Johnny went to a country school that had no cafeteria. Just like everybody else, he ate at his desk in the classroom, with the appropriate kind of lunch: a sandwich, some chips, and a piece of fruit in a small paper sack. Nobody would think of doing anything else. That would make them weird and subject to ridicule.
Mom decided chips and a sandwich wasn’t a healthy diet. At the store, she bought a lunchbox with two thermoses, one for hot soup, the other for cold milk. The lunchbox was big and black, shaped like a barn.
Johnny begged for the paper sack and the sandwich, but she insisted. How could he hide this from the rest of the kids?
When he walked through the classroom door, he held the lunchbox behind him, hoping nobody would notice. He slipped it underneath his seat and didn’t hear what the teacher was saying. All morning long, he tried to figure out how he could keep others from seeing how weird he was. Finally, he decided there was no place to hide, so he might as well act as if he liked it.
As soon as the lunch bell rang, he pulled out his lunchbox and let the opened lid bang against the desktop. He unscrewed the lid from the big thermos, which formed the bowl for his steaming soup. It tasted good, and the milk was good too.
After that, he gave no thought to the other kids or how they might make fun of him—not until the next Monday at lunchtime. The boy across the aisle had a lunchbox like his. So did Susie and Billy and the tall kid in the back.
That’s when he learned it was okay to be different.
To be creative and exceptional writers, we must dare to be different, willing to stand out in the crowd as a leader instead of a follower.
