The Smith triplets had just moved into town: three identical, tall, blond, heavily made-up eleven-year-old girls--and they were all in Mrs. Cassandra's sixth grade class. They kept to themselves at recess, shy--or maybe just cold. The rest of the class watched their synchronized swinging from a picnic table.

"They're creepy," said Ashley, wrinkling her nose.

A few girls followed suit, nodding and wrinkling and smiling and "they sure are"ing and "you're so right"ing all at once. Ashley was the type of person who came packaged with a few bobbleheads. The problem was that they were sometimes defective and needed to be traded in, though, luckily, there was a long list of replacements.

Which made Bobblehead #5's response especially brave: "Why?"

Ashley slowly turned her attention from the Smiths to the girl. A long silence. "What do you mean?"

5 wanted to flush herself down a toilet. Nothing, she wanted to say, no, I don't exist. But it wasn't just the Smiths--it was everything. She was sick of being a bobblehead, of nodding along with Ashley's mean remarks. Ashley was funny, and she was popular, but every word she said seemed to be taken directly from Mean Girls.

"It's just," said 5, looking Ashley straight in the shoes, "have you ever, um, talked to them?"

Their whole class was listening now. 

"Have you looked at them?" retorted Ashley. "They're disgusting, they look like Barbie dolls. Like plastic."

The class cackled, and Ashley smiled. "Plastic," she repeated, "they're plastic." 

Directly from Mean Girls.

"That's not," 5 began, but nobody could hear her, and nobody cared that "that's not nice"--not as long as it made them laugh. She crossed her arms. "Yeah, well, I'm not calling them plastic unless they call me aluminum first," she muttered.

One of the bobbleheads to her right laughed. "Hey, guys, listen to Ally--say it again!"

Ally blinked. The crowd quieted down, looked at her expectantly.  Bobblehead 4 gave her a nudge.

She took a deep breath. "I'm not calling them plastic, unless they, um, call me aluminum." 

The crowd looked to Ashley for approval. Was 5 defective? Was she to be replaced? Twenty long seconds passed before Ashley chuckled. She added, sincerely, "Wow, Ally! That's really funny!"

And that was Ally's ticket. Next recess, she sat right next to Ashley. She accrued her own bobbleheads. They continued to watch the Smiths, and Ashley continued to call them plastic, but could it really matter, when Ally could be her own person, flesh and blood and all? 

She was so proud that she told the story to everyone she met. What a sweetheart. And how witty! Secretly, they all liked Ally better than Ashley--well, most of them did, anyway. 

Year later, Ally told the story to Elizabeth Smith, who promptly slapped her.

"What," said Elizabeth, "you think you're different? They still call us plastic. You didn't do anything."

Ally blinked back tears. "But I stood up for you!"

"Yeah," said Elizabeth, "but just so you could catch the light."