A story, for P. Gallagher:
(thanks to Greg Schoenfeld here, without whom I wouldn't have remembered the Weirds,
and to Penny Marsh and my mom, who somehow came up the idea to entertain me when I was small)

On the other side of the planet, on a continent to which few have ever traveled, there lives a race of beings called the Weirds. At first glance it might seem that this is a pretty appropriate name for these funny-looking creatures, though of course that is what they call themselves, and 'Weirds,' means something quite different in their language than it does in ours. The Weirds spend their days in an ancient forest, very close to the shore of a vast sea where the water is as blue as butterfly wings, and the sky turns pink at sunset. As the sun melts down to the horizon, a strange ceremony unfolds every evening, just as it has always been done, since the Weirds remember having been Weird at all.When the shadows between the trees start to fade past yellow and into gold and the creatures high above go quiet, they make their way, singing, to the place where the water meets the sand. The Weirds emerge from the shadows on either side of the shoreline, emerging from the water, emerging from the forests by the thousands until they meet, forming a line that traces the edge of their land as far as any one of them can see. They pause as the sun sinks past the horizon, and then, like fingers interlacing, they pass each other, and the tall Weirds, with their very long, silky brown hair that covers them all up from head to toe, walk down, down, down into the sea, where they spend their nights. Passing them and climbing up onto the land as their day begins, the tiny Weirds make their way to their hunting lands. They have six legs each, and hard blue shells, and their hands have delicate long fingers, just like those of their tall counterparts. Embedded in their shells, they have large expressive eyes, too, so they can look up at the sky wherever they are.The Weirds have been living like this forever. They all speak the same language- they have hands and eyes, and they all need to sleep and eat, and they must spend half their time in the water. Despite what visitors have perceived as the very obvious differences between the tall and tiny creatures, the Weirds themselves are unable to see a meaningful distinction between themselves and their brethren. Once, a long time before, one of their ancestors had been at pains to point out the dissimilarities between them, but he tried so hard to persuade the others of their dissimilarities that he had died alone, drowned and mad with loneliness.The Weirds spend their days in an ancient forest very close the the shore of a vast sea, where the water is as blue as butterfly wings. When the sun peeks out over the sea, and begins to climb up into the sweet pink sky, they join together like interlocking fingers at the white line where tiny waves find the sand. They are all different, and they are all the same. They sing to each other. They come and go as they please, and only answer to the moon and the sun.

The Weirds have been living like this forever. They all speak the same language- they have hands and eyes, and they all need to sleep and eat, and they must spend half their time in the water. Despite what visitors have perceived as the very obvious differences between the tall and tiny creatures, the Weirds themselves are unable to see a meaningful distinction between themselves and their brethren. Once, a long time before, one of their ancestors had been at pains to point out the dissimilarities between them, but he tried so hard to persuade the others of their dissimilarities that he died alone, drowned and mad with loneliness.

The Weirds spend their days in an ancient forest very close the the shore of a vast sea, where the water is as blue as butterfly wings. When the sun peeks our over the sea, and begins to climb up into the sweet pink sky, they join together like interlocking fingers at the white line where tiny waves find the sand. They are all different, and they are all the same. They sing to each other. They come and go as they please, and only answer to the moon and the sun.