Sammy’s red pencil box was unhappy. All the objects inside it were constantly fighting and driving it and Sammy crazy. They screamed and argued, raved and ranted, through the day.
“Why are you erasing our hard work?” a pencil shouted at the erasers.
The bunch of pencils, their points sharpened to perfection, huddled together scowling at the erasers. Selfish and vain, they thought they were the queens. Though the erasers had a tough job, they were softies at heart. They preferred to mind their own business and not throw their weight around.
“We are just doing our jobs,” they said softly.
“How dare you constantly erase whatever we write? You useless good-for-nothings,” a pencil yelled.
The erasers sobbed in the corner. They were heartbroken at the harsh words. No one had ever called them good-for-nothing or useless.
Next, the five pencils then fought with the sharpener. “What do you have to say for yourself?” a brown pencil yelled. “Always hurting us with your sharp insides.”
“Please don’t scream at me,” the sharpener said. “That’s my job. Though it troubles me when I sharpen you all but I work hard to ensure you all emerge with sharp points.”
The sharpener looked for help to its friend, the ruler, who looked away. It didn’t want to get into unnecessary arguments and be at the receiving end of the pencils’ harsh words.
Break-up
“Mr. Pencil Box, we work hard all the time,” a pencil said. “We will not live with the erasers and the sharpener anymore. Tell them to leave.”
Mr. Pencil Box ignored this silly request. He knew that the pencils would learn their lesson soon enough. But the erasers and the sharpener were so insulted that they decided not to help the pencils. So, whenever Sammy made mistakes, the erasers refused to erase these. The sharpener also did not do its job. Soon, Sammy’s sketches became bad, his writing sloppy and full of mistakes, and his diagrams untidy. His marks and grades began to fall and his teachers grumbled at his work.
One by one, the pencils’ points became blunt but Sammy couldn’t make them sharp again. The pencils were sad. They had loved their sharp points and enjoyed racing over the notebooks. They had loved it when Sammy would use them to sketch.
Whenever the pencils stared at the eraser and the sharpener, their former friends turned away. The eraser and the sharpener were also sad at the situation.
Resolution
One day, Mr. Red Pencil Box, who couldn’t bear to see Sammy suffer for no fault of his, said to the five pencils. “I hope you learnt a lesson?”
The pencils hung their heads. They hated it when Sammy was scolded by the teachers. They hated being ignored.
“Each one of you has a special job. If pencils make mistakes, the erasers remove them. When a pencil’s point becomes blunt, the sharpener helps it, so that it can start writing again,” Mr. Pencil Box said. “You all work well as a team. Alone you all are of no use.”
“We are sorry,” the pencils said to the erasers and the sharpener. “Please forgive us and help us.”
The sharpener and the erasers had been missing the pencils. They ran towards their friends and hugged them.
The next day, when Sammy did his drawing and homework, the erasers removed the errors and the sharpeners sharpened the pencils to perfect points. His homework and sketches were again neat and tidy, and his marks increased. There was peace in the pencil box once again.
Published - September 19, 2024 10:30 am IST
