by Vivian Loh
There once were two young boys and one young girl. They were not children, but neither adults, so they were teenagers. But they didn’t act like teenagers, they acted like children, so they often didn’t know what to call themselves. These two boys and a girl were all related some way.
One day the younger boy and the only girl had traded too many apples to the boot-shaped merchant. This share of apples had belonged to both the younger boy and only girl as well as the older boy. When the older boy heard, he became so angry! He felt cheated and he thought the other two were stupid. He didn’t stop complaining about the loss for the rest of the night as they stayed together. The girl got embarrassed and a little sad, because she wasn’t used to people getting angry at her or making stupid mistakes. The younger boy said he felt happy. And this is what he said,
“The apples didn’t disappear, older one! They left to make the boot-shaped merchant happy.”
The older boy didn’t know what happiness was, and therefore could not weigh happiness against the lost apples. He just knew in his heart that the apples weighed more. But this boy knew wrong. In fact, happiness weighed more, but he would probably go on with his life never knowing. This is what the girl thought of him.
The day ended, the boys departed from the girl, whom did not live with them. They did not need to plan to meet again, because they knew they would next week and the week after that and the week after that. So they contentedly said good bye in the growing darkness. The end.
