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Now everything you have read is true and real, but this story is fiction. There is a funny thing about fiction,
though. There are always bits of truth in something made up, and in the case of this story the real part is Pam. 731-668-7500
Pam was my best friend all through junior high and high school. In some manner she is still my best friend in
that way of being a big part of my memories, so I dedicate this story to Pam.

Fifth grade can be a time of important developmental milestones. No longer a small child, a fifth grader can take
on independent tasks, understand the needs of others, and see more than one side of an issue.

At the end of the school day when we were putting on our coats or lining up for the bus, I would take a couple
sheets of paper out of the gray metal trash can near the teacher’s desk. If you smoothed the sheets, they were okay
to sketch on. I did not think anyone saw me pilfering sheets, since it was at the end of the day and most kids were
intent on escaping the classroom sooner rather than later.

Paper for sketches was always an issue. A twelve pack of Ticonderoga number two pencils was cheap and would
last a long time, but paper was precious. This was the days of ditto machines and their blueish-purpleish pig-
ment. I generally found ditto sheets that were slightly crooked, or the print was uneven. Ink that was too light
or too dark seemed a sort of modernist ditto study in contrasts. A real prized find would be leftover pieces of
construction paper discarded after art projects of pumpkins or turkeys.

The last day of school before Christmas break was a restless conflagration of kids keyed up and distracted. Antic-
ipation of two weeks of freedom was visceral. I could feel my classmate’s holiday buzz, though I would have rath-
er gone to school than experience the coming cold stretch of the holidays. I loved school, both the dependable
schedule and activity, so I would have preferred the chance for a few more sheets of almost blank ditto paper.

The hour of emancipation did arrive, of course. Much to my disappointment three o’clock arrived every day.
Unyoked from their desks there was a collective surge forward. Delivered from decimal numbers, reading groups
and spelling tests, the class was a chaotic jamboree of coats, hats, and Partridge Family lunch boxes.

While I stood at my desk watching the holiday fracas, someone nudged my shoulder. A girl named Pam was
holding a spiral bound notebook, and she shoved it into my chest. Before I really knew what she was doing, she
was gone, and I was holding a brand new one-hundred-page wide ruled notebook. The cover had a pink back-
ground with a photo of a gray kitten with a tiny bow on her head.

Pam was already climbing into her mother’s car heading home for Christmas with her family, but my Christmas
happened right there at three o’clock standing at my desk. The notebook was so beautiful I wasn’t sure I would
ever write or draw anything in those immaculate one hundred pages.

I did eventually draw and write in the notebook but promised myself that everything I put down would be spec-
tacular and worthy of Pam’s generosity and kindness.

Diane Puterbaugh

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