I was maybe six or seven years old.
In art class, we were told to draw the flag of our homeland.
For some reason, it seemed like a very important assignment.
I didn't understand why.
The first lesson of the day was art.
As I walked to school, I thought about only one thing.
What did the Estonian flag actually look like?
I had no idea.
The school building was being painted.
There were paint cans, tall ladders, and painters in overalls all around the building.
The air smelled of fresh paint.
A tall ladder stood in front of the main entrance.
At the very top was a painter I knew.
He was always kind to us children.
He laughed a lot.
The kind of laugh that made you want to laugh with him.
I was so lost in thought that I walked straight into the ladder.
It startled me.
My first thought was that everyone would be angry with me.
But the painter looked down, chuckled, and asked,
"What is the little girl thinking about so hard that she walks into a ladder this big?"
I hesitated for a moment.
Then I said, "What does the Estonian flag look like? I have to draw it."
He answered immediately.
"The Estonian flag is blue, black, and white."
The other painters laughed.
I thanked him happily and ran to art class.
I wasn't very good at school.
It felt nice to already know the answer.
I drew my flag carefully.
I wasn't completely sure about the order of the colors, but in the end, I was happy with it.
When I looked around the classroom, I noticed something strange.
Every other child was drawing a red flag.
It had yellow symbols on it.
I didn't know what they meant.
I simply thought they must have misunderstood the assignment.
After all, I had just asked an adult.
At the end of the lesson, I handed my drawing to the teacher.
The next day, my teacher stopped me in the hallway.
She grabbed my arm tightly.
I immediately knew I had done something wrong.
She took me to the principal's office.
There were many adults there.
I recognized the principal.
I didn't know the others.
My drawing was lying on the table.
They kept asking me why I had drawn that flag.
Then someone pointed at the red flag on the wall and said, "The Estonian flag is red."
Suddenly I recognized it.
I had seen it before.
I realized I had drawn the wrong flag.
I didn't understand why it was such a serious thing.
I had done assignments wrong before.
You got a bad grade.
Then you tried to do better next time.
I told them who had told me the colors of the flag.
After that, we went outside.
I had to point out which man it had been.
They gave me a letter to take home.
I was more afraid of my mother than anything else.
My mother was called to the school.
Everything was gone through all over again.
They asked me over and over, "Do you promise you'll remember for the rest of your life what the Estonian flag looks like?"
I promised.
I would have promised anything, as long as it would all end.
And as long as my mother wouldn't get into trouble because of me.
To my surprise, my mother wasn't angry with me.
The next morning, I went back to school.
I wanted to see the painter.
I thought maybe he would laugh again.
The other painters were already working.
No one was laughing.
The tallest ladder stood empty.
I never saw the laughing man again.