Sheep Be Damned by Dianne Stadhams

“To be or not to be the Fifth Sheep?” I repeat aloud in panic.

My part is twenty lines in total. One line is repeated. As Fifth Sheep I get to say, “Oh no it’s a dwarf singing hi ho” once in act one, twice in act two. The remaining seventeen lines offer the same depth of characterisation and scope for interpretation and delivery. 

I’m told by the Director that the Fifth Sheep is essential to the success of this show.

Pull the other one, I want to say. It’s the village pantomime. The audience is one hundred adults and pumpkin-faced kids in nappies.

The Fifth Sheep has three more lines than the Sixth Sheep and three less than the Fourth. The script writer, another villager, enjoys a reputation for numeracy, fairness and accuracy. I’ve been doubly promoted this year – jumped from Seventh Sheep of last year. Sheep feature in every show whatever the theme. Snow White, Jack and the Beanstalk, Cinderella ... ten sheep wow the crowd annually.

 The Tenth Sheep has a mere five lines and is struggling with those. Not the words themselves, just the order of delivery. But the cast and village understand. It’s wonderful that Maureen, she of tenth sheep fame, can still tread the boards with Alzheimer’s. 

Tonight is the dress rehearsal. I am not a happy mutton chop. My costume is a disaster.

“You can’t be serious,’ I complain, yet again, “I’ll be a laughing stock in this.”

I say this loudly to anyone in the communal dressing room who will listen. Nobody does listen. I can see that the cast are too busy preening their own costumes, lovingly stitched from abandoned curtains and old pillow cases, by Mrs Jackson and her fleet of biddies. The loyal seamstresses are from the retirement village. They chew on their false teeth as they sew a last minute, distressed hem or two. 

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Pambo Bwark ... glitter chick Dianne Stadhams

Dianne Stadhams is an Australian, resident in the UK, who works globally. She has spent many years in some of the world’s poorest nations working on poverty alleviation projects and has a PhD in communications for development. Her website www.stadhams.com gives details about this and her other interests.

I hate birthdays.

In my family a birthday is a misnomer for a ‘dead-darling’ day. Whatever happens to other people on their birthdays doesn’t work for us. We get a kind of upside down, inside out, back to front, reverse celebration. In my family when it’s your time to have a birthday you lie down with cloves of garlic nailed to the bed, a fetish around your ankle and fingers crossed not to sleep … until it’s all over … one way or the other.

“Garlic on the bed head? What next - elephant dung under the pillow?” my pa teased me on the eve of his 45^th.  He ordered my ma to remove the protection. My pa didn’t wake up. “He’s dead darling,” said Ma.

And not just my pa. My uncle died on his birthday - bitten by a snake. My first aunt got out of bed, ate her birthday breakfast with an up-yours-darling smile … and fell sideways off the chair. They said she was dead before she hit the floor. The celebrations were cancelled. My ma said we could use my aunt’s birthday cake for the funeral. But it took 60 hours from birthday party to burial pit. The cake got weevils. Nobody ate it. Ma fed the remains, weevils and all, to the hens. Their chicks were born with extra length feathers and super-wart wattles.

I could keep going as fifteen of my close family have departed this world on those bad days, their dead-darling days. My theory is that our family are mutants …with a genetic trigger alarmed for birthdays!

But this story is not about my family history and its genetic dysfunction. It’s about a bigger big question - luck. A girl or a boy - who is the luckier? When a girl is born the old men in the village say to the father “Better luck next time!”  My ma says to the fathers, “You are a lucky one. A daughter will be there to hold your hand when you die.”

When it comes to dead-darlings it’s evens on luck. The count changed with my sister’s sixth birthday. Her best present was a pet chicken with long golden feathers that sparkled in the sun ... and a red wattle with so many purple warts it was impossible to agree on the total. It was one supreme-ugly bird but she loved it on sight. Personally I would have denied ownership of something so hideous. But I digress – a birthday present is a gift after all. She called it Pambo which is Swahili for glitter. We all called it Pambo Bwark because it wouldn’t stop squawking ... very loudly. My sister carried it everywhere despite our taunts.

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Day 4: Lost Baubles by Dianne Stadhams

A hedgehog might be cute but would you want to cuddle it? Or feed it and take it home? So Judy James ponders as she peers into the mirror of the staff toilet at the bus depot. Her tuft of blonde spikes is a tribute to cheap gel and dexterous fingers.

“Frigging heck,” she spits at the mirror, “he won’t even stop for a drink.”

It’s an hour until her shift is over, quiet time. Tidy up and plan her escape. Clock watch till lock up and walk out. Her office is open from 9am until 5pm, Monday to Friday. There is usually a queue when the doors are unlocked.

Umbrellas, they are the most popular request. According to her boss, aka The Oracle, over three thousand umbrellas found their way to the lost property depot last year. Only a few are ever claimed. Between Christmas and New Year her office packs up all the orphans and sends them to a charity which sells them in shops, staffed by volunteers, around the country.

Judy is fascinated where they send the weird bits and bobs. Who buys abandoned breast implants (three sets found on three different buses during one month), or a giraffe skull? Wacky or what? She plans to write a book about it.

“And your story, madam?” Judy asks a lurid pink, folding umbrella, “who left you on the number 47 bus?”

Books outnumber umbrellas by ten to one but there is only signed copy of the title, Baubles, a collection of short stories. There are lots of other items that have absconded from their owners. How can someone forget to take a lawnmower off a bus? Mind you Judy is more impressed that someone had managed to persuade a driver to have it on the bus.

Not all lost items are found, like the misplaced Rolex valued at £40,000. The staff award for ‘Lost of the Year’ has gone to a speech therapist. She reclaimed a suitcase of battery-powered vibrators. Used them in children’s mouths to stimulate tongue movement. Or so she said, blushing. Judy doesn’t want to think about it… too gross.

About the author

Dianne Stadhams is an Australian, resident in the UK, who works globally. She has spent many years in some of the world’s poorest nations working on poverty alleviation projects and has a PhD in communications for development. Her website www.stadhams.com gives details about this and her other interests. She loves to write – everything and anything from books to scripts to letters of complaint.