The buzz in the waiting room outside was all about one topic: what’s the theme for the spring recital? I guess there are some things I should probably tell you about my studio. We have two recitals a year: a Christmas recital in December and a spring recital in May. The Christmas recital we always have some sort of theme for, but it’s never anything huge. It’s always Christmas-y. But the spring recital has a theme that is recurring throughout.

When I had walked into the dance studio that Tuesday, nothing had looked different. The blue walls, the dance shop to my left and the waiting room to my right. Straight ahead I could see the dance studio owner’s head sticking up over the edge of the counter of the office. I could see the Advanced Pom class doing whatever it is that Advanced Pom does through the glass window of the grey door.

After saying a greeting to Miss Anna, the owner, I turned right and walked down the corridor that made up the waiting room. I was completely unprepared for the sight that met my eyes. Fairy lights and vines hung from the next waiting room within. Pages cut from the Bible lined the walls, a huge cardboard cutout of the cover of a Bible was plastered to the wall, a serpent crawled through the leafy plastic vines on top of the shelves the dancers used for their things, and a board full of pictures of Bible stories jumped out at me.

There were no words. The only thing I could do was head upstairs to the third waiting room.

“Did y’all see downstairs?” I asked the three people who were in the waiting room before me.

“Yeah,” Haley nodded. “It’s crazy.”

And so now all we were talking about was what the theme might possibly be. When the other class came out, we all filed in. My curiosity heightened at the sight of a rocking chair in the corner.

“Alright!” Miss Daina said, coming in. “Have you all seen downstairs?”

“Yeah,” I nodded. “It looks like some kind of fairyland.”

Miss Daina’s eye twinkled mysteriously. She sat in the rocking chair and, after calling attendance, bade us join her on the floor.

“The theme for recital,” she said, leaning over the pink attendance folder on her lap, “is Once Upon His Story. Every dance will represent a story of the Bible. We’re going to be dancing to Pharaoh by Brandon Lake, and we will be doing the story of Moses.”

There were gasps of delight and excitement. My eyes twinkled.

“And it’s going to be so cool,” Miss Daina continued. “We’re going to have this wooden staff and we are going to do different things with it.”

I could tell Miss Daina was excited. I was too. I knew it was too much to hope for that I get a part with the staff, but I was excited to do the story of the Israelites leaving Egypt.

We disbanded, stretched, and then lined up by the barre. Miss Daina started calling people to different spots.

“Mary. Haley. Minnie. Hmmm,” she murmured, tapping her toe in the very middle spot. “Kenni.”

I knew that I couldn’t suppress the smile as it grew across my face, so I didn’t try.

“Our little Moses,” Miss Daina smiled at me before continuing.

I was ecstatic. “Our little Moses.” With those three words, Miss Daina had assured me a part with the staff. (I didn’t know at that time that the staff was going to be bigger than I was.) Plus, I had gotten the spot in the lines that I had wanted. I was soon to learn, however, that imitating Moses and being like him were two very different things.