The little pink girl ran outside, and skipped down the steps in front of the house. Giggling happily, she spun around and laughed as the bright sunshine streamed down onto her joyful, upturned face.

Some older pink boys were playing basketball on the court when she got there, and she waved at her older brother as she passed by. She smiled as he missed an easy basket and walked onward to a group of pink girls on the corner of the court. They were playing jump-rope and their cheerful voices surrounded her:

She ran and easily joined the small group, picking up one end of the rope. When her turn came, she leapt into the rope with ease, her pigtails flying about her face. But suddenly the rope stopped. She turned around and saw another little girl standing there. But this girl looked like no other person she had ever seen before.

The most awe-inspiring thing about this little girl was her color. Instead of being an attractive shade of pink, this little girl was a light shade of purple. She wore a silken dress of gold that came down to her mid-thighs, quite unlike anything the little pink girl had ever seen. She looked nothing like the pink girls who were dressed in long white gowns made of cotton that came to their ankles. She was different, very obviously different. Too different. The little pink girl stared.

"Look at her, she's purple!" said one girl.

"And look at her dress! It's gold, and it's so short! She doesn't even know how to dress!" said another.

"She's too different, I don't want to play with her." said another little pink girl and her friends joined in.

"No, no, no, we don't like different!" they cried. "Go away, purple girl!"

The little pink girl watched as her friends taunted and teased the little purple girl. Dejected, the little purple girl ran off the playground while the other girls laughed. The pink girl followed curiously.

The little purple girl ran for blocks and blocks to the very center of the city, to a place where the little pink girl had never seen before. It was a huge playground surrounded by a rainbow colored fence. The little purple girl opened the gate and walked in. The little pink girl followed and gasped in amazement.

She had never seen such a spectacle in her life. There were children of colors she had never known existed in colorful clothes of every kind. There were red children, blue children, green, yellow, white, black, brown, orange, purple, grey, and even pink. And they all played together without fear or hostility. The little pink girl couldn't bring herself to join them. She walked away in confusion.

That night, the little pink girl had a dream. She was in the center of a circle of a whole group of multi-colored children, and they were dancing around her in a pattern of intricate steps. She stood, mesmerized as they began to twirl faster and faster in the same pattern of steps. They were chanting something that at first, the little girl couldn't make out, but as the dance came to its climax, she could hear their words clearly:

The next day was as beautiful as the day before, and the little pink girl was anxious to go outside. As soon as she was able, she rushed outside and skipped joyfully to the playground. When she got there, she saw the same little purple girl she had seen the day before. The other little pink girls were in a circle around her, taunting and teasing her cruelly. The little pink girl broke though the circle and took the little purple girl's hand.

"Come on," she said to the frightened child, "we're leaving."

"But. . . but where are you going?" asked one of the pink children.

"I'm going with her."

"But why?" her friends asked.

"I want to play with a rainbow." said the little pink girl. The two new friends skipped off happily in the noonday sunshine.

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