Episode In The Life Of A Girl: Xinmo 2.0

The sleepy languid girl woke up from her somnolence after the teacher announced the play “Episode in the Life of An Author” by Jean Anouilh. The class had decided Xinmo as the lead Actress Ardele. Xinmo and her character in the play were very different. Ardele was a woman very suspicious of her husband and cared for everything, while Xinmo was careless. She didn’t bother herself with people around her and always did want she wanted.

Though at the beginning Xinmo chose to be the Director, internally she had wanted to be the female lead. The nice friends perhaps knew it and had voted her to be the actress. Deciding all the actors for the play, the team decided to start practicing the next day.

The first day everyone practiced by reading from the script. The second day everything was remembered. And so for five days, they practiced on the stage after school hours. In the last three days to the performance, the team had begun the preparation for stage decorations, their costumes and makeup for the play.

It was a weekend and the team had decided for a dress rehearsal before the play on the next day. Xinmo had in total 3 costumes to change and she was the only one who had the awesome feature of changing dresses. Carrying her costumes Xinmo was walking towards the MPH where everyone was to be gathered. It was a sunny day but very lovely, the kind of sun where you want to bask under it.

“mmh mhmm” came a voice from Xinmo’s right side. Turning she saw a group of boys sitting in a circle. One was leaning against the wall that divided her house from the school ground, and this group came every day to the ground. The one leaning on the wall was her junior school classmate.

Smiling she had a conversation with the group since they were all in the same school. Telling them about her play and calling them to be an audience she handed them a bottle of orange juice. She had made three bottles for the team, from which one was now gone.

Striding forth waving them bye, she saw some of the boy mates outside the hall. The door to the hall was locked and someone had gone to get the keys. Meanwhile, Xinmo arranged her things next to the pile of stuff kept outside the door. One of her friends had asked her to tag along to get the decoration materials from the class. As classroom doors were always locked after school hours they went around the building planning to enter from the window that they had left unlocked the day before.

However, from the two of them who went to get the stage decorations couldn’t enter through the window. After a while, the perfect person for the job came and together they went back to the rest of the team with the materials. Xinmo went to pick her bags up to find both of her juice bottles were empty. Shocked she looked at the boys and the class monitor got up and said, “Oh Xinmo we were thirsty and wanted to drink a bit”. Bits by every one of them had emptied the bottles. True it was for them but the girls didn’t get to drink even a drop! Good that each girl had brought snacks or else they wouldn’t have anything for the break.

The hall door opened and everyone went in for the rehearsal. The hall lit up at once from the sun rays coming in through the big windows. Arranging the music system, the actors went to change their dresses in the changing room and the practice started. Everyone was impressed by each other’s actions and clothes, especially Xinmo with the bold sets of clothes she was wearing.

The costumes were fine for the rehearsal since there was no audience. But what about the real day? Well, bless Xinmo with the guts to face the people.