That night, Amy spent almost an hour in the shower. She desperately tried every soap in the bathroom, but nothing could make a dent in the distinct black and white stripes on her skin. After rubbing the same sore spot on her arm for five minutes, her dad pounded on the door.
"Get out of the shower, now, or you'll pay the water bill!" Amy blushed and quickly turned off the water.
That night, she had trouble going to sleep. When she finally did, she began to dream about certain events in her life. First her tenth birthday party, the last one where her grandfather was alive. He was happily blowing a party favor and looked ridiculous in his small party hat. Amy noticed, whenever one of her own arms came into eyesight, that they were striped like a zebra's. The next thing she knew, she was in a playground. It was the day she met Josh, whom she had a crush on two years ago. They were holding hands and walking by other school kids. Amy seemed to be striped in this vision, too. Finally she found herself being shoved into a locker by a few girls whom she knew were very mean to kids. But this vision was new...it wasn't a memory like the others. Or...was it? It seemed very distinct, and the more she thought the more she remembered similar altercations in her school life.
She woke up to her alarm the next morning, panting for air. The locker she had been shoved in was musty and restricting. But now she was back in her own bed, where she had always been. The "memory" of the locker incident stayed in her mind, however, and she desperately tried to convince herself that it never happened to her. Nor had she been born a zebra-striped girl. She got out of bed and looked at the pictures on her dresser. To her dismay, every picture of her showed her with the fine patterns of a zebra. The lines on her head radiated toward the center of her face, which was completely white. It looked rather glamorous, but still absurd. Her tail flicked in aggitation, scraping against the fur on her legs. She had to get back to that store today and get them to change her back...before anything else weird happens to her.