Pumba

      "Pumba! My name is Pumba!" The teacher looked down at the little girl, shook her head slowly and began again.
      "No dear, your real name, the one your parents gave you." The girl stuck up her chin and claimed once more,
     "My real name IS Pumba!" In defeat, the teacher threw up her arms.
     "Well Pumba, go find your seat."

         Pumba was not a princess. Heavens no! With tangled hair, colorful dresses with miss matched socks she frolicked to school everyday without a care in the world. The other kids would point and laugh,
     "Your socks weird!" or
     "Why are you always wearing funny dresses?"
All Pumba heard were her friends laughing and singing in the walls of her mind. Smiling Pumba joined her happy friends in the singing.

     Many of the kids only heard Pumba's loud bellowing voice. They could not hear the other friends making beautiful music within Pumba's head. Over joyed with the music, Pumba would begin to skip, spin, jump, through the halls, to the playground onto the grassy field, and onto a stage with spotlights and a giant audience with her friends all applauding her. The other children could not hear the clapping. They did not feel the heat from the stage lights, but Pumba heard it. Pumba felt the light.

     Pumba could be anything she wanted to be, a witch, a movie star, a dancer or singer, or she could be a funny smelling wart hog if she was in the mood. Through mocking fingers and snickering jokes, she could smile and dance and never hear a negative word.

     But, beneath the dancing and the pretending, Pumba went on the greatest adventure to find out who she really wanted to be. Teachers told her she was this and parents told her she was that. Pumba's peers pushed her to act one way, her siblings said another way.

     With all the pushing and the pulling, with all the learning and the growing, between the friends in her mind and the voices all around her, Pumba became very lost. Who was she? Who was Pumba? Was she Pumba?
     "I am an actress. I am a movie star. I am a dancer. I am a singer. I am a princess. I am an adventurer. I am a student. I am a daughter. I am a sister. I am a friend...and sometimes...

I am a funny smelling wart hog when I am in the mood."