The misplaced flower

It was a beautiful Saturday morning in May. I stopped by at a flower shop to buy my grandmother a bouquet for her birthday.
It was nice and quiet inside, soft voices marvelling at the most beautiful floristic creations and decent smells floating through the air. Everything was peaceful.
Until an elderly woman destroyed the atmosphere by screaming in terror.
“Good gracious me!” She placed a hand on her heart, trying to control her racing pulse.
“This can’t be real!”
“Excuse me, Ma’am”, the shop owner said, “is there something wrong?”
“Well, of course there is! Look at this pot of flowers.” She pointed at the roses to the left.
“I’m sorry, but I don’t see where the problem is.”
“Shame on you then! Can’t you see that there is something wrong?”
The clueless woman took a closer look-so did I-and noticed that there was a lily among them.
“Oh”, she laughed, “what a stupid mistake! We’ll fix it as soon as possible.”
“You better! That lily doesn’t belong there. The roses should glow in their beauty, without the presence of another flower.”
Sadly, I glanced at the lily again. It was more beautiful than all the roses together. It was unique, unlike the fellow plants-they all had the same colour and the same posture.
I sighed. This flower dared to be different and yet the old lady only cared about the roses.
But then my face lit up, because the lily didn’t seem to be sad after all.
In fact, it stood tall and proud.
I think, it might have even smiled at me.

By Diana Parsons, 17, Anna-Seghers-School, Germany