A Fable from the Palm-Leaf Manuscript

by Josephine Yu

In third grade I made an alphabetical list of the children who had laughed at my eye patch and the one who stole the strawberries from my lunch and the one who rode horses and the ones who ignored me. I titled this list NERDS, the worst invective I knew how to spell. Then I threw it away, ashamed of my bitter accounting. Martin Harris (fourth, below Darby Handle, above Chris Stevenson) fished the paper from the trashcan and gave it to Mrs. Mason, who made me apologize, in writing, to each injured party. If this is a fable, what is the moral? What animal am I? What glass jar will fill with rain, raising what berry within my reach?