neat pile of posters all stacked.

‘We’ve done twenty for you,’ Tommy said, but he’d gone back to using his sulky voice.

‘Wow, and they are really good.’ The children all beamed at him.

CHARITY CHRISTMAS SHOW

AUDITION FOR A CHARITY

CHRISTMAS SHOW

IN AID OF HELEN STREET SHELTER– A

BRILLIANT AND WORTHWHILE CAUSE

ALL WELCOME– SINGERS, DANCERS,

ACTORS

JOIN US ON SATURDAY 1ST NOVEMBER AT

EDGAR COMMUNITY HALL

SUPPORT A GREAT CAUSE BY HELPING US

TO PUT TOGETHER A GREAT

COMMUNITY EVENT

BRINGING CHRISTMASSPIRIT TO ALL AND

HELPING PEOPLE WHO AREN’T LUCKY

ENOUGH TO HAVE HOMES THIS CHRISTMAS

WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR?

YOU WILL NOT WANT TO MISS OUT!!

There were drawings of stars, Christmas trees, and even Santa on the posters. Aleksy was right, they were really good.

‘And we’ve been practising for our audition too,’ Toby informed him.

‘Nice one, Tommy,’ Aleksy said, patting him on the back. Tommy scowled. ‘The hall is looking good now, but we need to hold the auditions and then cast the show before we can start rehearsing and then we need to look at sets and selling tickets and wow, there’s so much to do.’ He sounded abit dejected.

‘Where’s Connie?’ Martha asked.