(From Feed It to the Worms, a collection of very short stories for small children.)
Once I was eating french fries with my best friend and I was jealous that she had more than me.
So I said, “Hey, let’s have a contest to see who can eat their french fries the fastest!”
And so she started gobbling them all up and guess what I did? I didn’t eat a single one. I just sat there and watched till she had none.
Then she looked at me and said, “I won, I won!”
And I said, “Yes you did. But now you have no french fries.”
I then started eating mine with this horrible smile on my face. And that’s when she started crying.
“You’re so mean!” she said.
And when I realized she was right, the french fries suddenly tasted terrible. And then I started to cry, too.
I knew there were only two things I could do: I could point off in the distance and shout, “Look! An eagle!” and run away when she wasn’t looking, or I could say I’m sorry.
I opted for saying sorry and I also gave her half my french fries.
And not only did they taste yummy again, I realized that life is a lot happier when everyone gets to have what they want together.
