Prissy Takes A Fall

Prissy Takes a Fall

It was just another monotonous Monday morning. I woke up 10 minutes late as usually, groggily getting out of bed and screaming “I’M UP” in response to my mom’s annoying voice. I hopped in the shower, went back to sleep, spent fifteen minutes throwing clothes on the ground putting together an outfit, threw on some shoes fought with my unruly hair, brushed my teeth, spilled toothpaste on my jeans, packed my book bag for school and fumbled down the stairs. I grabbed my breakfast from my mom’s hand, said bye to my dogs Jojo and Drake, and squeezing out the front door.

After the 15 minute drive to school, my mom pulled up to the driving circle where all the kids got dropped off at. The day lagged on and on, all my classes felt like one slow motion scene from a movie. Silent sustained reading time was only for 30 minutes, but my mind told me we had been reading for two hours. I stared down the ticking clock at 2:59 my muscles tight with anticipation for tonight’s performance in the middle school play: my moment to play Prissy Andrews in our production of Anne of Greene Gables. That evening before the show when I ate dinner with the cast, my stomach was fluttering with excitement and anxiety. I continually chattered my teeth and murmured my lines to myself. I wanted to be perfect. My most uncomfortable scene was when I had to “flirt” with Mr. Phillips, the teacher in the play. Mr. Phillips happened to be played by Josh, the awkward thumb sucking, mischievous and creepy eighth grader that all of us sixth graders all made fun of, but also feared. His subtle lisp whenever he quietly whispered his lines added to his creepy, he reminded me of a young black version of Mr. Denzel Crocker from “Fairly Odd Parents”.

Nevertheless, I was excited, anxious and was giddy beyond belief, basically I was your stereotypical middle school girl times 10. When we all stepped onto the stage for the schoolhouse scene, I looked blankly out into the audience full of overly proud parents who were excited to see a mediocre show. I was on top of my lines, I was on fire. The audience laughed when they were supposed to and truly seemed to enjoy the scene. The further this scene progressed, the more comfortable I became onstage. I started to loosen up my posture and even let a small smile sneak on my face on stage.

  All the kids playing students in the scene sat stiffly on 4 cold, sterile, metal, risers stacked one on top of the other. Of course I was on the highest riser because I was the shortest, and was one of the most visible characters to the audience. When the scene came to an end, I said my last flirtatious line to creepy Mr. Phillips and headed down the risers as we had practiced thousands of times in rehearsal. But, I still had some anxiety left because I rushed down the risers forgetting how unstable they were and tumble down the risers and fell into the audience. I could feel the parents’ eyes staring at the clumsy girl who had tumbled off the stage. There was a unanimous “ooooooh” sound that came from my friends on stage and the audience. True to my character’s name I had tried to be to “prissy” as I walked down and ended up ruining the entire scene. I lifted my chin up and gazed out at all the faces staring at me as I laid flat on my stomach in the center aisle. I blushed, got back up and stood still. My body numb with fear couldn’t move until I realized I had to leave the theatre because everyone on stage had left. It was just me in the audience, with the audience. A woman in front of me gave me an “I feel so bad for you, but I don’t know how to help look”, and the balding man next to her with a camera in his lap offered his hand to help me. I ran stage left as fast as possible. My director Cindy looked at me, with a comforting expression on her face. All she said was “its okay, nobody even noticed”.