“That’s Mommy,” he would be saying to little Judy. Or perhaps there was no need to say it. By now Judy’s little namesake must be well acquainted with the mysteries of TV.
“Better acquainted than I am,” Judy thought ruefully.
She couldn’t overcome the fear that something would go wrong with the show. Little Judy wouldn’t see the microphone dangling over her mother’s head. She wouldn’t see the cameras being moved in like menacing monsters. She wouldn’t know, as Judy did, that somewhere back in the film room there had been something “as dangerous as an atom bomb.”
“If Peter were here I could ask him about it,” Judy thought.
“The advertising is over, and the show is about to begin,” Pauline whispered.
Judy glimpsed the little girl cleaning her teeth on the TV set. Since the advertising was all on film, it did not seem to interrupt the play that was now beginning.
“Look!” she heard Clarissa whisper. “It’s the palace scene with the king and queen. I wonder if that’s a real baby in the crib.”
On the television screen the king and queen seemed to be crooning over a real baby, but Judy suspected the crib was empty. The throne room was only a painted scene on a wooden frame with a few props in the foreground to make it appear real. The spotlight rested on the royal family for a moment and then moved over to Irene. Dressed as one of the fairies, she sang to summon the others:
“Fairies! Fairies! Now appear
Bringing gifts for baby dear.