by Erin Lundell

Today is the day! I am growing up. I wipe the crumbs off my shirt and face and run upstairs with my marker box. Grabbing my chair and pulling it across my floor as it bumps and thumps along. I shove it next to my mirror. I open my marker box and close my fist around a blue marker. I pull myself on to the chair. Soon I will be cool because soon I will have highlights like Mary. Mary has highlights in her hair, and if she can so can I. I grab a strand of hair and pull the cap off the marker. I rub the blue marker up and down on my hair. I gets some on my ear, but that does not matter because I am getting highlights! When I finish the parts of my head I can see I bump and thump down the stairs leaving the marker open on my dresser. I go and show my mom, she will know that I am grown up and that I can ride my tricycle on my own without help.

ERIN KRISTINE LUNDELL WHAT DID YOU DO TO YOUR HAIR?

I got highlights mommy.

GO GET THE MARKER YOU USED!

I ran upstairs and got the marker thinking that soon mommy would say I was grown up. When I gave her the blue marker that says washable on it she pulled me bumping and thumping up the stairs to put me in the shower where all my highlights went down the drain like snow in the spring. But my ear stayed blue for a week.

Everyone at school thought that I was a cooler kid then Mary because I had a blue ear, and blue ears are cooler then highlights anyway.