“Jack? Say goodnight to your friends, it’s time for bed!” he heard his mother call out from across the field. His friends, three donkeys and a horse, looked at his mother and then at him. “If your mother is a donkey, how come you have stripes?” “Yeah, why do you have stripes? We don’t..” “Are they racing stripes? Do you gallop faster than us?” They all asked at once. Jack simply shrugged and explained his father was a zebra, which made him a rare breed known as zonkey.
Trotting back towards his mother, Jack heard his friends giggle behind him. “Why the long face?” Asked his mother, noticing Jack was bothered by it. “I’m different from my friends” Said Jack, but, as mothers do, she reaffirmed him that he wasn’t different, but special.
The next day before Jack went out to play, she gave him a package of striped scarfs and coats, which she had made overnight. Filled with excitement he ran across the field towards his friends. “Here, wear these!” said Jack; “Then we’re all special!”
Jaap W.P. Borst © 2013
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