My classroom was a well-oiled machine by now. The kids knew what I expected, my student teacher was seasoned, my lesson plans were perfect. Sure I was young, the parents always commented on that when we met for conferences, but I was completely confident in my authority over those sixteen kids in my class.

The thirty-three kids in the Spring Play were another thing entirely.

When I entered the auditorium, the stage was a mass of wiggling bodies. Double my classroom size and every one of them pushing, pulling and tugging. I was used to my docile little kindergarteners who were still small enough to scoop up into my arms if I needed to. But these kids ranged all the way up to huge, burly fifth graders, some of whom could already look me in the eye. One kid in the back looked like he was already entering puberty.

I swallowed and put on my best 'teacher voice.' "All right let's settle down!" I called.

Only a few kids looked my way, the rest paid no attention. "Listen up!" I yelled, raising one hand over my head in the universal signal of "you'd better pay attention to me, I'm your teacher."

Maddy Keely from my classroom immediately followed my lead and lifted her hand up, as did Dee's daughter Kayleigh. But the rest of them still shoved and laughed.

This could't stand. I marched down the auditorium aisle and lifted the lid to the grand piano sitting there.

Then I raised my hands over my head and smashed them both down on the keys.

The crashing, discordant chord echoed through the auditorium and made the kids freeze in place, and a few of them of them clapped their hands over their ears.

"Thank you," I said in my normal voice. "It's time to get started."

The kids looked at me, confused. "Who are you?"

"I'm Miss Riley. You know me."

"Why are you here?"

'That's a very good question,' I didn't say. Instead I smiled. "I'm the new director."

"Where's Mr. King?" one of the second graders asked.

"He's dead, dummy," came the swift reply.

I swallowed. "Quiet, please," I said. "Yes, I'm filling in for Mr. King." The very idea of it seemed completely wrong, but here I was all the same. "Now I've read over the script, and I'm assuming you all know your lines for the first scene?"

A few nods, some tentative, some enthusiastic. "Okay then." I took a deep breath and sat down at the piano bench.

I'd been up nearly all of last night going over the script Gid had written. I'd read all his notes on the kids he'd cast, the little asides like, "Tommy farts a lot, put him in back," and "Brayden's got the best voice and knows it, try to keep his ego in check." I scanned the group of kids, trying to match names with faces, and then I saw her. Hanging near the wings, ready to bolt. "Hi there Lydia," I called, waving for her to come over.

She bent her head and hurried to me, her long denim skirt swishing. I could hear a few whispers as she crossed in front of the other kids and my heart tugged. "Hi there, could you come help me a second?"

She was shy, I saw that right away. Just looking me in the eye made her turn beet red. I crouched down to her level. "Hey do you have any little brothers or sisters?" I asked.

Lydia shook her head. I was surprised to hear that. Chosen families were known for their big packs of kids. Claire joked that they were trying to take over the town through breeding. "Okay but you help watch the rest of the kids in your neighborhood, right?"

"Parish," she corrected.

"I'm sorry, right." But she was talking to me now and that was a start. "Do you think you could watch some of those kindergartners over there for me?" I said, pointing to Maddy and Kayleigh who were attempting to turn somersaults on the hard stage floor. "I need an assistant."

Her eyes shone. Clearly this was the right tact to have taken with her. "I can do that," she said, formally.

"Make sure they're listening, which means you need to listen too, right?"

"Correct," she replied.

I smiled and squeezed her arm. "Thank you Lydia. I'm glad you're here."

Lydia gave me a small, tentative smile and then went over to Maddy and Kayleigh and immediately engaged them in a hand clapping game. I took a sip of my ice-cold coffee and felt marginally more capable.

Then I looked down at the sheet music and all feelings of competence fled. "Alright, listen up!" I called, my voice hoarse. "I want to run through the first number, just singing, no dancing, okay? Let me just hear how it goes. I'll play the melody one time, just so you remember it - " and I learn it, I didn't say, "then you'll sing it for me, sound good?"

"Thank you!" they chorused. Clearly Gid had taught them about how the theater world responded to directions. I wished he was here.

Blinking, I sat down. Smoothing my sweaty palms down the front my slacks, I sat there a second, staring at the music in front of me.

It was a sheet of staff paper. Gid had formed each note with a dull pencil. Hesitantly, I picked out the melody line and as I did, a smile stretched over my face.

It was simple. Beautiful. A lilting little minor key intro that made me instantly nostalgic for something I couldn't remember.

Was this what was hidden there in his tapes? This beauty?

My fingers were rusty and my sight reading was terrible, but I managed to stumble through the first verse of the song, blinking through my tears for Gid. I must have gotten the gist of it, because the kindergartners were humming along with my playing. That was promising. Maybe I'd be able to do Gid's music justice after all.

I played the final chord and then cleared my throat. "Okay great!" I called. "Now this time you join in with the words!"

I counted down and started to play and a gabble of voices joined in. Thirty-three kids sang at the top of their lungs, shouting in an off-key aural assault. I tried to struggle through the first verse, then gave up and held up my hand. "Okay cut!" I called peering at the music. I felt out of breath and ready to bolt from the room. "Ah, okay then," I said, trying to get myself back together again. "That was a little disorganized, right? Some of you weren't even singing the right melody."

"Um, it's called harmonizing?" a snotty fifth grader spoke up, with a pronounced eyeroll. That had to be Brayden.

"Mr. King had you singing harmonies?" I asked.

"I'm a soprano!" one of the third graders preened.

I narrowed my eyes. Was he insane? These were grade schoolers, not a professionals. Most of them couldn't even read music. Some of them couldn't even read.

I felt like I was clinging to the side of a cliff and losing my handhold fast. "Okay," I said, "we'll talk about that a little later." I leafed through the music trying to see if he'd written harmonies for all of the songs and -

Wait -

"What the fuck, Gid?" I breathed.

"Miss Riley swore!" a second grader shouted, clapping her hands over her mouth. There was an eruption of scandalized giggles, and I knew I needed to rein them in quickly or I'd never get the room back under control but I was too busy staring at the lyrics for the very last song.

I'd been so focused on being able to play the music last night that I hadn't paid any attention to the words Gid wanted these kids to sing.

Thirty three sweet voiced elementary school kids. Standing in front of their proud parents, singing about lonely love lost on the road out of hell? Gid had lost his mind.

"Okay we're done!" I shouted with my head buried in my hands. "Rehearsal's over! Time to go home!"