This is the last practice for the year. Choir Director says, All your mothers brought treats for snack time. Our final performance is Sunday, so we must let our voices be the very best. After practice, we’ll have treats in the church basement.

I want to ask her what kinds of treats, but she starts swinging her arms. The organist begins playing. The organist’s hair is white like our robes. White as the divinity my mother whips up when she’s up to here with the holidays.

Jimmy breaks in on the wrong measure. Susan’s off key. Choir Director mouths the words for the kids who can’t read music and squirm the most.

Spit collects in the corners of her mouth. Choir Director never asks what we want to sing. She thinks her songs are the best, which is prideful and so God better be paying attention. At least we can wear our robes today. They are satiny smooth. Everyone in church says we’re God’s little angels. This is a bit wrong because girls can’t be angels, but I don’t say anything because it’s not nice to tell adults they’re ignorant, even if they are.

Sometimes after practices, I sit on Organist’s lap and pretend my feet are hers as they prance the pedals. When I’m tall enough, I’ll take lessons. I’ll make the pipes flap open and closed and the whole congregation will wish there wasn’t a sermon and that I’d play all morning. I’ll jazz it up. They’ll clap and yell amen and stand even if they’re not able like in my friend’s church. The only downside about her church is that the devil is always tricking them, and if they stay tricked then they’ll burn in a thousand fires for longer than humans live. Luckily, I’m Methodist so all we worry about is how much money goes into the offering plate so we can pay off the extra parking lot and the parsonage gardeners.

But I can’t sit on Organist’s lap today because I’m gonna be first to the snacks. I have to get there before Choir Director so when she metronome-taps my shoulder and says, No seconds, Miss Mary, I will say, I haven’t had any yet, Miss Director. And she will say, God does not like greedy children. And I will say, God does not like the songs you choose.

After the one billionth time singing the song, Choir Director finally says practice is over. I crouch, ready to run to the basement, hang up my robe, and eat my firsts. But now she’s saying to line up in the choir room after Sunday school with our robes on. We always do, so why’s she wasting our time? Be careful, she says, of your angel voices. Please refrain from yelling and shouting at your school picnics. That reminds me that summer is almost here which means swimming at the pool every day and eating peppermint patties at the concession stand and maybe this year I’ll jump off the high dive instead of crying like a ninny and being led back down the ladder by the lifeguard. She says, Walk like ladies and gentlemen to the basement. Dad is always telling me to act like a lady, and I am sick of it. I’d like to know who this lady is I’m impersonating because then I’d kick dirt on her dress.

Organist plays the Charlie Brown song. We laugh because church isn’t the place for cartoons. I’ve got my robe over my head before we reach the bottom of the stairs. My head gets stuck in the neck hole. Someone pushes me.

When I get into the robe room, everybody’s already there. We pull and yell and grab the hangers with our names on them. Organist is still playing upstairs. I say, I’m gonna get firsts! Jimmy calls me Mary Magdalene. I call him Heathen, which is what Mom calls Dad when he won’t hurry up on Sundays. Jimmy head butts me in the chest. I fall into Susan. Susan falls backwards. I grab at her robe, but the satin slips through my fingers. The fan that makes the organ work is whirling. The corner of Susan’s robe catches in the blades. Her mouth opens like an organ pipe, but no sound comes out. Jimmy double-times it up the stairs to tell Organist to stop playing. The fan spins Susan closer. She reaches out for us. The belt slaps her thighs. Over and over. Her white tights burn black. They tear. There’s a smell like when Mom lit her cigarette to close to the stove and lost her eyebrows.

We yell. Susan! Fire!

Preacher runs in. He’s always on the lookout for fire. Preacher plays tug of war with Susan and the fan belt. Her robe isn’t white anymore. She cries off key. Preacher holds her in his arms. I pat her hand. I say, Your legs look like jellyrolls. Then I push through the children and run to the snack table.

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Every Good Girl Does Fine by Erin Pringle
originally published November 2, 2008