The Green Misfit
By: Carissa Gonzalez
The Green Misfit
“I hope they like me, after all I’m a green flamingo, which mens I'm different.” said Fanny.
Fanny is a green flamingo who used to live in St. Helena Bay, Africa, which was a big algae bloom. The only food available to Fanny was slimy, green algae. Most flamingos are pink because all they eat is shrimp, and their pink pigment is obtained through their diets. Now Fanny is moving to a new school where the pink flamingos thrive. Fanny has never seen a pink flamingo, but she was curious about their wondrous colors.
On Fanny’s first day of school, she marveled at the other flamingos complections, but they were puzzled by hers.
A group of flamingos stomped over to Fanny.
“Did you fall in slime?” honked a young flamingo.
“ Are you sick?” blurted a girl flamingo.
“No, I’m not sick, and I did not fall in slime!” boomed Fanny and flapped her wings viciously. “I’m green because”….. She was interrupted by a darling squawking voice.
“Out of my way! Let me see!”
All heads turned. In came the most extraordinary thing Fanny has ever seen, a flamingo made from the most vibrant of pinks.
“Hey, it’s the new kid, my name is Magentaaaaah.”
“Hello” said Fanny.
“You Freak,” snickered Magenta as she pointed her wing right in Fanny’s face. “Why are you green?”
The bell rang at that moment, which signaled that lunch was starting. The swarm of flamingos all left, and Fanny stomped to lunch by herself.
As she stomped into the noisy lunchroom with her algae sandwich, everything went silent. No one knew why she was not eating shrimp. The flamingos started to whisper amongst themselves while staring at Fanny.
Annoyed by all the murmurs, Fanny stood on the table and made an announcement.
“I am not a freak! I am green because of what I eat. Where I come from, algae it is all we can eat. So consider yourselves lucky! And for your information, in my old home town, I had the prettiest shade of green there was” as she puffed out her feathers.
“Yeah, like you could ever be pretty,” said Magenta sarcastically.
The whole lunchroom laughed at her, and water of the lightest green started to roll from Fanny’s eyes.
Their laughing was soon interrupted by a large growling noise coming from the doors.
All of the flamingos started running around the lunchroom like chickens without heads. They heard the sound of their greatest enemy, THE ALLIGATORS.
The alligators came in like a cyclone and circled Magenta and a group of other flamingos.
They began growling.
“Food!”
“They look tasty.”
“Lunch is served!”
As much as Fanny hated Magenta and the others for making fun of her, she stepped into the circle.
The alligators, puzzled by her appearance,took a step back.
Then, Fanny got an idea to help her classmates survive. She would pluck off her green feathers until she was as bare as a tree in winter. Fanny plucked till all that was showing was her pale, green, bare skin.
She placed her feathers on the other Flamingos.
The alligators, disgusted by the sight, took off to find another place to hunt. All the flamingos cheered for Fanny and lifted her up in the air squawking, “Fanny is our hero!”
From then on, Fanny was not seen as a freak, but as a hero. Then, she realized that she was proud of being different.
Vocabulary
Obtained: get, acquire, or secure (something).