EMAIL All authors need encouragement and appreciate hearing from their readers. Please email us your comments about this or any of the other pieces of student writing. The audience sees the world through my eyes as a child, encountering my experiences, and reliving my memories. Some of these memories seem insignificant to them, but are all important in my life. They smile as they see my grandfather, Papa, and me, going to the toy store to get a Cabbage Patch Doll, and riding to the duck pond to feed the geese. They see him giving me part of my present on my fifth birthday, a small porcelain doll that says "Miss August" on it, and watch as I selfishly "reject" it because I can't play with it. They cry as my Papa dies after his long struggle with cancer. Later, they see how I truly regret disliking his beautiful doll, and how his love stays with me forever.
The viewers travel with me and my family - especially my parents and my godmother, my aunt, Sally. My mother, Sally, and I are seen singing rounds in the car while going on our "mystery rides." The audience laughs as they watch my parents and me go on countless bad vacations. We drive to New Hampshire, where it rains endlessly for the entire trip. We fly to Disney World, where I not only get food poisoning, but a hurricane hits, the hotel summons the disaster patrol, and we end up leaving early. Ironically, it was Hurricane Emily. We go up to Vermont with my cousin, Betsy, and find ourselves in an extremely rural area with no places to eat or visit. But we still always find the fun in our "crazy" adventures.
I am seen learning to ride a bicycle with my Dad, taking swimming lessons with a mean instructor who pushes my head under the water, reading with my parents at night, and attempting to ice skate when I am seven. The audience observes me as I go to elementary school, where I am inaccurately perceived to be quiet, shy, and reserved, a judgment that seems to stick throughout my entire educational career.
The movie is nearing the end, and as it draws to a close, we begin to see the "real" Emily. We see a stubborn, strong-willed, wide-eyed, talkative, intense, curious, and fun-loving child who is like a bird, trying to peck her way through the protective shell she has created, a shell that makes her the opposite of her true self.
The film is entitled "Inside My Shell." I can still remember in first grade, when my teacher informed my mother that she thought I was "coming out of my shell." She saw who I really was, she saw that I wasn't the meek person I was thought to be. But now, even as I grow older, I feel that people misunderstand my personality, and I am forced to reenter my "shell." I often wish that people could see that I still am that child, who wanted to see everything and be everywhere. And so, the film ends, with the eyes of a little girl, gazing out into the world around her, into the whirling mysteries of the universe. Everything is a blur, and the room is dark once again.
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