“Played by the hammiest, most overly theatrical third-year students we’ve got,” I said. “It’s one of those things they’re born with—sometimes it’s a pain in the neck, but it comes in handy every once in a while.”

Ethan nodded. “And they’re traveling around the world, taking in the sights as they look for a place to live.”

I reached for my umpteenth cup of coffee of the day. “Right, and they’re also time traveling in a way, too, which allows us to do a loose timeline of the history of dance, starting with the cave people dance. I’ll write little snippets for the dogs and cats to take turns saying before each of the dance numbers.”

Ethan looked up from sketching. “Should I make some big paper mâché clubs for the cave kids dance?”

“Ha. Do you want to get us both fired? There’s no way the kids would be able to hold them for an entire dance without clubbing each other. We’ll wrap some animal print fabric around the cave kids to get the idea across. Then from there we’ll go right into “Walk Like an Egyptian” and then let the teachers pick and choose from the Charleston, the Macarena, the Irish Step Dance, the Polynesian Puili dance, and the Tarantella from Italy.”

“Impressive,” Ethan said.

“Time will tell,” I said. “The dance steps are all pretty simple—lots of knee bending and hip wiggling. But preschoolers love to dance, and if they’re having fun, hopefully the audience will, too. Okay, then from there, we jump right into the holiday stuff. “Dance of the Sugar Plum Puppies”, “Deck the Halls with Boughs of Catnip.”

“Guaranteed crowd pleasers,” Ethan said.

“Then all the kids will come on stage and sing and dance to Woodie Guthrie’s ‘Hanukkah Dance’ followed by ‘If You’re Happy and You Know It, Kwanza’s Here.’ And then the teachers will join the kids on stage. We’ll all dance around to ‘Jingle Bell Rock’ and ‘Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree,’ and then our grand finale will be “We Wish You a Happy Howliday and a Bark-Filled New Year.”

Ethan was sketching frantically.

I took a deep breath. “And then the kids playing the dogs and the cats will yell ‘home sweet home’ and run off to their parents in the audience. I’m not sure it quite holds up in terms of plot, but it will get the idea across in a preschool kind of way.”

“I like it,” Ethan said. “And then we’ll have the adoptable animals from the shelter front and center during refreshments, and maybe some of them will get lucky.”

“Yeah,” I said. “Let’s hope. And let’s also hope that your godmother doesn’t kill us both. I mean, she can only fire me, but she can disown you, too.”