“Ding-Dong, doors closing!” Kiki sang along with the train as it crawled down the track. She danced on the age of the platform, careful not to step on the blue part. The blue part was bad. The blue part was what her Mommy called dangerous. That was a big word. Dangerous. That was way bigger than any word Kiki had seen on her spelling worksheet. Mommy told her that if you step on the blue part, you could fall on the tracks, and then you’d sizzle like bacon. Kiki loved bacon, so she thought that wouldn’t be that bad. Bacon smelled good. She shivered and skipped back over to her Mommy, who was standing under the warm, bright yellow lights. Kiki felt her toes freeze, so she pushed the bright yellow button. It was still cold, so Kiki pushed the button again. Then all of a sudden the lights went out. Kiki jerked her hand away from the button, and tried to hide in the corner of the clear box, under the picture with all the different colored lines that showed which way the trains should go. The fat man who looked a lot like Santa Claus laughed at her and pushed the button again. The lights came back on, but it was still cold. Kiki didn‘t like the cold, and she didn‘t like the fat man. The fat man always laughed at her, and she didn’t think that was very nice, because her teacher Ms. Flynn said that you shouldn‘t laugh at your classmates, and if you did, you wouldn‘t get to play at recess, you‘d have to stand against the fence for five minutes. Kiki wished someone would tell this fat Santa man that, so that he would get that goofy smile off his face. She looked at her Mommy and made her eyes as big as they could go. Her Mommy looked at her and laughed, saying “Big eyed girl!” Kiki smiled. She loved her big eyes. They were brown, like her skin and pancakes. Her skin was brown, darker than Maren’s. Maren’s skin was white, and her arm was soft, like a marshmallow. She was the marshmallows and Kiki was the hot chocolate. That dumb boy named Brent said black and white don’t go together. He’s so dumb, he doesn’t even know that Kiki isn’t black, she’s brown. Black is the color of the chalk board, and her hair, and her school shoes. Kiki looked down the track, edging toward the blue again. Her Mommy pulled her back, and said, “The train is coming!” The train crawled down the track, and stopped right in front of her. Kiki reached to knock on the door, like her Mommy said she was supposed to always do before opening a door. The door whooshed open, and a very tall man and a lady jumped out. Kiki jumped back and grabbed hold of her Mommy. The fat man laughed again, and Kiki bucked her eyes out at him. He stopped laughing and frowned at her, and then he squeezed his fat between the doors. Her Mommy pushed Kiki, and that made her mad because she didn’t wanna sit in the same part as the fat man. But her Mommy said hurry up so Kiki jumped in, and then the train sang again, “Ding-Dong, doors closing!” Her Mommy sat down in one of the seats, and took out her cell phone. Kiki wasn’t allowed to play with it, but sometimes she would sneak it out of her Mommy’s coat pocket and pretend she was talking to Joey, the boy who shared his crayons with her and had freckles on his snow white face. He had a goofy smile, not like the fat man’s, but it was nice, and it made Kiki wanna hold his hand. Her hand in his would be brown and white, like the white frosting on her chocolate birthday cupcakes. Kiki pushed her face up to the window and blew a big breath, writing her initials into it. She looked over at her Mommy, and noticed she was shivering a little. Kiki still felt cold too, even though there was warm air blowing against her face. Kiki sat back in her seat and tried to guess when the ice would all melt. She hoped it was soon.