The music block was always a little warmer than the main building.  Something to do with the thick carpets everywhere, and the windows always being closed to keep the music in.  It looked a lot nicer than the main building, too, and had a kind of warm, polished smell to it.  Music wasn’t Sandy’s favourite subject, but she always liked being here.

For the last two weeks, they’d been doing nothing in Music but rehearse for the Year Eight Carol Concert at the end of term.  Sandy had never heard of half the hymns they were supposed to sing.  The other half she vaguely remembered singing in primary school, but had turned out to have strange, confusing extra verses.  Like ‘Once in Royal David’s City,’ which spent a whole verse describing how great a son Jesus was, and ended it with, ‘Christian children all must be / Mild, obedient, good as He.’

“I bet that’s the whole reason they chose it for us to sing,” she whispered to her friend Anastasia, “Subliminal messages.”

“It’s like that bit in ‘Away in a Manger’ about ‘no crying he makes.’  I bet he cried loads.  He was a baby.  I bet there’s nothing in the Bible to say he didn’t.”

 “There’s copies of the Bible in the library.  We could go there at lunch and check.”

A loud, commanding voice rose over theirs.  “Anastasia and Alexandra, the Russian tsar’s two beautiful daughters!” said Mr Finch, “Concentrate!”

Sandy and Anastasia looked dutifully back at their lyric sheets.  Mr Finch was one of the more reasonable teachers, but his voice was intimidating enough when he was in a good mood.  No-one wanted to find out what it sounded like when he really decided to yell.

After a minute or two, Anastasia whispered, “Wasn’t it the tsar’s wife who was called Alexandra?”

“Yeah.  And their son was called Alexei, I think.”  Sandy also didn’t like the closing lines of the song much.  ‘And like stars His children crowned / All in white shall wait around.’  White was her least favourite colour.  It wasn’t so much that she was worried about getting to Heaven and being made to wear a colour she hated; it was more that it made her worry about what else God liked that she didn’t.

Anastasia had skipped head to the next song.  “‘Angels help us to adore Him’?  Why would you need help to adore someone?  You either do or you don’t.”

Sandy shrugged.

(To be continued)