When You Wish Upon a Star 
“Okay, the big show is tomorrow night. Be sure to get here by five thirty, so we are ready on time,” said Kate Clarke as the students filed  out of the auditorium to go home for the night.
As the last student left, she happily said, “Bye Mrs. Clarke, have a nice night with your family!”
“Thanks Anne, I’ll see you tomorrow. Be sure to get a good night's sleep,” Kate said as she was walking out the door right behind her.
On the way home all Kate could think about was how tomorrow night was going to go. I hope it goes well. We have been working on this for so long. What if someone gets sick and can’t make it. Oh no, what if Carly gets sick, then I would have to find someone else to play the main character.
With that she pulled into her garage and she did not even make it into the kitchen before her kids were swarming her, “Mom I missed you so, so much!” exclaimed Grace.
“Yeah I can’t wait for this stupid play to get done, it takes up too much time,” complained Garrett.
“I haven’t  been able to play Barbie for three weeks since Dad and Garrett won’t play with me,” whined Grace. 
“And Dad’s cooking is terrible,” added Garrett.
“Don’t worry it will all be over tomorrow night, and then I will play as much Barbie with you as you want. But for tonight why don’t you guys go upstairs and get ready for bed. I’ll be up there in ten minutes to read to you.”

It was three days after the opening night, right before the play, and the actresses and actors were in their second to last preplay circle with Mrs. Clarke. One of the actor's parents walked in and whispered, “Kate, Carly came down with the flu, and will not be able to make it tonight.”
“Shoot! You’re kidding me. This cannot be happening,” replied Kate, “Everything has been going so well.”
Just like that, one of Kate’s biggest fears had come true, she would have to change who played the main character for the final two performances. The best choice would have to be Anne. She had been to every practice, and would be the only one to know all of Carly’s parts.
“Anne, can I talk to you over here?” asked Mrs. Clarke
“Sure, what do you need!” Anne said bubbly as she bounced over to Mrs. Clarke.
“Well a situation has come up, and I was wondering if you would be able to take over Carly’s part,” she whispered.
“What! What happened?” yelled Anne.
Everybody looked over at her worried.
“I have never even practiced that part, I don’t know if I’ll be able to do it,” Anne said once she had settled down a bit.
“I watched you at every single practice, you would whisper all of Carly’s lines as she was saying them, and sometimes even before she said it.”
“I just don’t know if I can.”
“But I know that you can, I promise you that you will do great,” Kate said with a bit of desperation. Anne realized that she really needed her since Kate’s usually did not show any negative emotions.
With that Anne agreed, and Kate was right, the play went just as smoothly as the previous nights.

“Mrs. Clarke, thank you so so much for making me play the main character the last two nights. It was so much fun!” said Anne.
“Oh Anne, I knew you could do it,” said Mrs. Clarke.
“Oh, and I forgot to tell you before the show, but my aunt came to our performance last night and she said that it was so good that she came back again tonight. She was saying how she wanted to see you after the show tonight, would you be able to talk to her now?”
“Yeah, of course, send her over.”
Anne left the room to get her aunt from the lobby. Five minutes later Anne’s aunt walked through the doors. Kate immediately knew who she was.
“Hello, I am Anne’s aunt, but you might know me from”
“Amelia Butler from The Dark Flood” interrupted Kate because she already knew the answer.
The Dark Flood was one of the biggest movies ever made, and Amelia was the main character.
“Yeah, so you see I wrote a script for a movie that I would star in, but I haven’t been able to find a director. I have all of the funding, the cast, and anything else you could ever imagine. After seeing how good of a job you did on a high school production, I can’t even imagine how great you would be at directing people who actually know what they are doing. Kate Clarke, I was wondering if you would like to direct my movie?” asked Amelia
“ I would love to, but I am going to have to think about, and talk to my family a little bit,” said Kate.
“Okay, I have to know by tomorrow night at five because that is when I am going back to LA. I am going to need you to sign paperwork if you decide to be my director.”
“Um, okay will do!”
“By the way we want to start right away, so if you commit I will fly you out to LA in a week and a half,” Amelia said as she walked away. With that she left.

“Thank you again,” said the last cast member as he walked out the door. Kate felt a whiff of the hot Florida air flow through as the last person left.
Suddenly she was left alone for the first time in what she felt like had been days, and she almost wished she was not because she had one of the biggest decisions that she would ever make sitting right in front of her, and she only had a day to make it. She sat down on the front of the stage, and just thought for a while. Do I want to stay here and live the life that I have grown to love with my kids and husband, or should I leave and follow the thing that I have been dreaming of for the last twenty five years.

After she talked with her family, Kate decided that she would be missing out on too big of an opportunity to pass up, especially since she had been wishing for it since she eight. They also decided that for now she would just go alone since they did not know how it was going to work out. They had just moved from Miami to Destin, their small town, because they did not like the big city.

Kate had been in Hollywood for a month and everything was going very well, in fact she loved it. She was not missing her family or her old job nearly as much as she had thought she would because she had been so busy with her new job. The cast was great and willing to help her do anything. She could not believe she had ever thought about not going. Her dream had finally come true, and she believed that it was the best thing that had ever happened to her.

This all changed two nights later when her husband called her to tell her Grace had gotten very sick and they had to take her to the hospital.
“What do you mean?” Kate asked her husband.
“She just woke me up sobbing because her stomach hurt so bad.” replied Kate’s husband.
“I wish I could be there for her.” Kate said with regret.
“Yeah, I do too. She keeps asking where you are.”
Oh my gosh, what have I done. I should be at home with my family, not here. This was my old dream. I shouldn’t be here. I made the wrong decision.
She gave it all up ten years ago because she had a new dream of having a family and becoming an important, inspirational person to teenagers just as her teachers were when Kate was in high school and her parents died. Kate had temporarily forgotten this dream and when she had remembered it, it was too late. She was stuck a penthouse suite in Hollywood, trapped there with no way out since she had a contract.

The next four weeks dragged on, hour after hour, day after day. She was becoming disgusted with her new life and the people around her. She could not believe that people could live that way everyday for their entire lives, no family, barely any friends, waking up every morning and seeing the smog from all of the pollution. It was just not right.

“Thank you all for all that you have done for me, this has been a wonderful experience, and I cannot wait to see what becomes of this movie when it comes out next fall,” said Kate as she was toasting her cast the night after everything wrapped up, “ It has been a pleasure to work with you all, and I hope to see you all again.”
Right after she said that, she registered that she had totally just lied to them. She was beginning to believe that it was the worst experience of her life, and all of the people that she had been working with were so cold that they could turn water to ice. However, she was not lying when she had said that she could not wait for what was going to happen to the movie next fall because it was those qualities of the people that made the movie so good. They each only cared for themselves, so their acting was phenomenal, it was going to be a great movie.
“And to you Kate, on behalf of all of us, thank you for pouring so much into this movie. It has been a pleasure working with you,” said Amelia, “we can’t believe that you are going back to Florida when you did such a wonderful job here.”
Kate decided to be honest with them, “I just don’t belong here anymore, this is not what I want.”
With that Kate returned home the next day, and she was so excited to finally see her family again. After she fought with the school, she was still not able to get her old job back. She realized that it was okay because she had some time to find another job she loved, and in the meantime she spent time with her family.

“You know what mom?” asked Garret one night before bed.
“What,” replied Kate.
“When I grow up I want to be in the NFL.”
“Okay, but just so you know, sometimes you wish for something to happen for so long that when it finally does, it does not turn out quite like you wanted it to, so be sure to keep your options open.”