draft two of writing style two.

As I realised my mind had wondered, I was thrown back into my whereabouts: a hall. The smell of custard puddings mixed with the air of freshly-polished wooden-floors woke-me-up to a room full of children; 200 eyes exploring my brightly coloured polka-dot dress. Before I could take-in anymore of my surroundings, I jumped into my first position: a lifeless puppet on a shelf in amongst others frozen in toy-like poses. A happy tune started dancing out of the piano and speakers, and as we came to life I felt the glowing-grins of the children’s face light-up our stage.

“The masters gone, now we’re alone. And we can tell you something that is very little known, his powers fade when he’s away. Sometimes he seems to think that we’re just made of wood!”

The words leapt out from my mouth acrobatically into a union of singing toys, signing with our hands the phrase with a wooden motion. Darting round the space, our faces big and full of expression, we mimick Gepetto, our ignorant creator, and how he seems not to notice us four puppets. But wait! We all freeze on stage as someone enters that shouldn’t see us move. Its Gepetto, he’s forgotten his coat. Our eyes so are wide and watering slightly as they can feel the air being pushed into them as the children bounce up-and-down “the puppets are alive! They have your coat! Turn around and look!” A slap-stick sequence ensues with Gepetto conversing with the children and walking around our built-up puppet shape centrally facing the children. We mime him exaggeratedly only when his back is turned. The children’s voices rising with laughter and shouts every time we freeze upon Gepetto turning to inspected us. Just when we can no longer hold our positions, bodies trembling, Gepetto runs off stage and for a few seconds, which felt like hours, everything stops.

The children’s mouths gape open, they stare at us. Leaping up and out across every part of our stage we hear them once again laugh and call at us. We sing and sign, our fingers nearly numb from speaking with them, until finally the first song meets its curtain. I flop over becoming a statue of a doll. The children fall silent once again as a small man step’s forward supporting a purple curly-haired wig. After a few lines of introduction he tells the children of how the four puppets surrounding them are all puppets which at the click of a remote control, Gepetto rewinds back on in hast to name them. “I know! I’ll name them after the vowels!” each puppet is assigned a name, and individually takes the stage to poetically tell their own tale. Next it’s me. Palms hot, back aching, and my mind a million miles per minute. I start and only stop to draw breathe.

“Pinocchiee was jolly, a rosy-cheeked silly dolly. My voice it belts and hits the notes, always off-key so I’m pleased not to gloat. I think myself an undiscovered star, which will be spotted from afar. But instead everyday I’ll spread joy to every puppet and every toy.”

This doll draws a big smile and gleams to the children. They mirror and copy with ear-to-ear, some missing milk teeth. This is the point my stomach stops churning, and I cool down. And as I prepare for the next fifty minutes I realise we’re only minutes in and it’s already the best performance of the piece so far.