It was the first day in school after the summer break. As always, he tried to be early so he didn't have to wingtap too many elves. Wingtapping is the elves' form of greeting; whenever they meet, they tap their right wings against each other.
On the way to his red classroom he read the mottos on each classroom door, even though he remembered them from the last year. The red door said 'Redder is better', the blue one said 'Red is bad, blue is true', the green one 'Green is queen' and the yellow one 'Yellow is best'.
He always considered these mottos and the colour separation of the classrooms silly. Why did learning have to be a competition?
He looked down at his red uniform as he entered the red classroom and was delighted to see Joy Elf again. 'Wow, your wings got really large. They're beautiful.'
'You think so? Everybody else is teasing me because of them.'
'I wish I were allowed to grow mine, too. I wouldn't mind what others say.'

Slowly their other classmates arrived as well, and when Miss Elf entered, they all went to their seats and stopped talking.
'Last year we have learned that redder is better,' she addressed the class, 'and that we stick together as a group. But now that you are a bit older, you also have to learn that not all of the group are like the rest, and that we have to stick together against those as well.'
Everybody looked at Joy Elf, Igor Elf and Flinn Elf.
'Joy Elf,' said Miss Elf, 'your wings have grown awfully large. If your mother fails to look after you, I could clip them in the afternoon.'
'No way!'
'Clipping our wings is a sign of our loyalty to the Elfather who created us.'
'My mum says the Elfather doesn't exist.'
'Your mother lives in a fantasy world. She never fitted in, and if you're not careful, you'll end up just like her.'

The first lesson was in history.
'Now, does anybody know who White Elf was?' Miss Elf asked.
Jade Elf raised her hand. 'He drove out the pinkwings.'
'That's correct. The pinkwings look somewhat similar to us, but their wings are pinkish instead of white, they are not as smart as we are, and they engage in unelfish behaviours like walking barefoot and parting their hair, and some of them even wear beards. Also, they smell like rotting corpses because they don't look after themselves. They're not really elves, anyway.
Hundred and twenty years ago, White Elf had enough of them, and he put an army of volunteer elves together who drove them out of our village and away from Elf Mountain into the valley.'
'Even though they were here long before the whitewings,' Flinn Elf mumbled.
'That may be so,' Miss Elf told him, 'but they neglected the resources on Elf Mountain. For example, they didn't fell trees and use the wood to build fences or make weapons.'

When the children went outside during the break, Chuck Elf grabbed Flinn Elf by the arm.
'Why are you wearing yellow shoes?'
'Because I like them.'
'But our class has to dress in red.'
'We have to wear a red uniform, but that doesn't include our shoes.'
'All of us wear red shoes, though.'
'No. I don't.'
'But redder is better!'
'That's not even a proper rhyme. What makes you believe that?'
'Miss Elf tells us every morning.'
'And why do you think that something that is constantly repeated must be true?'
'Because it is.'

In the meantime Igor Elf saw the blue class playing hopscotch and went over to ask if he could join them.
Miss Elf went after him and tried to usher him back to his classmates. 'You don't want to hang out with that lot,' she told him.
When he resisted, she tried to pull him away, but he broke free and kicked her shin. Another teacher came to her aid, and together they dragged him into the principal's office.

Later Jade Elf approached the climbing tree in the schoolyard, but Miss Elf called her back.
'You know that climbing is too dangerous for girls. You could fall and hurt yourself.'
'But that's not fair,' Flinn intervened. 'Jade can climb better than most of the boys, and still they are allowed on it.'
'Well, life isn't always fair.'

During art class the children were asked to paint a picture of their home.
'Wanda Elf,' Miss Elf said, 'you know better than to paint with your left wing.'
'Leonardo Elf painted with his left wing,' Flinn Elf threw in, 'and he became the most famous painter of all times.'
'Wanda Elf is not Leonardo Elf,' Miss Elf reprimanded him. 'We'll have no left-wing artists in this class. After all, it's called the right wing for a reason.'
'And what reason would that be?'
'You're not here to ask questions,' Miss Elf replied. 'You're here to learn.'

As soon as he returned home, he got out of his uniform and put on his favourite shirt.
'Why do we have to wear these awful uniforms, anyway?' he asked his mother.
'That's to make sure you're all treated equally. Some elves are too poor to buy expensive clothes, and the school wants to make sure that nobody is bullied because of their outfit.'
'That doesn't make sense,' Flinn Elf replied.
'Why not?'
'Because the uniforms cost more than twice as much as the fanciest clothes, so the fancy clothes would still be cheaper for them.'
'Then what do you think is the reason?'
'They don't want anybody to stand out.'

In the afternoon Igor Elf's parents came for a visit with their two children.
Igor Elf and Shauna Elf, his sister, had the shortest-clipped wings in the entire village.
'I love your children's wingdo,' Flinn's mother said to their parents.
'But it's always such a struggle,' their mother complained. 'My husband has to hold them down because they're kicking and screaming like we're trying to kill them.'
'Don't you love the way your wings look?' Flinn's mother wanted to know.
'No!' was Igor's short reply.
'Look the lady in the eyes when you're talking to her,' his mother demanded.
'Why? They're not that interesting.'
The three boys played with the train set while Shauna Elf just sat in the corner and didn't respond to any attempts to involve her.
'What's the matter with her?' Flinn's father asked.
'We just tried to get her to use her right hand to hold her cup, to tap wings like everybody else and to play with her toys the way they are meant to be played with. One day she just said, "If I can't be myself, I'm not going to be anybody," and since then she has been like this.'
After a while Roy Elf toddled up to Igor's mother to take a closer look at the orchid she was wearing.
'Would you like to have it?' she asked him and gave it to him.
'What do you say?' his mother prompted him.
'Thank you.'
Flinn Elf felt embarrassed on his mother's behalf. Wasn't the big smile on his brother's face thank you enough?

Later, as his mother clipped the wings of his little brother, Flinn Elf asked, 'Mum, you and dad don't believe in the Elfather, do you?'
'We don't know,' his mother replied. 'But nobody has ever seen him, so the chances for him to exist are pretty slim.'
'Then if wing-clipping is a sign of loyalty to the Elfather, why do we have to clip ours even though we don't believe in him?'
'Don't start that again. It's part of our culture, and everybody does it. What would the others think if we let our children's wings grow? Besides, it just looks neat. You don't want to end up looking like Joy Elf or her mother.'
'Why not?'
'What's the big deal about it, anyway? You always act like clipping your wings actually hurts you.'
'It does. It feels like a part of my body is cut off, just like an arm or a leg. And if you look at the photographs of all the great elves - the scientists, the artists, the elf rights activists and so on, you can see that they all had larger wings than everybody else.'
'That's probably because they were too busy with their work to properly look after themselves. You're not comparing yourself to the great elves, are you?'
'So life is about who fits in the most?'

The next morning Flinn Elf was still annoyed about the fact that girls couldn't use the climbing tree. He prepared a big sign saying 'Girls can climb, too!' and walked to school very slowly, making sure that he arrived after the first lesson had already started. Instead of going into his classroom, he sat down in front of the principal's building and held up his sign.
After reprimanding him in no uncertain terms, the principal brought him into the red classroom.
'You'll have to do something about this rebel,' he told Miss Elf and left. She lectured him about the importance to follow the rules and told him he had to stay in the classroom during breaks as a punishment.
'I'll do it again tomorrow,' Flinn Elf declared.
The following day he sat in front of the principal's building again, and after a while he was joined by Joy Elf, Jade Elf and Igor Elf who had brought similar signs.
The angry principal brought them to their classroom and warned Miss Elf that she better keep her class in check, or else. Miss Elf kept the four of them in detention after school which many of the other children considered unfair.
'Your thoughtlessness has brought you right to the bottom of our behaviour chart,' she told Flinn Elf, 'on which you are not doing too well, anyway. Wouldn't you like to get a reward for good behaviour sometime?'
'No,' he replied. 'There are more important things than pleasing those in charge.'
On the third morning the protesters were joined by ten of their class as well as several children from other classes. The raging principal brought them back to their respective classrooms and ordered Miss Elf to report to his office after school.
On the fourth morning a third of the schoolchildren gathered at the principal's building, and several teachers had to assist the principal in bringing them back to their classrooms. Before they went home that day, Miss Elf announced that the climbing tree could be used by everybody in the future.

One afternoon Flinn Elf was invited to Joy Elf's house. When her mother opened the door, she asked him, 'Are you all right with wingtapping?'
He was stunned. People had always just done it, and nobody had ever asked for his permission.
'Actually, it gives me a weird tingly feeling.'
'I'm not keen on it myself,' she replied and waved the children in.
'Your wings are large,' he said to her, 'but not as large as Joy's.'
'I know. That's because mine were clipped when I was a child. I didn't want it, and my parents strapped me into a chair to do it, and sometimes they did it when I was asleep. I swore that I wouldn't clip them when I was grown-up, and that I wouldn't force my children to do it, either. When Joy was small, I asked her if she wanted me to clip her wings, and she said no. That's why her wings were never clipped at all.'
After they had played for a while, Joy Elf asked him, 'Do you want to go down to the lake?'
'The lake? But that's down in the valley…'
'Are you afraid of the pinkwings?'
No, Flinn Elf wasn't afraid. The thought of leaving Elf Mountain had just never occurred to him.
As they walked towards the sandy beach, they heard a noise from the bushes, and when they checked, they found a frightened pinkwing boy hiding in the thicket. His wings were clipped even shorter than Igor Elf's.
'Hello,' Flinn Elf said, 'why are you hiding from us?'
He slowly came out and couldn't stop staring at them.
'But… but you don't have fangs.'
'Fangs?' Joy Elf asked him.
'Yes. We were told that whitewings have fangs with which they attack us whenever they find us.'
'And you don't smell,' Flinn Elf smiled. 'I guess our people tell a lot of nonsense about each other. What do you have there?'
'It's something I made myself to catch vulcanfish. I noticed that they love roddenberries, so I put a few on threads and attached them to a net. When I put the net into the water, the berries float, and when a fish comes for them, I can just pull it out.'
'Very clever,' Joy Elf remarked. 'Do you want to join us for a swim?'
'A swim?' Flinn Elf thought to himself. That would mean taking their shoes off which was considered unelfish behaviour. But it was a rule that didn't really make sense; there's nothing wrong with the feet of elves, and so he took his shoes off.
'By the way, my name is Aza Elf,' the other boy said, and the other two introduced themselves as well before jumping into the water.

Later that year the school organised a Halloween party where all children dressed up as their favourite elves. Most of them went to the pillowmaker who sold costumes and whings (large wings made from clippings that are worn over one's own ones) to make them look more like their heroes.
And to make sure that everybody knew who they were supposed to be, they also wore name tags. Igor went as Mahatma Elf, Wanda as Marilyn Elf, and Miss Elf as Maleficent Elf.
Flinn Elf wore a dark suit and a white stiff-collar shirt with a tie loosely hung around it and walked with a limp, and his tag said, 'I AM THADDEUS ELF'.
When he found Joy Elf, she looked exactly the same as always. Her tag read 'I AM MYS ELF'.
'You are going as Miss Elf?' he asked her in disbelief. She had to giggle at the mere thought and said, 'No, I am going as Myself.'

One day Flinn Elf went down to the lake to meet Joy Elf and Aza Elf when he suddenly heard the low sound of wingbeats and noticed an enormous shadow in front of him. He looked up and saw Joy Elf.
'I knew it, our wings were made for flying!' she shouted and flew another circle before she landed beside him.
'I've been practising for a long time now, and eventually I got the hang of it. It's not easy doing something that no elf has done before, but it certainly is worth the effort.'

When they had grown up, they moved into their own home. Joy Elf used her ability to fly to draw maps of the world around Elf Mountain which the others never knew existed, and which helped those adventurous enough to explore it to find their way.
Flinn Elf now could let his wings grow as well. He became a teacher at his old school and encouraged his pupils to be themselves and to accept others for who they are. A few years later he became principal, ended the uniforms and colour segregation of the classrooms and allowed the classes to mingle in the schoolyard.
He and Joy Elf later had three children together whose wings they never clipped. And when their children had grown up, they, too, could fly, just like their mother.