Wishes and Kisses || COMPLETE

The Maroon Crayon Part III

Ms. Darcy read the rest of the story she was reading before. It was called 'The Turtle and the Rabbit', and it was meant to teach us that slow and steady would win the race rather than being fast and cocky. I thought it was pretty dumb to be honest. My five year old mind went deep in thought calculating all the fallacies of the story and the message. The rabbit only lost because he was sleeping! It didn't have to do with fast or slow, the rabbit was just a dummy. Being the fastest was the obvious way a person won a race.

Later on, Ms. Darcy told us it was show and tell day and that we had to bring a special toy and draw it, and later we would show it to the class and explain why we chose that toy. She also told me since it was my first day I could draw a toy from memory, but I already had my special fire truck toy packed with me so that was okay.

Some kids had their own coloring materials, but most of us (myself included) didn't. The teacher put all the color stuff at the front of the class, and one by one we all grabbed some. Sadly when it was my turn, there were no more crayons available. There were only colored pencils, markers, and paint.

Let me explain. As a kid, the only acceptable art utensil was a crayon. No exceptions. Markers always bled through the paper. Paint was sticky and got everywhere and made my mother mad. Colored pencils always broke when I held them on the page too hard. I wanted crayons, and ONLY crayons. Nothing else was acceptable.

I asked Ms. Darcy for crayons, and she told me to just pick something else. I was insistent though, and she suggested I could borrow some from one of my classmates. I decided to do that because I knew sharing was caring, and I assumed everyone else did too. I also thought it could be an opportunity to make a friend.

There was a boy who was the tallest kid in class using a box of crayons. He was about five inches taller than me and probably would have been a regular kid in the eyes of any adult viewing him, but in my mind he was a GIANT, and giants were powerful and mighty. I really wanted HIM to be my friend.

"Hi," I said. "Can I borrow your crayons?"

"I'm using them."

"Can I just use the red one? That's the only one I need."

"No. I want my red one."

I glanced over to what he was drawing. A standard black and white soccer ball. "Your toy isn't even red!" I said.

"Well you still can't use mine because it's mine and I said so." He took his red crayon and shoved it down his pants, sticking his tongue out at me.

"That's not nice."

"You're not nice."

I decided to ask some of the other kinds to borrow their red crayons, but as I turned my head to ask, they put their red crayons in their pants and shirts as well, teaming up on me, giggling like it was a game. I guess to them it was, but my feelings were really getting hurt.

I decided not to act out on my frustration and let them be. My mother always told me the importance of being kind, and it was advice I took to heart, even at the age of five years old.

I scanned the room for anyone else with crayons that haven't mocked me yet. I couldn't find anyone. I walked back to my seat in defeat, but then in the corner of my eye, I saw a girl with incredibly black hair and incredibly light brown eyes sitting in the corner by herself. Most of everyone else had at least one person they were sitting with, but not her. She was alone like me. She also happened to be drawing with crayons, and she had a whole lot of them.

I walked up to her with the crayon objective in mind, but then I saw the book the same book the teacher read at the start of class. The one about the turtle and the rabbit.

"Why do you have Ms. Darcy's book?" I asked her.

She looked up from her drawing, which happened to be a gold coin necklace, and faced me. "It's my book," she said. "I liked it so much that I wanted to share it with everyone, so I asked Ms. Darcy to read it. Did you like it?"

"I thought the pictures were pretty, but the message was kinda dumb."

"Why?"

"The rabbit was faster and better. It says that slow and steady wins the race, but if the rabbit didn't fall asleep, the turtle would have lost."

"I think you didn't get the real story. You just said the real moral."

"Huh?"

"It didn't matter that the turtle was slow. It mattered that he believed in himself even if he was slow. It mattered that the rabbit thought he was really fast and cool and didn't think the turtle could beat him, so he slept. The rabbit could have won, but in the end it wasn't about what could have happened if another thing happened. The turtle still won. Do you get it?"

I tried to think about what she said, but my mind jumped to another matter. "Hey, Ms. Darcy said to draw a special toy. Why are you drawing a necklace?"

"I don't have a special toy."

My eyes grew wide, and my expression drooped. "You don't have any toys?"

As a kid, my mother always said there were kids that didn't have toys because their parents couldn't afford any and had to buy food instead, and seeing a kid without a toy made me sad. I had an extra toy I brought to school that day other than my fire truck. A police car. I was prepared to give it to her.

"I do have toys, but I don't have a special toy. This necklace is special though."

"Why is it special?" I asked.

She stopped and looked around as if she was seeking for an answer, but eventually she looked at me and said, "I don't know."

"Well, it's really pretty," I said, and I meant it. For a five year old kid, it was a pretty neat drawing.

"Thanks," she said. "I like to read and I like to make art. Look at all my colors!" She opened her backpack to show me her endless supplies of construction paper, fancy paints, markers, colored pencils, and yes, crayons. It baffled me that a kid could have so many supplies.

"Woah," I said. "Do you have a red crayon I can borrow?"

She pursed her lips together. "I let some of our other classmates borrow my colors before. They usually come back broken," she said. "Look." She pulled out an exhibit of a purple crayon broken in half."

"I promise I'll take good care of it. I'm nice."

She studied me for a minute. "Okay, you can borrow a crayon," she said. "But please give it back when you're done."

I leaped in the air with excitement. "Yes!"

She opened up her crayon box, and I bolted my hand for a dark red one. "Thank you!" I excalimed.

"That's not red," she said.

"What? Yes it is."

"No it's not." She pulled out a lighter shade than the one I picked. "This is red. See?" She pointed at the label on the crayon that said R-E-D. I knew basic words. I knew that was the red one.

"If that's not red, then what's this?" I asked. I looked at the word on the crayon I picked, but it was a big word for my five year old eyes. "May-- mer-- mah--"

She glanced over at the word. "Mah . . . rune," she said. "Yeah. That color is called maroon."

For some reason my five year old ears registered that as the fanciest thing I've ever heard. Maroon. It was like red, but not red. It was like red, but for rich people that could afford to buy as many colors as they wanted. Instantly, I decided maroon was my new favorite color.

"Here's the red one," she said, holding it over to me.

"I like this better. I want a maroon truck."

She smiled. "You can use that then."

We ended up drawing and coloring our pictures next to one another, giggling and talking about the silly things kids talk about. It didn't feel like long before it was time for show and tell.