Eleven O'Clock Number

MUSICAL #3: SISTER ACT

03: THE CHURCH HYMNS COULD USE SOME JAZZING UP

« ya gotta work it, ladies! pray it to the balcony! »

IN ALLISON'S FAMILY, Sunday has always meant one thing and one thing only.

Church.

She's never pegged herself as a particularly religious person, but, well, her mother is, and quite honestly, even if she wasn't forced into attendance, Allison would've most likely gone anyway. It's been too many years, too many Sundays. She'd sit around and let the guilt fester and not manage to get anything done until she'd at least gone to confession. Or something.

So here she is, humming along to Praise My Soul the King of Heaven kind of half-heartedly and mostly focused on getting through yet another Sunday without incident.

 (She may feel guilty about not going to church, but that doesn't mean she enjoys it. It's quite possibly one of the most boring experiences she ever has to go through. Amazingly, it gets even more boring every week. Honestly, that's the only real miracle here.)

She's close to drifting off when she hears a booming tenor voice join the masses, and blinks in surprise.

"Angels help us to adore him! Ye behold him face to face!" 

Allison blinks. Sounds like someone's a little overenthusiastic, she thinks to herself wryly. Well, at least his voice is good.

"Sun and moon bow down before him!"

Allison's eyes narrow in suspicion. This church is local, and she knows pretty much every regular. There is not one regular who is enthusiastic and sings in tune (Mrs. Ullman thinks she's the next X Factor champion, but the cold, hard truth is, she really isn't).

"Dwellers all in time and space!"

She shoots a quick glance at her mother, who is fixated on her hymns book, then begins to send searching looks behind her, craning her neck slightly to catch sight of this mystery singer.

"Praise Him! Praise Him!"

A gut feeling is beginning to make its way into Allison's stomach now, because really, there is only one boy she knows who would be enthusiastic enough about hymn singing to blast out the chorus at around the same volume as a foghorn, without actually sounding like a foghorn.

"PRAISE HIM! PRAISE HIM!" 

Allison winces. Yep, only one guy.

"PRAISE WITH US THE GOD OF GRACE!"

Her and Toby are going to have a very long conversation later, Allison thinks to herself, about what is a good and decent volume to sing hymns at in church. 

Because it has to be Toby, doesn't it? she realises as they sit down and the first lector begins her readings. There is no one else in the entire county of New York - nay, the entire city of New York - that it could be. Toby Martin is, after all, one of a kind.

(She hasn't decided yet whether this is a good thing or a bad thing. Probably the latter.)

Between readings, Allison seizes the opportunity to glance behind her, and her suspicions are confirmed at the sight of Toby's tall frame in between that of two elderly women, hunched over a prayers book with an intensity that only he could manage.

 She assumes this is Toby's first time at their church. Possibly Toby's first time at church ever.

Mass runs considerably smoothly after that, if Allison turns a blind eye to Toby singing all the hymns louder than the entire remainder of the congregation put together, as well as whispering very loudly during each reading to the elderly women next to him about various kids from school dotted around the church.