One Little Thing...

This story starts off in a school lunch room. There's a girl who's sitting all by herself at a table. A popular boy sees her and feels bad for her, so he asks her to come and sit with him and his friends. She timidly walked over to the table and everyone could tell she was nervous. They tried to learn a little about what she likes and then just talked about those until she got into her comfort zone. You could tell how happy she was to be sitting with them and that she was gaining confidence by the second. God was very proud of the boy because the little action he made by asking the lonely girl to sit with him changed her entire life. The girl still sits with the boys every once in a while but because she got so much more confidence and she was more outgoing she started making friends of her own. She was no longer a lonely girl sitting by herself at a table and she was so much happier. Then, one day the girl who has friends now was at lunch and walking over to the table where her friends were when she saw a boy that reminded her of herself in the past. She said to the boy, "Hey, do you want to sit with us?"

Jonathan and the Race

A long time ago in the ancient Greek city-state named Argos there was a boy named Jonathan. Jonathan lived alone with his mom because his father died when Jonathan was only a baby. As a result, Jonathan and his mom, Acacia, were very poor.

One day Jonathan walked over to the park where all of his friends hung out and played. When he got there he noticed tons of kids his age running around the park. He didn’t know why everyone was running so he called his friend Joseph, who was running too, and asked what was going on.

“Oh hey Jon, we are practicing for the big race in 2 weeks!” exclaimed Joseph.

“What race are you talking about?”

“You haven’t heard! It’s a race going all around Argos and the winner is paid 150 gold coins!”

“Wow,” Jonathan thought,”that could really help my mom and me out.” “Do you mind if I try to run with you for a while? I think I’m gonna try this race out too.”

“It’s fine with me,” said Joseph, “but have fun keeping up; I’ve been running for the last week!”

Joseph was right, Jonathan could hardly keep up with him after a half a mile, his legs felt like Jell-o and he could hardly see straight. “Sorry Joseph, but I’m done for today I think I’m gonna go home and take a LONG nap.”

“Okay, suit yourself, see ya at the race,” Joseph said. Then, he took off like he’s been running everyday for the last 5 years.

“Wow! How does he run so fast and make it look so effortless?” Jonathan wondered.

On his walk home Jonathan was so tired that he took the shortest route he knew home. While walking through an alley, he though he heard something behind him so he turned around. He couldn’t believe what he saw. It was one of the 12 gods of Olympus, the God of War, Ares. ”I hear you’re having some trouble running,” Ares said.

“Uh… Yeah but, umm, are you who I think you are?” stammered Jonathan

“If you think that I’m Ares, God of War, then DING DING DING! We have a winner!”

“Wow! Can you help me win that race?”

“ I see potential in you. If I train you, you’ll win no matter what!”

“What if I’m not fast enough?” asked Jonathan.

“Don’t worry kid, you’ll win.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Don’t worry about that now,” said Ares

Although Ares trained Jonathan the best way that he could, Jonathan was still just too slow.

“Okay, we both know that you’re not fast enough to win the race, but I promised you that I would make you win and a god of Olympus like me NEVER breaks their promise.”

“Okay then, I want to win as much as you do, but how are we going to make it happen?”

“Oh you know, the usual, cut a corner or two, trip a runner every once in a while.”

“I don’t know Ares, with all due respect, that doesn’t sound like a very good idea.”

“’Don’t worry, after all you probably need that money more than anyone,” persuaded Ares.

“I guess you’re right if you look at it that way,” sighed Jonathan.

“That’s what I like to hear!” said Ares, “Now, let’s get our hands on a map of that race.”

They ended up getting a map of the race from Joseph. They found out some really good shortcuts and they also found some spots where Ares could distract or slow down the other runners. On the day of the race Jonathan and Ares went over their plans and got to their positions: Jonathan at the starting line with the other runners and Ares behind some trees ready to roll apples under people’s feet so they would trip.

At the start of the race Joseph took the early lead and Jonathan ran very slowly letting the pack get ahead of him so he was in last place. He then took all of his shortcuts and, with only a fourth of a mile left, he came back on to the regular race path and cruised to victory. When he crossed the finish line first everyone in the crowd was going crazy. His mother was so happy and proud that she started crying. She ran up to him, gave him a huge hug and said “I’m so proud of you! You worked so hard for this!”

Jonathan thought winning would make him happy. Instead, all he felt was guilt and shame. When he won he was told that he had to give a speech. When he walked up to the microphone everyone was silent waiting in anticipation to hear what the winner had to say.

“Hello everyone, I have something to say. I cheated. I took shortcuts, and had someone trip runners. I’m not even fast and I don’t deserve this money. I guess right now all I can say is: sorry.

The crowd couldn’t believe what they’d just heard. They all just stared at him in disbelief. He knew he did the right thing by telling them that he cheated though. It ended up so that Jonathan was disqualified and the winner was now the person who got second place which was Joseph.

The next day at the park Jonathan saw Joseph sitting on a bench looking at his medal. “Hey,” said Jonathan, “listen I’m sorry about cheating and everything that was really not cool.”

“Hey don’t worry about it. What you did after the race was way cool and just because you did confess I’m going to give you half of the prize money which is 75 gold coins.”