The red paper’s tale

Red Paper

The piece of red paper lay on the table in the playroom with all the other sheets of paper – blue and orange, black and white, cream and pale brown. Large pieces and smaller pieces.

Red Paper looked round at the others.

“I’m the brightest and best piece of paper here,” she said. “Marc will choose me to draw on, and then he’ll hang me on the wall for everyone to look at.”

“Shut up!” said Black Paper. “You’re just a bit of paper like all the rest of us. Marc could draw fireworks and a bonfire on me. Black is perfect for that.”

“Yes,” said Blue Paper. “And Marc might let me be the sky when he draws his house.”

“Or I could be a sandy beach,” said Orange Paper. “But I expect Marc will choose for himself.”

At that moment, Marc raced into the playroom with his friend Jodi.

“What shall we draw?” Marc asked Jodi. “Houses? The seaside? Bonfire night?”

Red Paper held her breath and crossed her fingers. What would Jodi say?

“Actually,” Jodi said slowly, “My dad has been showing me how to fold paper to make tiny models. You don’t have to cut anything. Shall I show you how?”

Make tiny models?

Red Paper was furious. She got redder and redder as she thought about being folded and squashed and creased and bent. Paper was for drawing on! How dare they ruin her?

But before she could say “paper plane”, Marc and Jodi sat down at the table and Jodi picked her up. She flapped and flipped in Jody’s hand, trying to escape.

“Bother!” said Jodi. “This red paper is too bendy and floppy. Let’s try the black piece first.”

Red Paper sat and fumed. She didn’t want to be folded and creased – but she didn’t want to be put down either. She was the best!

Red Paper had to sit and watch as Jodi folded and creased Black Paper. But after a while, she grew so interested that she forgot to be cross. Jodi’s hands were very careful as she made each fold, and she kept waiting so that Marc could copy with his piece of orange paper.

When they had both finished, Red Paper couldn’t believe her eyes. There, in front of them, sat two little birds.

“Mine’s a blackbird,” said Jodi. “What’s yours, Marc?”

“An orange bird, of course,” he said with a giggle.

Red Paper felt left out now. So she flapped and flipped in the breeze that wafted through the window, and hoped that someone would let her join in.

Jody noticed and picked her up.“Let’s try with this bendy bit now,” she said. “See if you can guess what I’m making.”

Marc watched as Red Paper let herself be folded this way and that, until she stood on the table, proud and upright, feeling very important.

“Why, it’s a butterfly!” Marc exclaimed.

A butterfly? Red Paper flexed her wings up and down excitedly. And the breeze suddenly caught her and carried her up to the window ledge. She was flying! She was beautiful. “Come up here,” she said to the blackbird and the orange bird. “It’s fun to fly!”

“Good night, little butterfly,” Marc and Jody called as they switched out the light in the playroom. “You can sleep up there tonight. See you in the morning!”

The moral of this tale is that life is not much fun if you refuse to take part!