chapter

INTRODUCTION
WHERE THE STORY
BEGINS
It was a child, a child wearing mismatched socks, who started
us thinking about disruptions. She was young—maybe seven or
eight years old—and she was happily skipping down the school
hallway. While her smile was broad, it was her brightly colored, totally
mismatched socks that caught our attention. She stopped in front of us.
Student: Are you visiting my school?
Bob:
We are!
Student: Do you like my socks?
Kylene:
I do!
Student: Did you notice they don’t match? But that’s okay, because
socks don’t actually have to match, you know. There’s no rule
or anything.
And then she was gone. She continued her dance down the hall,
leaving us convinced that, indeed, socks don’t have to match. We
talked about her with a teacher who said that the sock company
LittleMissMatched was the thing in their school. We hadn’t heard of it,
but now, looking back, we wonder if it didn’t plant the seed for the idea
that became this book.
6 Introduction