The fourth-grade classroom at Avalon Elementary smelled faintly of pencil shavings and floor wax. Construction paper wreaths were crookedly taped to the walls, their glitter shedding onto the linoleum whenever someone brushed past. Outside, Naples winter meant open windows and salt in the air, not cold, but December still arrived with a kind of expectation.
She sat in the last seat of the second row and looked up when Mr. Owen paused beside her desk, and quietly reminded her that she was not supposed to participate.
Her mother had already spoken to him. We do not celebrate Christmas. The words had settled into the room like a rule no one else had to follow. When the class practiced their holiday songs, she was meant to be sent to another classroom, somewhere neutral, while the others learned what they would sing in the cafeteria for the Christmas program.
There were other rules, too. She was not allowed to say the Pledge of Allegiance. Each morning, when her classmates stood and faced the flag, she stayed seated. But she whispered the words anyway, careful not to move her lips too much.
Mr. Owen noticed everything. He was patient but firm, tall with sleeves rolled just past his elbows. Still, she had already learned that patience could be worn down.
When the choral rehearsals began, she asked him if she could stay.
“I already know the songs,” she said, quickly, before he could answer.
He looked at her for a moment, then nodded. “You can sit quietly.”
She did more than sit. She listened.
The class was singing Silent Night, Jingle Bells, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, and Silver Bells. She knew the first three from the radio, from grocery stores, from everywhere Christmas seemed to leak into. Silver Bells was different. She had never heard it, but she loved it the moment she heard the first notes crackle from the record player.
She leaned forward when they practiced, memorizing phrases as they rose and fell. At home, she wrote the words down from memory, correcting them the next day by listening again. For days, she worked at it, line by line, until the song settled into her the same way the others had.
Once she knew it, she began her campaign.
She asked Mr. Owen if she could sing along—just in class. He said no. She asked again the next day. And the next. Four weeks passed. Four days before the performance, she stood beside his desk as the room buzzed with children pulling on jackets.
“Please,” she said. “I know all the songs. I learned Silver Bells just by listening.”
He didn’t respond.
“I promise I won’t tell my mother,” she added. “I’m not a Jehovah’s Witness. She is. It’s not fair.”
She said it plainly, not angrily. She had been carrying the thought too long to decorate it.
Three days later, he sighed and nodded. Just once. Just this.
The auditorium was transformed the night of the performance. Red and green streamers hung from the ceiling. Paper snowflakes fluttered from the walls. A Christmas tree stood to one side of the stage, its lights humming faintly. The cafeteria tables were folded away, and folding chairs filled the room in uneven rows.
When she stepped onto the stage with her class, her heart raced. The lights were bright, warm against her face. She scanned the audience and saw smiles, familiar haircuts, parents leaning forward with cameras raised.
She sang.
She sang every word, her voice steady, her chest full. She felt taller than she was, larger than the rules that had kept her quiet. When she looked down again, she saw her brother in the front row, small and serious in his kindergarten seat. He looked up at her, mouthing the words, singing along to the songs she had taught him at home.
It was just their secret. Hers. Mr. Owen’s. And her brother’s.
When the final note faded, applause filled the room. She clapped with everyone else, her hands stinging, her face warm. For that moment, she belonged completely—standing under the lights, singing her heart out, the sound of it carried far beyond the rules that had tried to keep it small.
Simona A. Brinson
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