Aardvark had just turned ten. He wasn't really an aardvark; though, at least he didn't think he was. He just sorta-kinda had an aardvark-like nose-and some people even said he smelled like an aardvark, so all the boys and girls at school called him aardvark. At first, he cried a lot, but after beating up Zebulon McAllister and creaming Lance O'Flannagan, he gained enough respect to be ignored . . . sort of. He still heard aardvark sounds every time he walked down the school corridors, and he once got pushed in the dirt on the playground. "Dig for ants aardvark," a half dozen playmates screamed, "dig for ants, or do you call them 'aunts'?"

Aardvark didn't cry any more. He just spent most of his days alone. Reading. Writing. And thinking. He knew that he was brighter than all the other boys. He guessed that that was why they picked on him. He just wasn't sure how he could get them to understand that he wasn't their enemy-and that he didn't really eat ants for breakfast.

So the next day, after gobbling down the French toast with molasses that his mom had fixed him and hugging her boyishly, not-aardvark-like, he went upstairs to his bedroom, stripped naked, put a rope around one of the rafters in his room, tightened it, and then stood on that wobbly wooden chair his dad had never fixed as he put the other end tightly around his neck and hopped off, dangling there with his feet a foot from the floor and the chair behind him, wondering why an aardvark would commit suicide and as the seconds crept by so slow-then wondering, why not, as he wiggled his naked body to that chair and grabbed the back of it and hoisted himself up, up, ever up-seemingly an eternity until he planted his naked feet hack on the chair and gasping, gasping, he loosed the rope around his neck and took the longest breath he had ever taken and then, he heard a voice outside his open window-in his yard on the patio-and he ripped off the rope, because he was a strong aardvark, after all, and still naked leaned out of the window (only his upper part was visible and, anyway, no one except a giraffe could possible see inside his room.

Down below he saw a girl, about his age, waving, smiling and motioning for him to come downstairs.

Aardvark was thirsty now-he didn't know why -but he was as thirsty as hell and he guessed that aardvarks drank more than other animal's so he waved at the girl and said he'd be down in a moment-to get some water, of course, but he thought, well, he just might, maybe open the back door and invite her in, so he put his clothes back on-everything except his shoes an went down to the kitchen noticing there were still a few cookies left over from last week (which was amazing since had, as everyone knows, insatiable appetites, so he drank what seemed like half a gallon of water and opened the door.

"Hi there, aardvark, I'm zebra-well I'm not a real zebra it's just what all the other girls call me-but I don't know why but probably that's no big deal because your not really and aardvark, are you?"

"I'm Roger," aardvark said, "but everyone calls me aardvark. What's your name?"

"Hi Roger, I'm Susan and I'm not really a zebra."

"Pleased to meet you," they both said at the exactly same moment as their eyes fixed on each other and Roger said, my mom's in the other room, but I think if you'd like--we could ask her to make us some cookies."

"No," Susan said, "why don't we just ask her if we can do that together, wont that be a lot more fun?"

The End

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