Mary Mack

Miss Mary Mack used to be a sad sack.

While she played with the boys, the girls conspired behind her back.

To them it wasn't normal for a girl to do boy things.

One morning the girls leader Queenie Jones, removed a pair of scissors from inside her desk and simply cut off Mary's ponytail.

Mary watched as her hair was paraded around the room like a prize possession.

Other kids laughed, but poor Mary was in shock.

It wasn't until she was excused to the little girls room that she caught a glimpse of her new look.

Surprisingly she didn't see that horribly mishapped girl anymore, but the reflection of her inner self. The person she really was.

All this time she hadn't wanted to be wearing dresses and playing with dolls, but relaxing high up in the branches of an oak tree that was planted in her front yard reading The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.

Mary took this tragedy as a triumph and began wearing her brothers clothes.

The other girls were appalled at how easy Mary fit into her new look.

She was once more confronted by Queenie and her followers. This time they were armed with the classes spare acrylic paint.

Doused in various colors, Mary should have run away screaming, but instead saw it as an opportunity to be free. So she grasped Queenie in her arms and kissed her on the cheek whispering something into her ear.

Tears swelled in Queenie's eyes as if a fresh onion were being peeled.

The class went silent, except for the sobbing sounds from Queenie's broken reign.

Mary was finally at peace.