Muscle Man

Sweaty palms, aching muscles, and sore feet were all in a day's work for Emma. She didn't know anything but exercise, and the most intense exercise was what made her happy. While the rest of the kids in her classroom sat and complained about gym class, Emma savoured it. She loved running, she absolutely did. And soccer? Soccer was her favorite.

The children in her class found this hysterical, how she hated to watch TV and loved to play outdoors, and there was nothing more fun to them then to call her names- their favorite out of all of them being Muscle Man. Emma didn't want to be Muscle Man- she wanted to be a fairy princess like all the other girls in her grade. Her mommy didn't understand that to be a fair princess, you had to watch TV and stop eating your vegetables. Princesses hate vegetables.

And so Emma began to stop running and playing, and she began to fit in with all the other girls in her grade, opting to stop wearing her favorite running shorts and instead wear fluffy pink skirts, like Ally Anderson. She stopped eating vegetables and apples, and nibbled instead on caramel popcorn, which she had used to hate until Ally told her it was what fairy princesses eat.

Still, the little boys with the pug noses and the skinny little girls made fun of her. "Muscle Man will never be a princess!" They insisted, which made Emma sad- because didn't they see how hard she was trying to be one of them? She just wanted to play with them on the playground and sit with them at lunch.

Emma wanted to go back to playing outside and running around, and dressing in her boyish tshirts and shorts, but she couldn't, or else the children would make fun of her. Emma's young brain yearned to be itself again, but she didn't know how, and besides, the children would like her soon, right? It could'nt take them that long to realize she was a princess like them, too!

Emma's mommy began to worry. Emma hardly ever smiled and never did any of the things she used to enjoy. It made Emma's mommy's heart hurt, too. She only wanted her only daughter to be happy, but she didn't know how to make her happy again. Emma hardly ever spoke to her, anyways.

Emma was still trying, every day, to fit in with the kids, but nothing ever helped. Ally Anderson, who had tried to make Emma a fairy princess like her, was the worst assailant out of them all, kicking Emma to the ground when she asked to play with her.

Emma tried to hide her bruises, but her mommy saw them. Her mommy frowned, and asked Emma where she got them, but the only thing she said, through her tears, was "Mommy, why can't I be a fairy princess like them?"

Emma's mommy didn't understand what Emma meant, and that frustrated Emma. Did that mean her mommy didn't think she was a fairy princess either? The entire world hated Emma, it seemed. She just wanted everything to go back to the way it had been before she had tried to change, when she was having fun running around and eating her good food, before she tried to become a princess. Maybe Emma just wasn't princess material, after all.

But Emma didn't want to go back to school, and be called Muscle Man again, she wanted to be a different kind of fairy princess. And so, when she returned to school, she told the children that.

"I'm not Muscle Man, I'm the Fairy Princess of Gym Class!" She announced proudly, expecting all of her troubles to go away with the new title.

"There's no such thing, Muscle Man!" Yelled Joshua, the meanest boy in class "You'll never be a princess, Emma! You're too ugly!"

Emma felt tears prick her eyes as Ally Anderson pulled Emma's hair, laughing as she did so. "You don't even watch TV, Emma, how are you supposed to be a fairy princess?"

"I do watch TV!" Emma insisted, trying to extract her fine brown hair from in between Ally's chubby fingers.

"You can't be a princess with us, Emma, you're Muscle Man." Kylie, Ally's best princess friend added. Emma struggled against Ally's grip on her hair, and finally fought free, allowing herself to sob openly as she did so. She had changed for them! Couldn't they see that? Why didn't anyone ever want to be friend with her? She wasn't Muscle Man anymore! She was Emma the Fairy Princess! 

Emma had given up so much to be one of the girls, and yet they still did not accept her.

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Finish.

I guess the moral of this story is to never change, because if you do, you'll end up regretting it.