Growing Up Aimi

"I never thought I'd have to stand in front of this many people. Again. And I certainly did not expect to have to do it again this soon," I mumbled to myself as I shuffled from one foot to the other, then back again.There I was. As actors faced the audience, I was standing on the left side of the backstage of the theater, dressed in all black, full techie style. This time I made sure that even the soles of my black tennis shoes were black as well. I started wearing all black from the first time I volunteered to be on the stage crew for the Willy Wonka production the junior highers at our school did here at the LoGlas Theater earlier this same school year.I have come quite a long way since being assigned to hold up a wall, told to stand still with a pulled-back curtain firmly in my grip, or assigned to move a table or bed on and off the stage when cued, or coordinating with my reliable friend, Mack, the placement of just the right prop in the right place at the right time.If I were on that so called "journey" of one thousand steps, I may be somewhere around step 400 or so, having jumped from steps 10 to 20 to where I am now, even though I am still a kid. I don't mind people calling me a kid. I am. I still drop valuable things that require too much money to replace. Like my smartphone. Looking into the screen of my old non-bouncing phone now is like looking into a cracked mirror and seeing a wizard or witch waiting to tell me who the fairest of them all is. Hint. It's not me.I should be more careful. I know. But Dad says that adults make mistakes, too. Like dropping their phones. I have two prime examples of people who live in my own house. That's why there are repair shops for things that people carry. He says he could have flown to Denver and back for what it cost him to replace his lost car key. Then he found it! Hmmm…I wonder how far I can travel on the amount it costs for a cell phone screen replacement. I heard probably about the cost of a one-day pass to Disneyland.I stood motionless as I peered through the just-closed final curtain. A few moments ago, we put a wrap on the last performance of our unique take on Beauty and the Beast. We called it The Rose and the Thorn. I guess the thinking is, or was, that if we can twist Roald Dahl's Charlie and the Chocolate Factory to our tastes, then Disney's Beauty and the Beast would be fair game as well. Or, should I say, Gabrielle-Suzanne Barbot de Villeneuve's Beauty and the Beast. She wrote it, gee, like, almost 200 years ago. I won't say her name, however, for fear I say it wrong and Violet gets offended. She's like that and will know how to say it. Not just because she is from France, but can speak French. And she does love to point it out to me when I make a mistake.Disney tweaked BntB. It sounds cool to say it letter by letter. B … N … T… B. What was I saying? Oh. Since Disney tweaked BntB to make it more fluffy, more universally appealing (according to their formula for mass attraction) and, of course, more money making, I guess I can change the story around any way I want, as well. If I like. I mean, there's like no chance that some 200 year old woman is going to come after me for changing her story. If she did, I think I'd like to write a musical about that.I wonder. What does the voice of a 200 year-old woman sound like?Maybe I should look into the mirror behind my cracked phone screen and ask. Anyways, if she did come back she'd go after Disney first. They have more money than I do. The Heliuna Academy did come into some money not long ago. I told that story in another book.The LoGlas Theater is about what happens next.