friends everywhere.

Once, in a little city called brunturby, there was a happy family; a mother, father, sister and brother. They lived in a little house that was cramped, old and was making everybody angry and miserable. The father, mother and sister were always talking about moving away, and that made the brother very sad. You see, the brother did not want to move away, never ever. All he wanted to do was stay with his friends, whom he had known since he was a toddler. Just the thought of moving away made him want to break all his toys and hit his sister on the head. One day, the parents found a house that everybody loved, except for the brother. He didn’t care about the house, all he wanted to do was stay in brunturby with his friends, he didn’t care about what his sister wanted to do. He didn’t even care about what his mother and father wanted to do. All he cared about was himself. His parents, however, loved the house, but loved their children more, and moved for the sake of the family, hoping that nobody would be miserable anymore. Soon, they were all moved in, and the first day of school arrived. That morning, at the kitchen table, the brother was eating shreddies cereal when he started to cry. The sister walked in and asked, “why are you crying?”. 1

“because I’m so scared of going to school, I won’t know anybody, and I just KNOW I won’t make any friends. What do I do!?” he asked frantically. “well,” the sister began, “the best thing to do is be friendly, and be nice to everybody, and you’ll be fine.” So that’s exactly what he did. He went to school, and was nice to everybody. The problem was, however, that because the brother was so nice, everybody thought that they could make him do whatever they wanted. They thought that they could walk all over him. The brother didn’t like that at all. The next day, at breakfast, the sister asked him, “so how did my advice work? Did you make any friends?”2

“not really, everybody treated me like dirt, they didn’t even care about me. What should I do?” he asked her, fearfully. “well, make people respect you.” She told him. So he went to school, and was rude to everybody. Nobody liked him because he hurt everybody’s feelings. The brother didn’t like this either. The next day at breakfast, the brother told the sister, “your advice isn’t working for me, nobody likes me. what should I do, please help me!” the brother cried, terrified. “well, what did you do?” she asked calmly. “well, first, I was nice to everybody, and did what they told me to do, and then when I did, they told me to do something else. They didn’t even know my name. and then, the next day, I did what you said, and I made people respect me, but they were actually scared of me, and I didn’t like that either. Nobody wanted to play with me because they thought I would call them names, or be mean to them. What am I doing wrong?” he told her frantically. “you forgot to be yourself.” She told him excitedly. “be myself? What do you mean?” he asked. “well, when I told you to be nice to everybody, and to have everybody respect you, I meant that you should be nice, but to stand up for yourself. Most of all, don’t be afraid of what people might think of you. You are your own person, and nobody can change that.” She said. So the brother went to school, and he did just what his sister told him. He made friends, because they liked the person that he was. Of course, there were a couple people who didn’t like him, because that happens to everybody. You can’t make everybody like you, but he sure got close. He soon realized that he could make friends everywhere he went, because you can if you believe you can. He became one of the most popular kids at school, because he knew he could.3