It was the first day of school and Jessica was already liking Theater class.

“The first thing you need to know about theater is improvisation.” Mr. Hamblet said, mainly to the freshmen since most everyone else had already gone through this. “Improv is essentially making up what you say and do on the fly. Sometimes on stage, a mistake happens, or someone forgets their line, or something happens that requires you to divert off-script…”

Jessica zoned out, she already knew this, she did specialize in undercover ops in her family work, which is also why she joined theater: to pra-

“Jessica!” Mr. Hamblet got her attention, “Do you wanna try it first, since you know what you’re doing a little better?” he asked.

“Sure.” Jessica shrugged as she stood up and went to the front of the class. Mr. Hamblet gave her a notecard with “I’d rather be a bird than a fish.” on it. She had to start the scene with this sentence and then go from there.

“Who else wants to try?” Mr. Hamblet asked the class. A few hands went up and Mr. Hamblet chose Kyle, who stood up and walked to about ten feet in front of Jessica.

“Okay,” Mr Hamblet started, “Jessica has a starter on the notecard in her hand, she must begin with this starter and she and her partner will have to continue the scene from there. Remember though, if you need to improvise on stage your “starter” is what happened before on stage.”

He paused for the class to take that in, “Okay, begin.” He said motioning generically to Jessica.

Jessica started: “I’d rather be a bird than a fish.”

“So?” Kyle immediately got into a character, “I have The Magical Striped Ray-gun Onesie, and I decide what I turn people into.

“But you’re turning everyone into a fish with The Magical Striped Ray-gun Onesie. Could you make just one exception?”

“I’m sorry, I can’t.”

“Plea-”

Mr. Hamblet cut Jessica off, “I should probably clarify, You don’t always have to say ‘yes’ in improv, the ‘Always say yes’ rule is more or less just a requirement that you accept the reality that you are in, you can’t change the past.”

He paused again.

“Thank you, Jessica and Kyle, that is enough.”