Narrative Essay

Good Girls always get Ice Cream

Doe-eyed, bubbly and a ball full of energy, I barreled through the kindergarten classroom door yelling, “Can I go to the playground? Mama, can I, can I, can I, can I, can I?!” My mother proceeded to give me the stink eye.

“Err… Please?”

My mother sighed long-sufferingly. I was sure she regretted giving me that extra chocolate bar earlier or I wouldn’t have been bounding around walls of the small classroom like a pinball on the loose.

I was about four or five then, and new to the Montessori. The Montessori had a small playground that consisted of two pairs of swings, one slide, two see-saws and a monkey bar. But even if it was small, I was excited, nonetheless, because my previous school didn’t have a playground.

My mom told me to “Sshh.. keep quiet, Meg…” and “Go find yourself a seat and be a good girl” because “I’m gonna buy you an ice cream cone if you do.” So I did.

I sat next to a few girls who just sat there in their seats, praying, probably. Or maybe their moms told them to keep quiet and be a good girl so they could get some ice cream afterwards, too. They had their hands clasped together on the table in front of them with their legs pressed together. So asked them, “Why are your hands like that?”

One girl turned to me and smiled, “Because I want to be a good girl. My mom said that good girls always put their hands together in front of them. Like this.”

I blinked. I wanted to be a good girl, too. So I copied what she was doing and she smiled at me. I knew I was gonna get that cone later.

A few more days passed and I found out a lot of things just by looking at the other kids around me. Some always greeted teachers whenever they meet them, so I copied what they were doing, too. They said they just wanted to be polite because being polite was good. And I wanted to be a good girl just like them. They do not yell ‘I wanna go to the playground!’ every five minutes or throw hissy fits if they do not what they want.

So I tried to act like them.

Boys would swing while standing on the plank where we are made to sit down on, I copied it because it looked like real fun. I ended up falling on my butt, though. And it hurt real bad. I realized then that not everything other people did led to the good, and following bad examples always resulted to your butt getting hurt.

I cried the whole afternoon knowing that I should not follow bad examples before my Mom came to pick me up with ice cream.