Once upon a time, in a town not far from here, lived Little Girl.  Little Girl loved to sing and dance.  She wasn’t particularly grand at either of these things, yet she loved them all the same.

Little Girl went to ballet lessons and sometimes got to wear pretty tutus with her pink ballet shoes.   “Not technically precise but obviously enjoying herself” said Mrs Examiner, looking over her spectacles on one particular day.  But most of the time, Little Girl felt scared of exams and performances.  

Amongst the other members of the school orchestra, in the old echoing hall, Little Girl sat poised behind the xylophone.  She gazed up at the stage in awe as red-slippered Dorothy sang about rainbows and there being no place like home.   Little Girl knew all the words to all the songs.  She too became Dorothy, in her own little world of Oz, which existed within her bedroom, in the place she called home.

Oh how she wished to sing and dance.  Oh how she wished to be up on a stage.

But Little Girl had a mean old monster that snuck around in the shadows of herself.  The monster’s name was Nasty Mr Nerves.  Nasty Mr Nerves would try to scare Little Girl, whispering not nice things in her ear and making her too afraid to be brave.  

Little Girl went to piano lessons.  She did her piano practice.  Her teacher wanted her to perform at piano recitals.  Little Girl liked her teacher very much and didn’t want to disappoint her. But, oh me oh my, did that Nasty Mr Nerves play his horrid tricks on her as she would sit waiting for her turn!

Then one day, Little Girl’s piano teacher gave her a nice new piece to perform.  It was called The Peacock.  Little Girl loved playing The Peacock.  He was a funny old thing.  That peacock had to strut about and flaunt its wings. His mood would change like the brilliant and varied colours of his tail feathers.  The peacock slowed and then sped.   And all of a sudden, in the middle of that performance, Little Girl forgot all about Nasty Mr Nerves, and instead was lost in the delight of the music.  In the delight of performing.  “I like this feeling”, thought Little Girl.

Life carried on, until Little Girl was pretty much a Grown Up Little Girl with children of her own.

Not much time for dreaming about stage and song.  Grown Up Little Girl was busy, busy, busy, with the songs and dances of her own beautiful little children.  And Nasty Mr Nerves, well he went off to have a rest.  

And then one day, Grown Up Little Girl remembered about her Little Girl dream, and somehow found herself sitting outside another big old echoing hall, waiting to audition for a part in a real-life musical theatre show.  Nasty Mr Nerves sneaked out from the shadows and whispered his mean old words again,  turning her tummy into a rumble-tumble of upsie-downsies.

“Oh dear, I can’t do it.   Please take me home,”  the terrified little girl inside the big girl said to her patient, ever-encouraging and almost Grown-Up Husband.

“Of course you can do it,” he said.  “Be a big girl.  Off you go.”.

So, trying hard not to look at Nasty Mr Nerves, off she went.  And into the show, she got.  

As the curtain came down at the end of her very first real show, the audience clapped and cheered.  And Big Little Girl had a very happy feeling inside.   “I like doing this”, she thought.  “I like doing this a lot!”

And so, she did do it – a lot.  Musical shows, comedy shows, belly-dance shows and tap dance shows.  She loved them all.  Nasty Mr Nerves would hang around, trying to jump out unexpectedly from darkened corners, but she poked her tongue out at him and managed to ignore him, mostly.

But life got very busy again, as life tends to do.  The shows stopped and Grown Up Little Girl became a bit more serious, and a bit more focussed on the grown up things of life.

Until one day, a friend came along.

“Hey there”, he said.  “I like to play music and I’m in a band.  We have a lot of fun and we sound not half bad, but alas we don’t have anyone to sing our songs.  Would you like to come along and sing while we play the music?

Grown Up Little Girl thought for a while.

“I’m a little bit scared”, she said to herself, noticing Nasty Mr Nerves beginning to pop his mean old head around the corner.  “And I’ve never sung in a real band before.  What if they don’t like me or the way I sing their songs?” Nasty Mr Nerves sneaked a wee bit closer.

“Stop it!  Go away!”  Grown Up Little Girl said sternly to her annoying old monster.

“Yes please,” she said, turning to her friend.  “I would very much like to sing songs with your band”.

And so she did.  Grown Up Little Girl had a grand old time, singing songs up on a stage.  People danced and sang along to their music, and it was very good indeed. 

But then, after a while, the other people in the band got busy themselves.  They were grown ups after all.  “We’re sorry”, they said.  “We haven’t got time to play this music anymore.  Some of us need to go to other towns.  Some of us are just too busy.  Good-bye and good luck.”

And off they went.

“Oh dear, what shall we do now?”,  Grown Up Little Girl and her friend said to each other, sadly.

They had liked singing and playing their music so much.  

“Do you think we could be brave?” “Do you think we could play music and sing songs with just the two of us?

Nasty Mr Nerves sniffed a loud and horrid sniff close by, just to let them know he was there.

Grown Up Little Girl turned her back on that sniff.

“I think we could give it a jolly good try”, she said hopefully.

“Me too”, said her friend.

So they did.  They became a duo.  And they named their duo SugarMouse after a song which was all about lollies, and hoping and wishing.  And making life sweet.

SugarMouse played lots of music and sang lots of songs. In fact, they still do.

And Nasty Mr Nerves?  Well, he still tries to  jump out from the shadows of Grown Up Little Girl’s self every now and again.  Sometimes she forgets to ignore him.  But more and more she remembers to turn her back on him and work on being brave.  She’s learnt, over the years, that being brave, even when it’s hard, really is quite a good thing.  It can even make little girl dreams come true.