For years Kita Szpak has worked backstage for many of Ottawa’s most creative people, helping orchestrate the public flow of husband guitarist Robert Farrell or soprano Maria Knapik, among others. Last year she decided to take a step forward and publish a children’s book called You’re Special Wherever You Are. The following is an excerpt from one of the three stories in the book: Charlie Zee’s Coat of Two Colours, with illustrations by Bhat Boy.

A new way of looking at old patterns

Charlie just couldn’t figure it out!  Not that he was old enough to understand a lot of things, but this just didn’t make sense to the young zebra.  Here he was living in the Serengeti-Mara Plains; a huge and vast expanse of wide open African grassland.  It wasn’t the open space that he minded.  It wasn’t sharing the watering hole with the hippos, wildebeests, elephants and gazelles that he minded.  It wasn’t even the occasional bird hitching a free ride on his back that bothered him.  What really bothered Charlie Zee was his coat of two colours – black and white, black and white, nothing but black and white, which made him stick out like a sore thumb in the middle of nowhere. “How come I’m so bright and bold looking?” Charlie Zee barked out at his Mom.   Like all the plains zebras, Charlie barked like a dog, where one might expect him to neigh like a horse or bray like a donkey instead.

“Well, she replied, “we’ve always been black and white as far as I know, and each of us has our very own pattern of stripes.”

This answer didn’t satisfy Charlie Zee.  If only his mother knew how many times he’d suffered embarrassment at being the first one caught at hide-and-go-seek; he could be spotted a mile away!

The lion cubs, Rocky and Rolly, with their tawny gold fur, blended in beautifully with the yellow grasslands.  They had no problem NOT being seen.  When both cubs crept up on Charlie Zee, without his knowing of course, and cried out, “Boo!”, he just about jumped out of his skin.

Time and again, they surprised Charlie Zee in this way.  It was a good joke to Rocky and Rolly, but it was no joke to Charlie Zee.  He didn’t like being made fun of.

The zebra herd to which Charlie Zee belonged, grazed among the taller grassland through the day, breaking this activity at midday to drink at the watering hole with the other animals.  Lawrence Hippo, Elinor Elephant and Gailee Gazelle knew Charlie Zee from the watering hole, where everyone would gather to cool off.

Lawrence, Elinor and Gailee had taken to calling Charlie Zee, “the walking newspaper.”  How mortifying! “What’s black and white and read all over?” they teased.  “Why our walking newspaper, Charlie Zee; Charlie Zee, that’s who…”

So overcome with laughter were the three with their witty talk of Charlie Zee, they fell over in the water splashing, thrashing and laughing some more.  Lawrence even did an underwater backwards somersault, much to the delight of Elinor and Gailee.

Charlie Zee stood back from the shore.  A tear rolled down his cheek … then another and another.  He wished he was anything but Charlie Zee with his coat of two colours – black and white, black and white which made him stick out like a sore thumb in the middle of nowhere.