Kyra Moon

While it's still on my mind, here's another 5th grade cow story. Pardon all the puns. We changed seats pretty regularly in my class. One day soon after a seat change I happened to notice the back of my faded yellow chair and saw the word "cow" written medium-small with a black sharpie. I bristled with annoyance. Why was the word "cow" on a chair? Why did I have the bad luck to be stuck with that chair? It wasn't any more broken than the other chairs, and my hair didn't catch on the screws any more than for other chairs, but still. No one wants to be stuck with a "cow" chair. I think I tried to surreptitiously switch chairs with someone else. While I can't remember if it worked or not, I know the "cow" chair became a thing in class, and I don't think anyone particularly wanted that chair. Worst of all, though it made the rounds, someone always steered it back to me. Every day at the end of school, we would crawl around on t

Valentines were a really big deal in 5th grade. We not only still made the Valentine's boxes as in years past to be filled with cartoon cards and cheap candy, but there could now be potentially hidden meaning in the Valentines we distributed. So I proceeded with caution as I signed my cards. My mom had bought some animal themed Valentines, among others. Some of the animals were cute, like the chicks or cats. But there was also a hideous looking cow with its face plastered at the front of the card saying, "I hope you have an udderly awesome Valentine's Day!" Yuck. I carefully selected the prettiest Valentines for my best friends and signed my name with gold ink for the boy I liked (and then signed a few more with gold ink to throw him off the trail). Now for that cow one. And then I knew who that card would be perfect for! There was a boy who just . . . talked about cows a lot. He thought they were hilarious. So I signed his name and my name on that card and called it