Act i • 1 • On a Saturday afternoon in Bloomville,
Iris Espinosa put on her sister’s blue sweater
and stepped out the front door.
A familiar buttery scent wafted through the air.
Popcorn.
Iris headed down the steps . . .
and made her way along the sidewalk,
past the enormous cat with six toes on each paw . . .
past Everett Dunn, whose mother did not allow him
to go beyond his stoop alone . . .
to the Majestic Cinema, where she bought a small box of
popcorn from a street vendor and a ticket from the box
office. Then she stepped inside.
She made her way down the aisle
and along the front row to her usual seat.
The lights dimmed, and the projector started up
with a
click, click, click. Iris watched the screen, rapt, as her hero leapt and
dashed about, narrowly escaping danger at every turn.
• 2 • A few rows back, a little mouse was watching the screen,
too.
But the sight of popcorn falling through the fingers of the
Woman with the Large Hat a few seats over
pulled the little mouse away.
The Woman with the Large Hat came to the cinema every
afternoon. And, to the little mouse’s delight,
she happened to be very careless with her snacks.
The little mouse danced about,
snatching falling kernels from the air . . .
and feasting on one fluffy bite after another,
until she felt rather queasy.
To ease her aching belly, the little mouse took a little
walk. And she belched a little belch.
Then she hopped up on a cushiony seat to take a nap.
To her surprise, a girl in a blue sweater was sitting
in the next seat over, smiling at her.
The little mouse considered skittering away.
But her belly was still rumbling. So she settled down
in the soft, cozy folds of the girl’s sweater instead.
On the screen, the hero was bravely swinging on
a vine from one castle window to another.
But the little mouse was more interested in a pocket she
had discovered above the folds of the girl’s blue sweater.
The pocket looked like the softest, coziest place of all.
So she climbed inside.
Then the little mouse fell asleep.
Copyright © 2019 by Randy Cecil. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
