#21

Today everyone wore solid colored t-shirts. The game was to see who can single themselves out as being the only person with a different color t-shirt. So you can just imagine how colorful our class was that day. Everyone wore shirts that they’d never wear any other normal day; puke green or neon yellow seemed like the perfect outfit for the day.

But despite our color creativity no one had an exclusive color. We had fuschia shirts, almond colored shirts, azure shirts, etc, but we everyone had a matching partner. That meant the punishment applied to everyone.

Yesterday we decided that those whose shirt’s color matched someone else’s in the class would have to spend the entire recess standing one leg, and chirp like bitter birds. You could just imagine us standing on the blacktop, a colorful bunch, all standing on one leg – squawking.

When we got back to the classroom Miss Grothoff was already standing at the front of the room and beside her stood a new girl.

“Class, I’d like to introduce you to Anna. She’ll be joining us for the second semester of the school year. Her family just moved into town last week. Why don’t you welcome her?”

“Hi Anna,” we said in unison.

It must’ve been weird for Anna . . . not because she was new to the class, but because everyone had their eyes on her shirt and not her face. Our eyes drilled into the threads of her cotton t-shirt; we were all pretty upset.

Anna wore a plain white t-shirt with a small but recognizable WWF logo (Panda). I’m telling you, there’s something wrong with my class. No one had ever thought of wearing white to school. We all tried to be something totally different, but in the end everyone was the same.