Excerpt from a story titled:

Sleep Learning

(A story based on a First Grade stage play)

In the first-grade play, I was to be a pint-sized pirate like the rest of my class.  We had newspapers folded on the tops of our heads like Napoleon hats.  I was to wear black pants, a loose white shirt, and some kind of red scarf around my skinny waist, which was where my sword would be stuffed.  My father made the sword out of wood and painted the blade silver just for the play.  When the day finally came, I was so terrified as we walked out onto the stage.  When we reached the center of the stage, the prerecorded music to a play called H.M.S. Pinafore began to play.  We were to turn and face the audience and hold onto our waists with our left hands while rocking our bodies back and forth, shifting from one foot to the other while mouthing the words to the music and clenching our right fists as we swung them back and forth to the beat.  Well I did no such thing; instead I searched and searched the auditorium looking for my parents. All the other kids were rocking back and forth while I stood there like a rock in a windy field of tall grass, and when I spotted my parents, I brought the auditorium into a bout of roaring laughter as I raised both my hands and yelled, "Hi, Mom!"