This short story for middle grade readers will be published in "Oracle Story and Letters" in the spring. The events in the story introduce children to a Buddhist meditation practice called "tonglen."
Here's an excerpt:
Olive hated birthday parties.
And yet here she stood at Polly’s front door, waiting to be admitted to the most “totally awesome” birthday party of the Centerville Middle School social calendar. Polly, the birthday girl, lived next door to Olive and they had been gal-pals since the stroller days. It was an odd friendship because Polly was everything Olive wasn’t. Polly lived in a huge house with an in-ground pool. Olive shared a room with her sister. Polly dressed in the latest fashions and had a TV in her room that got tons of channels. Olive wore hand-me-downs and watched PBS documentaries with her parents. But Olive liked hanging out with Polly. So long as it was just the two of them, it was pretty great. But today it would not be just the two of them.
Olive was miserable.
The door opened and Polly’s mom chirped, “Hi, Miss Olive. The girls just ran down to the basement. You can go on down.”
Olive dropped her present—a book about famous women—on the table with the other gifts, noticing that hers was the smallest. One giant box actually had a book tied to it as a “topper” gift. Olive sighed and headed downstairs.
When she reached the basement, she gasped. The giant playroom had been transformed into a theater, with an actual stage, real spotlights and microphones.
“Hi, Olive,” Polly said. “Isn’t it great? It’s just like American Idol. Now that everyone’s here, we’re going to pick costumes and then we’re all going to perform karaoke.”
“Hi Olive,” said a tall, dark-haired girl named Lucy. Olive remembered Lucy from last year’s party. “I’m doing Because of You, you know, the Kelly Clarkson song. What’ll you do?” Olive didn’t really know what karaoke was, but she understood she was supposed to name a song she could sing. At home they listened to a lot of classical music.
“Um. Beethoven’s Ode to Joy?” she ventured timidly.
“Oh my God! They’re not going to have that song,” Lucy said loudly. “Hey everyone. Olive wants to sing to Beethoven.”
“Ode to Joy…” Olive said, feeling jittery, “…it’s part of Beethoven’s 9th Symphony,” she prattled on nervously. “He wrote it when he was deaf. My mom says it’s a celebration of joy over sadness…”
“I know who Beethoven is,” snapped Lucy. “I’m not dumb. But it’s not going to be on a karaoke machine. Everyone knows that,” she was laughing now, and the other girls had started laughing, too.
“Let’s go get our outfits on,” someone called, and the girls crowded around a rack crammed with sequined shirts and glittery stretch pants.
Olive stayed behind and ducked into the bathroom, locking the door. She slid to the floor, crammed between the toilet and the sink, her head in her hands. “I am so stupid,” she muttered to herself “Beethoven. What was I thinking? Why can’t I just be like other girls? I hate being me.”
Olive began breathing hard and fast, trying desperately not to cry. She didn’t need red, puffy eyes giving her away. She had to get back to the party. “Just breathe. Just breathe. Just breathe,” she muttered to herself.
She sucked in a big breath and let it out. She stood and looked in the mirror. Don’t cry. Just breathe. Just breathe, she chanted silently. She closed her eyes, took another deep breath, and then opened her eyes again.
She looked in the mirror.
She blinked. Squinted. Shook her head, blinked and looked again.
Because staring out of the mirror was not her own pale face, but a completely different girl, a girl she knew from school named Willow.
--Get "Oracle Story and Letters" to read the rest...
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