#10
When, during the first act, someone I know walked on stage,
her mother and her father and her sisters and her brother and some
of her cousins began to clap, and one of them said, there's Daughter,
and the daughter paused, smiled a slight smile, and went back to her
character. The mystery captivated everyone, even those who knew none
of the teenagers on stage.
Each Easter, each Christmas, and sometimes during the summer, Daughter
helps the children in her church put on a pageant. The older ones
come because they have to, and none of them likes the practice it
takes to become somebody else.
The mystery was the murderer, Daughter the character wanting earnestly
to help detectives solve the crime no one could believe had happened,
her heroine careful and poised in the face of various suspicions.
Once, all three wise men looked out from the pulpit stage and became
terrified, and not one of them heeded the girl standing to the side,
speaking all of their parts.
