The lights had been down in The P*lace for about 15 minutes. The audience was getting restless.
"Kids Inc! Kids Inc!" they chanted.

In the dim light, Riley stood, bouncing on the balls of his feet and glancing at his watch. Finally, he stuck his head backstage. "Hey, what's the holdup back there?" he asked.

"Sorry, Riley, we're coming." Ryan replied. He moved back down the narrow hallway towards the storeroom. "What's taking you girls so long?"

"It's not us." said Gloria.

The Kid was lingering in front of the vanity mirror. "Is my hat on straight?" he asked

"YES!" said the other four band members.

Once they finally got out onto the stage, things progressed a lot more smoothly. The audience loved the number and the reams of confetti that shot out at the end. Kids Inc. didn't really care that much for it; it stuck to sweaty skin like glue. They shook themselves off as they headed off stage.

Kid took a bit more care. He removed his hat and brushed all the individual paper dots off by hand. Satisfied it was clean, he put it back on and reassumed his place at the vanity.

His friends watched with a mixture of exasperation and amusement. "What's with him?" asked Stacy.

"You'd think his hat was alive or something." Renee added.

"Hey," Gloria chided them, "there's nothing wrong with taking a little pride in your appearance."

"There is when you're The Kid." said Ryan. "Remember the saying, 'Pride goeth before a fall'?"

But it wasn’t just Kid who was focused on his hat. In school the next day, the homeroom teacher was attempting to take the roll when the morning announcements started. Because no one could hear her, she simply scanned the classroom instead of calling out the names. When she reached The Kid, she looked up and spied his hat among the students.

Later, in P.E., a very intense basketball game was underway. A new student had the ball and was heavily guarded by a member of the opposing team.

"Pass it to Kid!" one of his teammates yelled.

"Who?" said the new student.

"He's the guy with the hat."

Day after day of this was slowly becoming too much for The Kid to keep under his hat. He returned to rehearsal at the end of the day with his head hanging low.

Renee had been talking to the others "...and they want to put some of the poem in the school paper." Just then she noticed The Kid sitting quietly. "Kid, you're not making fun of me." she said. "What's wrong?"

"What do you think of when you think of me?" he asked.

"Well..."

"Don't answer that, Renee." warned Gloria. She continued. "We think of a sweet, great guy who happens to be our friend."

"And?" said Kid.

"And is a great singer." Ryan added.

It was Stacy who unwittingly arrived at the problem. "And wears a hat."

Kid groaned. "Why does everybody focus on my hat?" he complained.

"You wear one every day." Renee pointed out. "Eventually, we just figured it was glued onto your head." Everyone glared at her. "I can't do the teasing for once?" she asked.

“It might as well be.” said Kid. “I don’t think anybody knows who I am without a hat on.”

“Of course we know who you are.” Stacy said to him. “You’re The Kid.”

"But who's The Kid?"

Now Stacy was confused. “Um…you?”

“See? It’s like you need my hat more than I do. You know what I get every year for Christmas? Hats! You know what I get for my birthday? Hats! You know what I’m gonna get this year?”

“How about a hat rack?” joked Gloria.

“You’re struggling with your identity. It’s very common at your age.” said Ryan, and everyone collectively looked away. “Everybody telling you who they think you are; parents, teachers, friends. You just have to decide who you want to be.”

“No offense, Ryan,” said The Kid, “but sometimes…I wish you’d decided to be somebody else.”

Gloria intervened again. "Ryan being smart is one of the reasons we love him so much." she said, hugging Ryan. "And you know that we love you, too, hat or no hat." She looked to the girls. "Right?"

"Right!" Renee chirped.

"Yeah, right!" said Stacy.

"Yeah." Ryan echoed.

"Hat or no hat, huh?" said Kid. Perhaps it was time to test this.

The next day, Kid came into rehearsal with his hat in his hands instead of on his head. "Here!" he said, thrusting it into Gloria's hands.

"Uh, it's not really my style, but thanks." she said.

"I need you to hide this. Don't tell me where it is, either."

"Oh, can I play?" asked Stacy.

"Don't let her hide any of your stuff!" Renee warned. "You'll never get it back!"

"It just so happens," her sister argued, "that I am a very good hider."

"Yeah - so good that even you can't find it again!"

"Well, maybe your stuff just doesn't want you to find it. Maybe it doesn't want to go back to you."

"Maybe I'll find it in your room!"

The Kid decided not to take part in that argument. "Ryan, I know you'll find a good hiding place." he said instead.

“Why do you want us to hide your hat?” asked Ryan.

"It's taken on a life of its own. If this keeps up, I'll have to give it a name!" He scowled at the black leather cap sitting innocently in Ryan's hands. "I want people to see ME, The Kid...not The Hat!"

"Okay. You're sure about this, now?"

"Yep. Take it. From now on, I'm hatless."

"Why do I get the feeling that this is going to end badly?" Gloria worried.

Meanwhile, Renee and Stacy were still arguing. "I never lost any of your stupid stuff!" said Stacy.

"Oh yeah?" yelled Renee.

"Yeah!"

"Then where's my Garfield eraser? The one with the party hat on it? I won that, and you've always wanted it."

"Ha! I know exactly where that is!" Stacy was sure she'd outsmarted her sister. "I hid it in my shoe."

"Which shoe?"

Stacy stopped, thought a minute...and sat down to take off her left shoe. Renee groaned.

"Why do I get the feeling," said Ryan, "that this isn't going to end, period?"

Sure enough, Stacy managed to produce one Garfield eraser from the bottom of her shoe, which she handed to Renee.

"Ew!" Renee yelled, and threw it back to her.

Stacy just smirked.

The next day, Kid went to school as usual. He received several puzzled looks, but he tried not to let it bother him.

Everyone was handing in their homework assignments from the night before. When Kid got up to the teacher's desk, she stared back at him in surprise.

"Oh! I marked you as absent." she said.

"No, I'm here." said Kid.

"Well, next time, be in your seat when the bell rings."

"I was!"

"Were you? Oh, I see - you're not wearing your hat. I'm used to seeing it."

This kind of thing continued to happen throughout the day. Poor Kid was actually picked last in P.E. because no one noticed him. When he got out onto the basketball court, no one even passed him the ball.

"Hey, I'm open, I'm open!" he shouted.

When his team eventually lost 6-4, the captain fumed. "We were this close!" He approached the new student. "Why'd you take that shot? You should have passed it! Kid was open!"

The new kid shrugged. "I didn't see him! I thought you said he always wore a hat."

When Kids Inc. convened in the storeroom that afternoon, they found the whole room in shambles.

"Whoa! Was there a tornado when I wasn't looking?" said Gloria.

Ryan knew better. "No...just someone blowing his top."

Startled, The Kid ran over to Ryan and grabbed him by the jacket. "WHERE IS IT?" The girls had to literally pull him off.

"Calm down, Kid!" Gloria exclaimed. "There's no need to get violent!"

"You don't understand." The Kid began. "I can't sleep, I can't eat. Everyone looks at me like I'm naked. I'm cold all the time, too."

"One of the places you tend to lose a lot of body heat is from your head." said Ryan. "It's why we all wear hats in the wintertime."

"Winter?" echoed Kid. "By winter, I'll be a Kidsicle!" He continued to frantically search for his hat.

"I've never seen The Kid freak out like that before." Renee said as they watched him. "Where did you put his hat, Ryan?"

"The one place I thought he'd never look." said Ryan. "I left it in his locker at school when he wasn't looking."

When Kid walked into school the following day, he received even more stares. A few kids even gaped at him as he walked by. He sat down at his desk, and a nervous silence fell over the class.

"Hey, how's it going?" Kid called to his friends. They just stared back at him. "Oh, come on, it's not that unusual!"

The teacher was walking down the aisles, returning homework assignments. When she reached The Kid's row, she shrieked, dropping the papers to the floor.

"What's the matter?" said Kid. "Is there a bug on my desk?"

He wondered what everyone's problem was all the way to rehearsal. At least he knew his good friends wouldn't treat him like a weirdo.

"Hi, guys!"

They all gasped. "Oh, no!" cried Gloria. "It's even worse than we thought!"

"I knew something like this would happen." said Ryan.

"Why does everybody keep staring at me?" The Kid asked. Ryan and Gloria were silent. "Hey, Stacy," he asked Stacy instead, "c'mon, what's the big deal?"

"Tell him, Stace." Renee nudged her sister.

"You tell him!" Stacy nudged her back.

"He wants you to tell him!"

"I don't want to tell him!"

Kid was getting angry now. "Somebody tell me!"

Instead, Stacy just pointed to the mirror. "Look for yourself."

The Kid went over to the mirror and saw that he was...without a head!

"AHHH! AHHH!"

Kid woke up screaming and frantically clutching at his head. "It's still here!" he laughed. “I didn’t lose my head!” He was alone in the storeroom. Everything was in disarray. "Hmm." he thought. "On second thought…maybe I did."

He found his hat. Ryan had stashed it in his locker. It occurred to The Kid that he might have actually seen the hat there earlier, and it never registered in his mind.

The other members of Kids Inc. had been waiting for him out by the bar. When he walked in wearing the hat and a big smile, they seemed very relieved.

"Well, you look much happier!" said Gloria. She and the others were even more surprised when The Kid removed his hat...and the smile remained.

“I am.” said Kid. “I realized that I can take off my hat without my head falling off.”

“Gee, you think there’s hope for me?” Riley joked, and everyone laughed.

“I think what Kid’s trying to say,” Ryan explained, “is that his hat doesn’t define who he is.”

“Yeah – but I look good in them!” Kid replied. Gloria put his hat back on over his face.