Alice in the Schoolroom

Monday was the last teaching day of the school year, and on Tuesday there was always a class outing, but Wednesday had no special activities except for the Awards Chapel in the middle of the day. Each year Ruthann revised her script of 'Alice in Wonderland' to make it suitable for the students she had that year. They learned their lines for homework the penultimate week of school, but Wednesday was devoted to pulling together a play for the parents to watch at the end of the day.

The first run through of the day was a disaster. The children had either not read the stage directions or had memorized them to say with their words. Despite a week's worth of memorization they did not know their lines and kept asking in disbelief whether they really had to do it without the script. Ruthann, with the thinning patience of a teacher in the last few hours of the year wondered, as she did every year, whether they would really have anything to show the parents. That was before first recess, a break welcomed by teacher and students alike.

However, by lunch-time, and the fourth time through, everybody knew where to enter and even those who thought they could never speak all their words without their papers were beginning to know their lines. Ruthann's forced praise of the beginning of the day started to flow naturally and she permitted herself to hope that she would not need to cue every entrance and every other line.

The Awards ceremony came as a welcome break for them, and thankfully only involved half an hour of sitting still, but after one more rehearsal, Ruthann realized that even the usually unexciting chore of cleaning their desks would be received with fresh interest. Plunging their hands into warm sudsy water was enough reason to keep them returning to the pail at the front of the class to wash out their cloths, and when their own desks were cleaned they were uncharacteristically willing to help their peers.

Interest in the last practice of the day was raised by permission to finally wear the costumes they had been looking at longingly all day. These were deliberately simple - ears for the White Rabbit and March Hare, an apron for Alice, and whiskers for the Cheshire Cat and the dormouse. The King and Queen of Hearts tried to look regal in crowns that had a tendency to fall down over their eyes and the Mock Turtle's shell looked more like a cloak than anything else, but attired in their splendor the children acted better than they had done all day.

Just as they finished their last scene the parents arrived. Whatever was not perfect now would have to stay that way, but the parents were easily pleased and started their video cameras before the play had even begun. Ruthann was kept busy ensuring that everyone remembered where they were supposed to place each piece of scenery, making sure that the White Rabbit had his fan and the Mad Hatter his cup and slice of bread and butter, and at the same time remembering to come in for her two lines as the Duchess's grumpy cook. However, it was soon over and she was leading the applause for the final scene and helping the children pick up the pack of cards that the White Rabbit had thrown over Alice's head. Parents were taking last photos and ushering their children out, laden with grocery sacks full of the contents of their desks, and before long Ruthann was left to herself. She sank into her chair. Her crazy project had worked once again.