Alison’s Costume Clue

Alison and Wendy help their teacher prepare costumes for the class play. Each character has a simple picture card showing what to wear. The girls spread the cards on a low bench beside the large costume basket.

Wendy finds a blue hat and places it with the sailor’s striped shirt. Alison lifts out a green cloak, but the card for the forest guide shows a brown one. The cloak they need seems to be missing from the basket.

Alison suggests borrowing a different costume, although the teacher asks them to check the picture carefully first. The guide’s cloak has a round wooden button at its neck. Wendy remembers feeling a large button inside the folded green cloak.

They lay the green cloak flat on the bench instead of pulling at the other costumes. Along its edge, Alison notices a narrow strip of brown fabric. She lifts one corner and finds that the inside is a different colour from the outside.

Mrs Bell shows them that the cloak can be turned over and worn with either side facing out. Wendy gently unfolds it while Alison checks the round button. With the brown side showing, it matches the forest guide’s card.

They put the cloak beside the correct picture and finish sorting the remaining costumes. This time they check both sides of a folded scarf before deciding where it belongs, remembering how easily one hidden detail confused them.

During rehearsal, the child playing the forest guide puts on the brown cloak and fastens its wooden button. Alison watches from beside Wendy. The costume fits the character, and nobody has needed to find or make another cloak.

After the play, the girls fold it with a little of each colour visible beside its picture card. “Next time we will know both sides,” Alison says. She likes the idea that the missing costume had been in their hands all along.