#Slice 2013: 5 of 31

For the month of March, I am participating in the daily writing challenge that is hosted by Stacey Shubitz and Ruth Ayres at their blog, twowritingteachers.wordpress.com. While not every post I am writing is creative, I'm trying to write more stories than I typically do on the blog. Exclamation Point  by Amy Krouse Rosenthal, combined with my daughter's challenges in remembering and categorizing shapes inspired this story. It's silly and rough, but it's a piece that I'd like to develop. I'm envisioning pictures to work with it and I'm also thinking about a series. As always, I welcome and appreciate comments and feedback!

Once there was a rhombus who wanted to be a square. Known to his friends in the shape world as Rhomby, he was always trying to stand up straight.

“Why do you want to be a square, Rhomby,” his friend Circle asked.

“I want to be the very tallest that I can be,” Rhomby answered. “That’s one reason. When I lean over, I get shorter and I like being tall.”

Circle shrugged. No matter what way she turned, she was always the same height so she couldn’t really understand.

“Why else do you want to be a square?” Rectangle asked.

“I like fitting in,” said Rhombus. “Think about it, Rec. I know that we are all parallelograms, but if I were a square, I could also be a rectangle and I’d fit in with you. Technically, I would still be a rhombus, but I could also stand shoulder to shoulder with the squares.”

Rectangle shrugged. The only groups he fit in with was the parallelograms. Having sides of different lengths kept him  some separate groups.

Triangle prided herself on being strong (that’s another story) and she tried to point out that being able to lean from side to side could have advantages.

“Think about it, Rhomby,” she said. “If someone pushes at you, you can just lean over and it doesn’t change who you are. If someone leans on a square, he has to break or change his definition. Really, Rhomby, you have much more flexibility.”

Rhomby shook his head. Right now, flexibility seemed less important than fitting in.

One day, a line of squares came marching by and Rhomby watched them with Tri.

“You really want to be a square, huh, Rhomby?” Tri asked.

“I do,” Rhomby answered. “I can’t help it.”

“All right, Rhomby, “ Tri said. “Hold on.”

Tri sidled up to Rhomby and began to lean on him. She bent herself to just the right angle so that Rhomby was standing up straight with four 90 degree angles. (She had to stretch and shrink here and there but she managed to do it.)

“There you go, Rhomby,” she said. “You’re a square.”

Rhomby looked down at himself. “I’m a square!” he shouted.

He shouted it so loudly that the squares walking by heard him. “Come join us,” they said. “You’ll fit right in.”

Tri stayed wedged under Rhomby until the line of squares were right next to him and then moved away, leaving Rhomby in between two squares. Except for the big smile, no one except Tri would have known that the third square from the right was a rhombus.

“Although,” thought Tri, “they’re all rhombuses, as well. Just rhombuses with 90 degree angles!”