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door, creep down the hall to the auditorium, and enter the cool darkness of that wonderful room.
    Now, on this particular morning so close to moving day, Caroline knew she was going onstage in Buckman for the very last time. She walked down the long sloping aisle to the foot of the stage and climbed the four steps at one side that led behind the curtain.
    She stood looking upward, entranced by the various ropes and pulleys. Everything looked very old and very used, and she could hardly bear the thought that the next time the big velvet curtain was opened and closed, or the backdrop of a meadow was lowered, she would not be here with the spotlight shining on her.
    No matter. This was Caroline's day, and slowly, with style and grace, she moved to center stage. In a soft voice, she addressed the empty seats in front of her:
    “I would like to recite a little bit of ‘The Raven,’ by Edgar Allan Poe,” she said, clasping her hands in frontof her, her voice taking on a note of mystery and terror.
“Once upon a midnight dreary,
while I pondered, weak and weary, Over many a quaint and curious volume
of forgotten lore …”
    Caroline was good at memorizing. She was precocious, of course, so she could remember a lot, but things like the multiplication table were lowest on her priority list, while poetry (especially dramatic, sad, and tragic poetry—in particular, poems with her name in them) was number one.
“While I nodded, nearly napping,
suddenly there came a tapping, As of someone gently rapping, rapping
at my chamber door.
‘ ’Tis some visitor,' I muttered, ‘tapping
at my chamber door—
Only this and nothing more.’”
    As Caroline went on, her words echoed in the empty auditorium, and—inspired by her own inflections—she let her voice soar:
“Ah, distinctly I remember it was in
the bleak December,
And each separate dying ember wrought
its ghost upon the floor. ”
    And now came the part with her name in it—the name of the beautiful girl, Lenore, whom Poe was writing about, who had died young and would be in his heart forever. At that moment, however, Caroline saw the custodian start to pass the auditorium door, then stop.
    She had an audience! Someone was listening to her! Caroline knew that at any moment he would ask what she was doing here, how she had got into the school, and he would demand that she leave at once. So she had to make good use of the time. At her middle name, Lenore, she decided, she would fall into a dead faint there onstage. She would expire right in front of her audience—an audience of one—and would pull the curtain closed at the same time. A finer, more dramatic finish she could not imagine.
“Eagerly I wished the morrow;
vainly I had sought to borrow
From my books surcease of sorrow
—sorrow for the lost Lenore …”
    Caroline's eyes began to close as her hand grabbed for the rope to pull the curtain.
“For … the rare … and radiant maiden …
whom the angels name … Lenore …”
    She touched the rope, then grasped it with both hands and pulled with all her strength as she let her knees collapse….
    “Nameless here for evermore!”
    Wham!
    The curtain didn't budge, but the large painted canvas backdrop of a meadow came crashing down on Caroline. She was pinned to the floor with her legs and one arm caught beneath the backdrop. Ouch!
    She could hear running footsteps coming down the aisle.
    “Hey!” the custodian was calling. “Hey! Are you all right?”
    Caroline closed her eyes.
    The footsteps were coming up the side steps now. Then they were crossing the stage.
    “What the heck?” the custodian was saying. “What are you doing in here?”
    Caroline's lips moved. “Darkness there and nothing more,” she whispered.
    “What?” said the custodian, quickly pulling on the rope that lifted the canvas.
    “ 'Tis the wind and nothing more,” said Caroline.
    “Didn't you go to school here last year?” the custodian asked, studying her closely as the