PROLOGUE

Greetings from jolly old England, darling daughters, where I am feeling anything but jolly.

In fact, I might be having a panic attack.

My heart is racing. My palms feel clammy, which is a strange expression, because how can hands feel like clams?

Anyway, I can barely breathe and it’s not because somebody just told me what the cute-sounding British dish “bubble and squeak” actually is (leftover vegetables mashed together with cabbage, potatoes, and anything else nobody wanted to eat the day before).

I haven’t been this nervous since the time I climbed the Ferris wheel down the shore in Seaside Heights, New Jersey. (The second time. The time my dad caught me.)

I think I am freaking out because I am about to do something I’ve always wanted to do but am totally terrified of doing.

Yes, that makes about as much sense as a book titled How to Read or a waterproof towel.

As you ladies know, your famous mom is over here in London, rehearsing for William Shakespeare’s play As You Like It at the Globe Theatre.

I’m playing Rosalind, one of Shakespeare’s funniest, most kick-butt female characters. The new Globe is a re-creation of his famous theater from back in 1599, which, believe it or not, was a year or two before I was born.

Life is good, right?

No. Life right now is terrifying!

Sh-Sh-Shakespeare.

Just thinking about playing a part in a comedy by the Greatest Writer Who Ever Lived with one of the finest Shakespearean acting companies in the world (or, you know, the globe) makes me extremely shaky.

So why is my big opportunity such a huge nightmare?

Because it reminds me of one of the most colossal failures in my whole, entire life.

Most people may know me as the super-cool Academy Award–winning funny lady and star of Saturday Night Live, but that’s not who I was one summer when I was about your age.

I was a mess.

And a failure.

The star of a one-woman disaster movie.

Yes, girls, you guessed it. There’s an embarrassingly kooky but meaningful story from my younger days in your immediate future.

So beware: There are hazardous conditions up ahead.