The Fair-Share Pair

A Muddy, Mucky Mess

Logan asks Connor if she can use the red car for Ladybug Land. It can become a Ladybug Bus. Connor looks at Logan’s messy hands. He doesn’t want his car to get muddy, but he knows Miss Sparks’ rule in class is that they all take turns. So even though he doesn’t want to, he hands his car over to Logan’s dirty fingers.

Connor tries to run his blue car along the blacktop, but he can’t race with only one car. Meanwhile, Logan is pretending the red car is flying. Then, she lands it straight in the puddle. She drives the red car through the mud. Connor thinks this is a terrible way to treat his car, so he politely asks for it back. Logan nods her head, and she digs the car out of the mud and hands it back. Lightly, Connor takes it back with his fingertips.

Now, the car is a muddy, mucky mess. It looks more brown than red. It’s so muddy that the wheels won’t turn, and the windshield is muddy. Connor frowns. Logan asks him what’s wrong, and he responds that the car got so dirty. Logan grabs it and swoops it through the puddle to clean it off.

Logan doesn’t think it’s much cleaner than before. He takes out a tissue to try to wipe it clean. Logan is exasperated. A little mud never hurt anything. Connor is too fussy. With a frown on his face, Connor responds that maybe Logan is too messy.

After recess, Connor brings his cars into Miss Sparks’ classroom and sets them side by side on his desk. Miss Sparks asks him to use the words same and different to describe the cars. He responds, “They were the same when I played with them. They were both clean. Then Logan got mud on the red car. Now the cars are different. One is clean and one is dirty.”

Miss Sparks clarifies that Logan likes mud, but Connor does not. Sometimes different people have different feelings about the same thing. Connor glances at Logan. She’s smiling. She doesn’t seem to care that she made the red car messy! Right then, Connor decides he will no longer share the red car with Logan.

The next day, Miss Sparks allows everybody to go outside for recess. Connor sees Logan go to the toy corner to look for the red car. Connor sneaks back to his desk and slips the cars into his coat pocket. Connor knows he isn’t being fair about sharing the red car. But Logan got the car so dirty, so he knows he does not want to share the red car with Logan ever again.