The Legend of How the Zebra Got its Stripes

By Katie Smith
Hodgdon Mill Pond School Grade 5
    Zebra was an animal that was completely white, with green eyes and a pink nose.  He worked in an ink factory in Hollywood, California, which was all jungle and fields.His best friend was Giraffe, who was tall with spots and blue eyes.  He also worked in the ink factory. Giraffe’s job was to get things off of shelves that other animals couldn’t reach.
    One day Giraffe was sick with a soar throat and couldn’t go to work. Everybody at the ink factory missed him, especially Zebra. He was just packing ink into their packages when another animal asked him if he could help get some of the black ink off of the high shelves. Since he was a little taller than that animal, and Giraffe wasn’t there, he helped. He took a big stretch and SPLASH! The ink splashed all over him. Zebra was covered in black ink. He went to go wash off the black ink, but he couldn’t get it off because it was permanent!
    Since Zebra had stripes of black, the other zebras saw him and wanted to look like him. So they got permanent ink and splashed themselves all over, so that they would have black stripes, too. That is how the zebras got stripes!