Bo-won Kim/ Chap3 final draft/ Tuesday 1pm

Rose With Prickles    "What are you looking at, teacher?"  "The rose. Outside there. Aren't they beautiful?" She told me as she opened her red lips carefully. The words from her lips were so fragile that they seemed to be torn apart when they fall to the ground. The room was quite with nothing but the sound of fallen leaves swinging on the ground. Leaves, with no other resistance, let the wind carry them to somewhere that no one knows. There also was sound of footsteps as kids stepped out the front door leaving bunch of giggles behind. The class had finished and almost everyone went home. I was waiting for my friend after she hurried into the restroom, yelling at me to wait for her. I waited for her, closing my bag and getting ready to go home. "Bo-won? You didn't go yet?"  I looked up and there was she. Everyone liked her. She had a black bob hair that reached around her shoulders. Her white teeth made her red lips even brighter. Every girl in my kindergarten loved her big sparkling eyes with her long black eyelashes which made her eyes even bigger. I especially envied her fair skin. She was the most beautiful adult women I had seen at that time. People loved her not just for her beauty but the way she expresses words and there was unique mood she always had with her. My friends and I always used to say,  "When I get older, I'm going to be like my teacher!"  "No, I am going to be pretty like her!" Looking around girls who talked about their favorite teacher, she just gave us a warm smile. Sometimes, she was lost in her thought. No, actually it was all the time that she was absorbed in her thought. No one knows what she had in her mind. No one dared to disturb her moment. This moment was when she had crossed to her own world and left everything else behind.   Once, I couldn't sleep during the nap time so I tossed and turned for the first five minutes. Then I glanced at the door and the teacher was looking outside the window.  "Teacher, teacher. What are you doing?" I asked her crawling to get closer to her. I was just a seven-year-old girl, curious about everything that's happening around her. She answered the same thing as always.  "The red rose. Go to sleep, princess."  "I want to have a look at it, too! I can't sleep, teacher."  "All right, then. Have a look at it. Come here." Just like that, it was my first time seeing the red rose that my teacher had always been looking at. I hopped onto her legs and stared out the window, copying her every move. There was one red rose, bragging about its glamorous pose. It was very flashy but somehow there were prickles on its body.  "The rose looks so hurt. I feel sad about it. I don't understand why those prickles are hurting her."  "Those prickles are what make her beautiful, princess."  "What? No, teacher. Prickles are bad." I said as I made an evil face at prickles as though they can see my face and let go of beautiful rose. The teacher just smiled at me and stared back at the rose.  "Teacher, do you want that rose? Do you want me to get it for you? I can go down and just.."  "No, princess. No. they are beautiful when you are looking at them." Again, I couldn't understand what she meant. We are supposed to have beautiful things, not just staring at them. That's what was going around in a seven-year-old girl's mind. I was confused. When I looked outside the window again, the wind was blowing. Wind was blowing a little hard that the rose looked as if it was going to be pulled up. But when the wind was defeated by the sunshine, the rose got up and stood in its place as if nothing had happened. I looked at the rose getting up and off the ground for several times and fell asleep. When I woke up, I was with other kids under the warm blanket. I don't understand the meaning of her words one hundred percent. But now I'm almost her age, I can get the feeling of it. Prickles are what makes rose more beautiful since rose herself will not stand out. She looks much stronger with all those prickles on her body. I can't forget the day I heard what rose meant. Rose was just a red, pretty flower with no smell to me but now I can see how beautiful it is. Rose with prickles is beautiful.