As the sun rises Eli wakes up, his eraser shavings are a mess! 

He mats down them down and grabs his backpack. Today is his first day of school and he needs to leave soon.

His mom shouts out as Eli leaves, "Have a great  day sweetie!" Eli begins his journey towards school.

Eli has thought a lot about this day. He didn’t know he would make lots of friends or none at all.

He didn’t know if his teacher would be nice or a mean pencil sharpener. 

As Eli got closer he saw all kinds of supplies running into school, it looked like everything he had dreamed of. 

A big smile popped on Eli’s face. All his worries were relieved. 

He went to his classroom and looked around. Something was wrong. 

Everyone in the class was a pencil! Eli was the only eraser. 

They were all pointing and laughing, the teacher called the office to ask if there was a mistake. “How could there only be one eraser and pencils in my class?”

The teacher hung up the phone, “Here, you can sit right here Eli,” he pointed to an empty spot next to a pencil.

Eli walked over as worried thoughts filled his head. “Hi, I am Patrick.” said the little pencil boy holding out his hand. 

“Hi, I’m Eli,” said Eli with a quiet smile on his face. Eli had just made his first friend. 

.

.

.

All the pencils started talking, the girls about their outfits and hair, the boys about new toys they got this summer. Eli and Patrick talked about something different, they talked about their shared love of baseball. 

“I went to 3 baseball games this summer. I even got a signed ball by Bradley Thompson, a player for the Giants!” Eli said excitedly. “How cool!”

Mr. P

“Alright class, let's settle down. I am Mr. P, I will be your teacher this year” said the teacher at the front of the room. 

“We will start off the first day of school with a writing lesson.” Mr. P explained. “Grab your paper and write about your summer.”

“Well Eli can’t write because he is some stupid eraser!” Polly the pencil shouted. Everyone bursted out laughing. 

“Polly, sit down, that was quite rude.” Mr. P responded, “Eli here is a tiny pencil, try your best!”