Picture a long day at work, followed by a hurried dinner, followed by a long trek to a bookstore where Belle herself was going to read a book to the assembled children, followed by an autograph session.

Oh, I was tired that evening. At the age Abby is in the picture, we’ve got a one-year-old at home and when I think of how grueling that grind was I just want to lie down on with a cool cloth on my forehead.

But Abby was so excited to meet her hero. I hypnotized myself for years into sleepwalking through everything on the basis that a) the kids would only be young once and b) I’ll sleep when I’m dead.

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

What the heck is she doing now?

© E. Stocking Evans 2016