A memory has a way of changing as the years pass; not the memory itself, but our perception of it. 

            I was going to be a tulip.  Not just any tulip; I was going to be a purple tulip, my favorite color back then when I was seven and our second grade class was getting ready for the annual spring pageant.  We had known for weeks about the pageant.  Miss Laufer, our teacher, talked a lot about it.  She told us we would all be in it, and there would be dancing and at least five or six songs to sing.  It would be a lot of work, but fun too.  Our families would be invited to see it, and whoever else wanted to come. 

            The day we all gathered in the auditorium to learn what parts we would have was almost more excitement than I could bear.  Secretly, for I didn't dare tell anyone else, I longed for the part of the princess, for I knew there was to be a princess.  I couldn't confide in my classmates nor my very best friends.  I was afraid someone would laugh.  I sure didn't look like a princess, at least not in the way we all believed a princess should look:  long, shimmering hair, usually golden; sweet dimpled face; and small.  Everything about a princess had to be small - and dainty:  tiny hands, tiny feet.  That in itself left me out.  I could almost see my feet without looking down.  My knees were chunky and knobby.  Skinny legs; fat knees.  When I walked, they sometimes bumped into one another.  Everyone knows that a princess moves as if she were floating.  You don't think of a princess even having knees. 

             Still, tucked in the corner of my seven-year-old heart was the hope that the teacher would see through my disguise, realizing that probably at my christening some jealous old crone placed a curse on the real me and all my royal potential, to be broken only when some very wise teacher, in spite of outward appearance, would choose me to fill the part of the princess.  I was certain at that point, by some magical maneuver, I would have all the necessary qualifications.  The curse would be broken.  My feet would be small and the rest of me as well - the knobby knees - gone.  It wasn't to be.  Due to a horrible miscalculation, some gross injustice, Dora Schnook was given the coveted princess role.  The most I could hope for was that they wouldn't make me a tree.  Please, I really didn't want to be a tree. 

             My name was called.  I was to be a tulip.  Not just any tulip:  I was to be the leader - head tulip, and the only purple tulip in the bunch.  Mabel Jane Kunkle, my very best friend, was the head daisy, and there was going to be a special tulip and daisy song and dance.  I was thrilled.  The princess didn't get to dance or sing.  All she got to do was sit on her throne and watch.  Anyone could do that.  But not everyone got to be a dancing purple tulip.  I made up my mind that I was going to be the best dancing purple tulip anybody, anywhere, had ever seen.  And people were going to turn to one another and say that never before in all their lives had they seen such a wonderful tulip.  I was really going to make people sit up and take notice.  I did too - though not quite as I had planned. 

             After weeks of rehearsals, learning the songs and the dances, and costume fittings - everything made from crepe paper, the evening of the performance arrived.  The excitement was almost as intense as Christmas Eve.  The school looked so different at night.  We were all assigned to various classrooms to change into our costumes, and we had to stay there until it was time for our appearance on stage.  The tulips and the daisies were dressing together.  Once we were dressed we couldn't sit down.  The petals were wired with bent coat hangers, so we lined up against the wall in the order to which we were to appear on stage.  Holding hands, the head tulip (me) and the head daisy (Mabel Jane) were to skip on stage followed by the rest of the tulips and daisies.  

             Mabel Jane didn't feel too great; Mabel Jane didn't look too great.  Daisies were supposed to be yellow or white.  Mabel Jane was green.  She asked if she could go to the bathroom, but there wasn't time.  Pretty soon the head daisy was holding her stomach., rocking back and forth on her heels - whimpering.  I knew that wouldn't work.  Daisies just don't whimper.  

             It was time to go on stage.  Miss Laufer grabbed Mabel Jane out of the line up and motioned me to go on without her.  I was beginning to feel not too great myself, but someone took my hand and led me down the hall, the rest of the tulips and daisies swishing behind me.  The trees were already lined up back stage.  One tree's nose was bleeding.  Miss Laufer was on the spot with her box of tissues.  Another tree lost one of its branches, so Miss Laufer told him to pick it up and just carry it.  Suddenly, the big moment:  I heard the familiar music that was my cue to lead the rest of the flowers on stage.  Miss Laufer was wildly waving her arms, silently pleading with me to get moving.  One of the daisies was pushing me from behind.  I never felt so alone in all my life.  I really wanted to go home to hide somewhere.  One of the coat hangers was jabbing me in the back.  I shifted a few of my petals, daintily raised my arms for the grandest of entrances - and skipped on stage. 

             Maybe I did stop too soon.  And later, one of the daisies sniffed that it had been too fast.  But I honestly thought I had stopped right on the mark where Miss Laufer had told me to stop.  As for being too fast, well, I was just trying to keep up with the trees who were running on from the other side of the stage.  Doesn't matter.  It was a clear-cut example of the domino effect.  Daisies and tulips wilted on impact.  Most of us were able to untangle ourselves from the mass of interlocking petals and get back up on our feet in short order.  Miss Laufer did have to come out on stage and untangle one of the tulip's hair from a daisy's petal.  One of them left a puddle, and the other started to cry.  Miss Laufler had her tissue ready.  She patted the tearful face dry, which was then followed by considerable nose blowing.   

             The show was ready to go on.  One of the trees started laughing, and Miss Laufer shook her finger at it in a rather threatening way.  Everything was under control.  We were all now where we should have been.  The head daisy, health restored, sneaked out on stage and took my hand.  I couldn't see very well.  The fall had caused one of my petals to swing around and cover my face.  That was OK with me.  I didn't want to see anybody and I didn't want anybody to see me.  We started singing, "Oh, we are tulips and daisies, so pretty as we can be!" 

             Later, going home in the car, my dad said that I was the best thing in the whole play.  That is, when he was able to talk; most of the way home he was just laughing. 

             Today, I remember that night so many years ago and I smile, because I think I can still hear my dad's laughter from somewhere beyond - beyond the land of tulips and daisies.