I asked my 10yo why she was moping.

“Because I don’t want to be a dancing mushroom,” she said, in a tone that added an unspoken “duh!”

Like most of her theater friends, she is on pins and needles, waiting for Stage Right to announce the cast list for next month’s production of Annie

“What makes you bring up mushrooms, honey?”

She shifted on her bed. “The cast list.”

I took a sip of tea and let her go on. She was sick yesterday, and spent today napping, so I was patient.

“All the teenagers get to take turns playing Annie, and my name wasn’t next to any of the other orphans, and down at the very bottom, it said ‘Dancing Mushroom… Carolyn Jerz.'”

“Who else gets to be a dancing mushroom?” I asked tactfully.

Big sigh. “Nobody. I’m the only dancing mushroom.”

It took me a while to convince her that today is still Sunday, and that she had only dreamed we went to the studio and checked the cast list.

Now wide awake and chuckling over her confusion, Carolyn decided “The mushroom probably appears in a scene when Miss Hannigan is cooking for the orphans, but she’s so drunk she hallucinates. I come out singing, ‘A mushroom at last! A mushroom forever. / I’ll get in your soup, to make it taste better.'”

Update: About an hour after I posted this, the cast list went up… Carolyn is one of four girls playing Annie.