It all began in March. We had just celebrated Valentine's Day for the first time in Arioso Land (they just love to try out our customs!). Queen Aflute was in charge of planning that one. She put up lovely pink and sparkly decorations all over the whole town and sent Valentines to everyone of the melodic residents (in case you don't know, they can only sing in Arioso Land. When students want to communicate with them, they have to sing too or else whomever they are speaking to will respond with the dreaded "I cannot understand...").
In any case, King Sammy came to Brownsville through the magical portal (pictured later in the post) and announced that the Queen's birthday was coming soon and, since she has had so many birthdays, he had run out of ideas of ways to celebrate. The very first suggestion he received was to throw her a surprise party. He was intrigued and wanted to know more. The students informed him of about how he needed to turn off all the lights and jump out and yell surprise. And how he needed to be sure to have a worm cake on hand, since that is Queen Aflute's favorite flavor (she is an Ostrich, after all). And, of course, he needed presents and as many guests as he could gather. Gathering guests caused him no amount of panic seeing as he has just been dealing with the fact that he is rather bossy and his friends don't want to play with him anymore. The students were sympathetic to this concern, having just helped him through this embarrassing problem recently, and reminded him to ask nicely and not tell the towns people they had to attend. He went off happily to plan in his castle. Soon, he sent the queen's assistant, Igor Stravinsky (the resident dragon who, shall we say, is a panicker and was completely wound up at the time) to gather a few more details about the party. Poor Igor had gotten the details very confused and thought the children had told the king to leave all the presents on a table unwrapped, not to put up ANY pretty decorations, and to tell the queen all about the plans ahead of time so she could be sure to wear the proper attire. The children were beside themselves but luckily were able to save the day. They even had Igor Stravinsky (who, in case you were wondering, was indeed named after the famed musician, his father being quite the music fan) write down the information on his magical, invisible paper.
One would think after all that confusion, the party would go off without a hitch. Unfortunately, someone told the town gossip, Mrs. Clotilda Sfortzando (yes, a donkey of course and yes, it is hilarious to hear the children address her with her fancy name!) about the party and the word from the king was that she was CERTAIN to spoil the surprise. The students were utterly bewildered at the idea that Mrs. S would do such a thing, never having met the woman, and offered many solutions ranging from trapping her in a box to tricking her into think the party was on a different day. In the end, the King decided to tell her the party was on Sunday when it was really on a Thursday and asked the students to tell her that if she should happen to stop by. She did, of course, stop by and the students, rightfully so I believe, were simply outraged when they found out who she was. Spoil the surprise of their beloved queen? I don't think so! Luckily, they soon got to the root of the problem, which was that Mrs. S did not understand what the words "secret" and "surprise" even meant! Once the students explained these challenging terms to her, (a secret is something you can't ever tell anyone except maybe your best friend or maybe your mom and a surprise is when you jump out and yell surprise) she was happy to abide by the rules and not spoil anything. They children told her the party was on Sunday, just to be on the safe side.
Then, one day, a beautiful invitation arrived in the portal. King Sammy had invited all of the students in the class to the surprise party and even allowed each student to bring one guest of his or her own! Oh the excitement that day! After convincing one boy that his live lizard would certainly not be welcome, being that he cannot sing, and another that while her puppy was probably the cutest animal alive, he wouldn't be able to sit still long enough for her to enjoy the party, the big day finally arrived.
Would you believe it? King Sammy must have worked all night to create such beautiful decorations! He arrived early to remind the children that they had to hide with their heads down until someone turned on the lights (he wisely chose a child in each class to help with this tricky feat). Then, when he was sure Queen Aflute was waiting in the portal, the helper turned off the lights, the children "hid", and King Sammy lead Queen Aflute into the party. (Mrs. Clotilda Szfortzando (who managed NOT to spoil the surprise!) and Igor Stravinsky both attended via the portal). King Sammy counted to three in a nice stage whisper, the lights went on and all the children and all of their stuffed guests (who had earlier been instructed on how to behave and how to sing to the guest of honor) sang "Surprise!" The Queen was so excited! She received a beautiful present from King Sammy (a necklace) and the students and their guests sang her a rousing version of "We're Singing you a Happy Song!" (a Mrs. Hanks original!). The only small flaw in the day was when King Sammy admitted he was afraid to bring the worm cake with grass and dirt icing through the portal because he thought it might fall apart. The students were crestfallen (rightfully so!). The Queen felt that it was quite an affront to the guests and offered to send some cake along as soon as she could. Once class politely (and wisely) declined the offer. The other four looked forward to it immensely. (Queen Aflute came back the next day to say thank you for her party and admit that she had been so overwhelmed with excitement that she had accidentally eaten all of the cake herself and had to ask for forgiveness...which she was quickly granted by my kind students!). One class also went so far as to arrive bearing about six birthday cards, each signed by every student in the class and several gift bags full of the most beautiful gifts that the queen could wear (two new crowns, a necklace and a flower brooch). She now wears this finery with pride wherever she goes.
The surprise party seems to have so exhausted the residents of arioso land that they have all fallen into a deep slumber and have not been back to visit us since, although we check the portal hopefully every day. Here are some pictures to help your imagination along!
The honored guest, Queen Aflute, before and after the giving of the gifts:
King Sammy, the party planner:
The decorations:
Some guests and the official invitation:
King Sammy's gift to Queen Aflute, shown as a gift and shown during production:
Mrs. Clotilda Szfortzando and Igor Stravinsky attending the party via the magical portal:
**Disclaimer: For those of you who now believe I have a touch of the crazy, my students can improvise tune confidently in front of their peers and thoroughly enjoy the entire magical process. They are completely distracted from the fact that they are singing alone in public, a tune that they make up on the spot, because they are singing to these beloved friends. It's simply magic (not crazy).
