Oh Henry!

Chapter Four. Fancy Dress

Chapter Four

Fancy Dress 

My leaving home seemed to please everyone. Gran was more than happy to have me as company because both of her boys were away, and Grumps was always at work. Mum didn't seem to mind either. That was a little hard to take, but I thought it was probably a lot of work looking after a baby, especially one as badly behaved as Marie. It was a treat being the centre of attention again but my happy life didn't last too long. 

"Look at this, Jack," said Gran waving a letter in Grump's face. "Our Steve is going to be demobbed next week." 

Now I knew from bitter experience what it meant to be deloused, and I dearly hoped that demobbing might be something worse.  

"That's grand. It'll be good to have another man about the house and another pay packet will surely come in handy." 

So, Uncle Steve was coming home, and it sounded like it would be for good. This could be trouble, but in many ways, it would be good to have him around. He played with us a lot and I was pretty sure he would help us deal with our girl troubles. 

Everywhere Rev, P.C., and I were losing out to girls. At school, it seemed that every girl could read. They could draw much nicer pictures. They never got confused around the maypole and nearly all of them could tie shoelaces. It was no contest. 

In the village, things were no better. There were three girls of our age, Brenda, Barbara and Jean. They lived close by and were hard to avoid. Invariably whenever they met, they would challenge us to some game or other and we always seemed to lose no matter which game we chose. They were experts at hopscotch, they could skip backwards faster than we could forwards and worst of all they were faster runners. It just wasn't fair. 

"Here's something you could beat them at." 

"What's that, Uncle Steve?" 

"They're having a Fancy Dress down at the Drill Hall in two weeks time. Surely, one of you could win that. They give super prizes too." 

"What's a Fancy Dress? Is it like a Baby Show?"  

"Nothing like that Henry. All you have to do is dress up in a costume that makes you look like some famous person or someone from a Nursery Rhyme. The person with the best costume wins. 

"Can you dress up as an animal?" asked P.C.. 

"Sure." 

"Then I'm going as a pig." 

"I'm going as a Lancaster bomber," said Rev. 

I had no idea what to be, but this seemed like a very winnable contest. If you were dressed up as a pig or an airplane, who could tell if you were a boy or a girl? 

Mom and Uncle Steve always liked to get involved in such competitions and for the next week, they spent a great deal of time together deciding on my costume. 

"Fred Astaire." 

"That would be perfect, Steve. I've got all the materials needed to make a small dress suit, and it would really be easy to make up a top hat. Henry, how would you like to be Fred Astaire? 

What a strange idea. How could you be dressed up to look like a set of stairs and who in their right mind would call a set of stairs, Fred? My puzzled look brought an instant response from Mum. 

"He's a famous film star, love, and I think he's in a picture at the Roxy this weekend. I'll get Gran and Grandad to take you, so that you can see what your costume will look like.