My 5 year-old has been working on a play for about the past 3 months called “Walking In Fear.” She’s always adding bits and pieces to the story, sometimes as we’re on the train ride back from school, then when we get home she sketches the newly added chapter on a loose sheet of typing paper. Yesterday she asked me to make a list of the characters so she can keep track of all of them.

“Mommy, write down all these names for Walking In Fear. Sara the Mouse, The Flower Girl, King, Queen, Zombie, Alien, Ghost, Candy Girl, O’nay, Kana, Little Girl Named Lisa, Big Donut, and The Baby. WAIT!! No. No no no, I totally forgot, The King, Queen, Zombie, Big Donut and Little Girl Named Lisa are actually from a different story called The Runaway Queen. That one is a movie and also a book, but Walking In Fear is a play. It’s a musical. The Runaway Queen is not a musical.”

“Ok, I’ll write all those down. This is the first I’ve heard of The Runaway Queen, what happens in that story?”

“So, the Queen and the Little Girl Named Lisa got captured by the Zombie. Then they both woke up and realized it was actually a dream. But after that, a few days later it came true and they really DID get captured by the zombie. Also what you don’t know until the end is that the big donut is really the zombie. Everyone realizes that the zombie had been under a spell the whole time that made him want to be a donut, and he had on a donut costume.”

“Cool! So do you want me to make this a separate list from the characters in Walking In Fear?”

“Mom. It’s the SAME STORY. That’s what nobody realizes until the end too, Walking In Fear and The Runaway Queen turn into the same thing and it’s all a play, a movie, AND a book. Oh, and I play Candy Girl. Because she likes candy a lot.”