Once upon a time

Once upon a time....

In a magical kingdom far far away, there was a little rainbow haired girl called Michelle. She was a happy child, full of creativity and light. Everything she touched became more colourful and she sprinkled glitter everywhere she went. She liked nothing more than to paint and draw. Losing herself for hours creating vibrant pictures of her favourite animals.

That all changed though when she started B.I.G (bossy, influential, guidance) school. Firstly the teachers didn't appreciate glitter all over their class rooms, it was simply "too messy". She was also the only one she met with rainbow hair. All the other children had one colour of hair. Pink, blue, yellow but not rainbow and they didn't like things being so colourful. It was strange to them. So they made fun of her rainbow hair and moved away from her light. Michelle wanted nothing more than to make friends, so she dimmed her light and changed her rainbow hair to one colour, so she could to fit in.

The children started to accept this new, less colourful, Michelle. However School life was still really hard. Art wasn't recognised as a useful skill to have in B.I.G School. She found anything creative easy, it allowed her to sprinkle glitter and be colourful again. But she struggled with the rest of her lessons. Don't mention times tables AARRGGGGHH!!! There was no room for glitter here. This left her feeling stupid and her light began to fade even more. The teachers would say "Art won't give you a secure income in the R.E.A.L world focus on your other lessons instead".

She'd heard of this R.E.A.L (really exhausting actual life) world before. It seemed like a very scary place, so Michelle wanted to do as the teachers suggested. It was time to give up her artist dreams and instead look for something the teachers called 'job'.

She packed away her paints, climbed upon her trusty squirrel and rode on towards R.E.A.L world in a quest for 'job'.

(Wait! What? Her Squirrel???) Well of course! A squirrel with a rainbow saddle to match her rainbow hair, you can have any animal you want in the Magical kingdom and this . It turns out, however, that is not the case in the R.E.A.L world but more of that later.....

It was only a short time before she found 'job'. Hoorah! It wasn't that hard because it turns out there were lots of them. There was only one problem, there were jobs for all the colours of hair you could think of but no jobs for rainbow hair. "Not to worry" she thought, "i'll just change my hair to match the job".

She tried a Purple hair job 1st and was terrible at it. Purple was definitely not for her. Next she changed her hair to pink and tried a Yellow Job, that was worse than purple so she changed her hair again to green. This time she was better at job but didn't fit in with the other Greens. Although her hair was green, they didn't like her. They never invited her to join them on their lunchtime rides. It probably didn't help that she turned up to Job each day, riding a giant squirrel with a rainbow saddle. This wasn't the Green way. But of course until someone points out that most Greens ride horses, not squirrels, you don't know that you are doing things differently. The Greens certainly weren't going to tell her, so Michelle spent her lunchtimes by herself.

It seems she didn't fit in at B.I.G school and it was the same in the R.E.A.L world too. What was worse was that each time she had changed her colours. Her light dimmed even more, until she couldn't remember how to be colourful at all.

One lunchtime, Michelle was eating lunch alone when she heard "Hey I like your Squirrel". She looked up to see a girl with pink hair. "Sqirrels are my favourite" she said. Michelle just stared at the girl, so used to being ignored by the Greens. "Can I join you?" the girl asked. "Erm, sure" Michelle said moving to make room for her to sit down. "Thanks, I'm Katie". The girls started talking and instantly hit it off. Michelle felt instantly at ease around the girl. It felt so nice to not have to pretend to be Green for a while. "bit unusual for a Green to ride a Squirrel"

Creativity came in a place she never imagined