Then a little girl got up to sing, her mouth somehow staying in a straight flat line as she sang Shirley Temple’s “On the Good Ship Lollipop.” Her mom stood up in the audience, hissing “Smile, smile!” as the child’s face remained blank through the dirge. I bit my lip as the mom started doing the choreography to get her child to do the moves, flapping her arms in the animated way she probably did as a pageant girl herself.
