THE STICK MAN – Children Short Story with Moral Lesson

The second grade students at St. Maria’s were excited. It was the last hour of the
day and it was their painting hour. They loved the color pencils, crayons, water color
and Mr. Edward the painting teacher. But Jason Peter was more than delighted
about the magic pencil he had pulled out from little Steve’s bag. He had exchanged
the pencil with a look alike pencil. Steve had made the entire class envy all
throughout their semester.

The class drew pictures, colored, chatted and laughed during the hour. Mr. Edward
introduced the class with a new form of drawing- the stick form.

“Kids let us draw a stick man today” The young teacher drew a stick man on the
class board and the students copied the same on their sketch book.

The school bell rang loud and the children rushed back home.

“Dad looked at what I had drawn today.” Jason showed the sketch book to his father.

“Great Job Young Man” Peter complimented the little boy.

Little Jason went cycling, played ball with his pup Brownie and by seven in the
evening he was fast asleep.

The bright blue walls of the bedroom were decorated with pictures of characters from
Jason’s favourite cartoon series and each and every furniture in the room made it
more evident to be a kid’s bedroom.

The room remained dark except for the moonlight coming in through the curtains.
The sketchbook lay wide open on the study table . The pages flipped in the gentle
wind that blew from the open hall through the door.  The stick man jumped out of the
book.

“ What a beautiful stick man I am!” he exclaimed looking at himself. He loved his
reflection in the wardrobe mirror.

“ But  I need more stick friends…………” the stick man dreamt greedily.

The naughty stick man opened Jason’s bag and took out his magic pencil. He
created more pictures of stick people with it. One by one they all jumped out of the
book as to the magic of the pencil.

The stick men  danced and played all through the house. They made faces at each
other, fought with each other, played football in the dining room and handball with
the  kitchen utensils. They walked on the garden lawns, pulled out the flowers in the
bushes and dirtied the floors of the house with mud and dirt. They pulled the laundry
clothes out , tore the pages of the library books, broke the flower vases and left no
place untouched. The whole place looked like the remains of a battlefield. Jason’s
family remained deep asleep amidst the chaos in the weird hours of the night.

“ Oh My………. Look at that.” The early morning discussions in the drawing hall
disturbed Jason’s sleep. He walked into the drawing room which looked very untidy
and all in the family from the head to the little ones were present there to witness the
disordered room.

Jason carefully scrutinized the tiny footprints in his room. All the time he kept thinking
whose footprints they were. Brownie was never let out during the night and moreover
these footprints looked smaller than the pup’s.

“ Jason the pencil thief … … Jason the pencil thief…..” He looked round to find the
source of the little sound. It seemed to come from the study table.

“ Jason the pencil thief….” The stick man in the sketch book looked at him scornfully.

Jason realized he had made a huge mistake in stealing Steve’s pencil and the mess
in the house was the price he had to pay for it. The magic pencil was a delight but it
solely belonged to its master.

“ I must return the pencil to Steve today..” Jason promised himself.

The stick man in the sketch smiled at him but this time happily.

__END__