Since we last left Puppet World (God, if only that was a real place), I had met my fellow campers, fallen in love with a girl from the wrong side of the tracks, and began to feel at one with my dorkiness. I was reveling in felt bliss and I simply did not want it to end.
Imagine my dork head wanting to explode when I found out we were to create our own play and not do an adaptation. "Finally, the chance to let my creative juices flow and show the WORLD how creative this 11 year old can be!" Little did I know that my ideas weren't going to be taken so seriously.
Putting ten or so nerds under the age of 14 in a room is a unique experience. Everyone thinks their ideas are the shiznit and no one will compromise. I imagine this is what it's like the writer's room for "The Simpsons"....back when it was good. Everyone wanted to be heard, and no one was biting my idea about a group of gnomes who want to teach the evil sisters of a brilliant 5th grader a lesson. After what seemed like hours upon hours of deliberation, tears and Doritos eating, the story came together.
Hence, the plot of our magnum opus at puppet camp- "Little Billy and the Spaceship Adventure."
Here we go: A rogue group of ragamuffins (consisting of a boy named Billy, a horse, two fairies and a giant octopus) board a spaceship because that makes complete sense. While on their way to Mars, the spaceship encounters engine trouble and it is up to Billy to lead everyone to safety. Little did he know that the octopus has diabolical plans (like eating them). That bastard.
*It should be noted that this is the summer of "Apollo 13" was released and we were taking lots of liberties.
Clever as all get out, huh? Indeed.
Naturally, I was creating Billy and naturally Polexia was creating the octopus. If she were anyone else, I would have been annoyed that she was trying to show us all up with such a character. "Eight legs?! I can't even make TWO," one camper said. It didn't matter, because I loved her and she loved me. Except I was convinced we'd get married and her feelings were that of the "this little kid's obsessed with me but no one will fill the hole left by the death of Jerry Garcia" variety. God, she was intense. God, I loved it.
With our script put together and the recording down, it was now time to create the puppets.
With paper mache. I sucked as paper mache. Like, really sucked. Like, when I tried to make a paper mache dolphin it ended up looking like cat vomit and rabbit ears. This was not my forte. But I persevered and within days, little Billy (with his drawn-on brown hair, blue jeans and long sleeve red shirt) was born. He was awesome, and I was awesome for creating him.
And Mr. Vest was happy. And Polexia was happy. And Animal was happy. And somewhere, Anderson Cooper was happy because he was Anderson Cooper.
Yes, with several practices ahead of us and the eventual performance night looming, I was ready to make my grand introduction to the puppet performance world. Was the camp ready? Was Atlanta ready? Was I ready?
Await Part 5.
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