101 Stories of Changes, Choices and Growing Up for Kids Ages 9-13

by Jack Canfield

  Andrea laughed. “That’s easy,” she said.

  “Okay,” I said, thinking, What could this smart aleck four-year-old possibly know that all of the adults who I had asked hadn’t already come up with?

  “Tell me the answer,” I said smugly.

  Andrea cleared her throat and stood up.

  “Doing the right thing means being nice to your family and friends. Doing what your mommy says. Never lie. Eat lots of fruits and vegetables. Don’t eat dog food. Take a bath when you’re dirty and wash your own private parts. Don’t watch icky movies with kissing and stuff. Don’t waste water and electricity. Don’t scare the cat. Don’t ever run away. And never, never put rocks in your mouth.”

  I stared with astonishment at my little cousin. Then I jumped up, grabbed Andrea and gave her the biggest hug I could. Not only had Andrea answered a very tough question for me, I could easily live by all of her rules. All I had to do was be nice, not lie, keep myself clean and healthy, not scare cats, and never, never put rocks in my mouth. Piece of cake. So when I wrote my essay, I included the story about Andrea and how she had answered my question.

  Two weeks later, my teacher returned everyone’s essays. I received an A+ along with a little note my teacher had written at the top: “Always do the right thing—and give Andrea an A+, too!”

  Shirley Barone Craddock

  The Moment I Knew I’d Never Be Cool

  From their errors and mistakes, the wise and good learn wisdom for the future.

  Plutarch

  My older sister was born to be liked. She came out of the womb with a cute face, blonde hair, a sense of humor, athletic ability, and what my mom called the “gift of gab.” She went through her childhood with lots of friends, lots of parties and lots of attention. I wanted what my sister had: popularity.

  I studied her for years and never came close, so I turned to kids my own age for role models. Jen, the girl I always sat next to in school, threw her blonde hair around, showed off her dimples, put her head to one side when she asked for favors and was easily voted most popular in class. Okay, I thought, I’ll try her tactics. I threw my brown hair around, smiled without dimples, put my head to one side and asked my teacher for a pass to the bathroom. She looked at me and said, “Why are you doing that with your head? Don’t you feel well?”

  That was my cue to try for cool instead of popular. I’d do anything to escape my lack of social status. Cool kids always acted as though they had the world under control, maneuvering around obstacles and adults with ease, and never cracking under pressure. My big chance came when a new girl moved to town and into my class. Nothing seemed to ruffle Tiffany. She was cute, trendy, and best of all, she liked me.

  Our friendship lasted four weeks—just long enough for me to learn that Tiffany took European vacations, went skiing in Aspen and bought clothes at Nieman-Marcus. I’d never been outside of Illinois, on skis or anywhere but the Sears preteen department. We were only eleven and she’d already picked out the car she’d get for her sixteenth birthday. Tiffany was way too much for me. I crawled back into my familiar invisibility. . . .

  Until I met Mandy. Mandy’s middle name was “rebel.” She and her brother, Kevin, smoked cigarettes and stole money out of their mom’s purse. If popularity and cool are out of reach, I thought, I’ll take rebellion over facelessness. I was soon hanging out at Mandy’s house, where no adults were ever around to notice what we were doing. I puffed cigarettes, pretended to shoplift and felt powerful for the first time in my life. I did crazy things my parents never suspected, and had a great time bragging about it to other kids. I could feel my status rising. Then Kevin was arrested and sent to a detention center. Never wanting to end up like him, I pitched my cigarettes and headed back into obscurity.

  By eighth grade, I was desperate. I tried out for cheer-leading at my small school, and by some miracle, made it onto the squad. My head swelled like a melon. I must have absorbed popularity and coolness without realizing it, I thought. I took this tiny piece of status and ran with it.

  At first, being popular and cool seemed to be easy. I tolerated, agreed with or laughed at the nasty comments of the cool girls who stayed that way by pointing out the uncoolness of others. Things like, “Look at Dana’s hair. Think she used a hedge trimmer?” or, “Can you believe those shoes Lauren wore last night? She must have borrowed them from her grandmother.” Guys weren’t spared. “Oh, Tyler. What a crater face!” and, “Yeewww. Bryce actually thought I’d be seen with him in public!”

  The better they were at cutting people to shreds, the faster those girls seemed to rise above the masses. Like stand-up comics, they pointed out other people’s flaws and made the crowds roar. Why, I wondered, were put downs cool? They made my stomach cramp. Was it who said them? The way they were said?

  Okay, I decided, I can say nasty things about other people for the sake of personal success. I picked a time and place for my initiation. A budding friendship with the Faris twins gave me a stage. Sara and Shauna were way cooler than I’d ever be. They’d been hanging with guys since seventh grade.

  My debut came after church. The three of us were standing around waiting for rides home. I listened to them rip first on girls and then on guys. One guy in particular took the brunt of their hits: first his clothes, then his voice, then his brain, then his looks.

  “I know what you mean,” I volunteered, as Shauna turned up her nose at the mention of the poor guy’s hairy arms. “Some guys are real apes. . . .”

  As the words left my mouth, a not-so-good-looking guy drove past in a blue convertible. Perfect opportunity, I thought. I pointed to the driver, “. . . like that guy—red-haired and u-g-l-y.” I made chimp sounds as I watched the car turn into a nearby driveway. Instead of agreement, I heard nothing from the twins. It was like I was standing on the ocean bottom with my ears plugged. I turned slowly to see Sara and Shauna with necks stiff and eyes impaling me on an invisible stake.

  What? What? my confused brain was pleading. What’d I say?

  The answer slithered out of Sara’s mouth as the twins turned their backs and walked toward the blue convertible. “That red-haired and u-g-l-y ape is our brother.”

  The rest, as they say, is history. My journey to cool stalled right there in front of church. With face burning and ears ringing, I’m sure I heard an otherworldly voice whisper, You’ll never be popular, cool, or anything else your heart won’t let you be. Start looking inside, instead of out.

  It took me a while to get what those words meant. But once I stopped trying to be like other people, life got a whole lot easier. I’m even growing up to be someone I really like.

  D. Marie O’Keefe

  Calvin and Hobbes

  by Bill Watterson

  CALVIN AND HOBBES. ©Watterson. Reprinted with permission of UNIVERSAL PRESS SYNDICATE. All rights reserved.

  Lost

  One afternoon, when I was five, my mom and I went shopping at a very large grocery store. While we were in the dairy department, something caught my attention and I became distracted. When I turned, expecting to find my mother, no one was there. My mother had moved on, thinking I was behind her. I panicked! I spun around several times, desperately searching for my mother but to my dismay, no luck. I started running up and down every aisle, with my eyes darting in every direction. I passed the cereal, green beans, spaghetti sauce and pork chops.

  Then I spotted someone, wearing a similar outfit to my mom’s, with her back to me. I had found her! I sprinted as fast as I could toward the woman. I was running so fast that I could not stop myself and planted my face right into her rear end. As I fell to the floor, the lady spun around screaming. After a quick look at the woman’s face, I realized it was NOT my mom! I picked myself up as fast as I could, turned around and ran the other direction.

  Not watching where I was going, I stumbled right into a cardboard shelf containing several bags of potato chips. I was so scared, I was crying profusely as the chip bags tumbled down around me.

/>   Fortunately, my mother was standing at the end of the aisle and had seen the whole thing. Laughing hysterically, she came running to pull me out of my grave of chip bags. She hadn’t been as far away from me as I had thought.

  I learned a valuable lesson that day. From then on, if I ever thought I was lost in a grocery store I asked the person behind the counter to help me find my mom.

  Casey Veronie, thirteen

  Kindness Is a Simple Gift

  In this world we must help one another.

  Jean de La Fontaine

  My family and I were taking a well-deserved vacation to Disneyland. I had never been there before and was eagerly anticipating experiencing the magic.

  There was another reason that this trip was special. My father was a workaholic who worked long hours. I longed to spend time with him. I wanted to be able to sit down with my father, who I loved more than life, and just talk. It always seemed like there was never time.

  The day finally arrived when I was allowed to pack my clothes. I chose only my favorite outfits. I threw in my autograph book and then muscled the suitcase zipper around the overflow of clothes. I set my suitcase on my comforter and smiled. I was ready.

  I didn’t get any sleep that night. I lay in my bed and stared out the window. I knew that my father’s work was going to be left at home, finally.

  After a brief breakfast we hit the open road. It was all smooth sailing for the first couple of hours until I unexpectedly felt a sharp jerk. We coasted to the side of the road, and my dad said something about the engine being shot. We were in the middle of four lanes of traffic, so he decided the easiest thing to do would be to flag someone down and get a ride into town.

  An hour later, my dad was still waving his hands at each and every passing car but it wasn’t doing any good. Not a single soul would stop to assist my helpless family. Finally Father gave up and decided to walk into town. I was certain it was a very long distance. I pleaded with him to stay and try again, but he was deaf to my pleading. He just said that he wouldn’t let anything ruin this trip for me. My heart ached as he put on his coat and began to walk away from our car. My dad has a back problem, and he was too stubborn to admit that he wasn’t in any condition to even walk a couple of miles.

  Then I saw a figure out of the window. It was a lone trucker. I looked around for his rig. I didn’t see it until I realized that his truck was parked on the other side of the road. He had walked across four lanes of traffic to get to us. The feeling I felt at that moment is indescribable. I was truly touched that this man cared so much. Not one other person had taken time out of his or her own selfish life to stop and see if everything was okay, but this man was different. He didn’t even know us, and he didn’t expect anything in return.

  Father got his ride back to town, and our car was repaired. My visions of Mickey were rekindled, as was my faith that angels do exist. Because of that man’s actions, my father and I had the opportunity to grow close again, and I still cherish my genuine Mickey Mouse autograph.

  None of this would have been possible if that man hadn’t given us the gift that he did—the gift of kindness.

  Michael Oknefski, seventeen

  Our Christmas Secret

  Admitting errors clears the score and proves you wiser than before.

  Arthur Guiterman

  It was Christmas Eve when my sister and I decided to open our presents before our mom got home from work. She usually came home about an hour after we got home from school, which we thought was plenty of time to sneak a peek at the gifts under the tree. Since my sister was older, and that put her in charge, she opened the first gift while I was ordered to stand guard at the big picture window in our front room. I was to report any suspicious activity or persons, namely our mother.

  I was so excited that I could barely stand still. I also couldn’t keep my eyes on the window very long. My head moved from the window to my sister and back to the window again. I felt like I was watching a Ping-Pong match.

  “All right!” my sister shouted. She pulled out a jewelry box. “You know what that means, don’t you?”

  I jumped up and down. “Yeah, it’s my turn!”

  “No,” she said. “It means that there must be some jewelry under here.” I watched my sister rummage through the presents under the tree trying to find one she thought was small enough to be a necklace or earrings.

  “Hey, that’s not fair!” I whined, stomping my foot.

  “Are you watching for Mom?” is all that she said. I couldn’t do anything except stand guard as she opened present after present. Finally, when my sister’s curiosity was satisfied and she had finished wrapping her last present back up, we traded places.

  My heart hammered so hard that it felt like my chest was moving in and out. My sister reminded me to be careful so I wouldn’t tear the paper, and to wrap the present back up the same way that I had found it.

  After unwrapping a few presents, I found it faster to open one end of a present and peek inside. “Cool! Mom and Dad got me headphones for my stereo!”

  I pulled the headphones out of the box and was about to put them on when my sister shouted, “Quick! Wrap it back up! Mom’s coming!”

  My heart hit the floor along with the headphones when I heard what sounded like glass crushing. I knew it was my mother coming down our gravel driveway. My body was as frozen as a snowman.

  “Come on!” My sister’s face was as white as the paint on the wall.

  I shoved the headphones back in the box but my hands were shaking so much that I tore the paper trying to wrap it back up. My sister was yelling at me, which only made my hands shake more. I heard the jingle of keys and the doorknob rattle. I thought I was going to wet my pants! My heart pounded harder as I tried to get the tape to stick.

  “Just shove it under the tree and put some presents on top of it!” my sister shouted as she ran to stall my mother.

  I had just finished burying the package with my headphones in it when my mother came into the front room. I jumped up and said, “Hi, Mom!” She smiled at me and said, “Hi,” back, but didn’t appear to suspect a thing. My heart began to slow as I took a deep breath. That was close. Too close!

  On Christmas morning, my sister and I smiled for pictures and gave award-winning performances when we opened our presents—again. “Headphones!” I exclaimed. “Thanks, it’s just what I wanted.” After everything had been opened, my sister and I looked at each other, and our eyes met. Our secret was safe, but somehow Christmas morning didn’t feel the same.

  My sister and I never opened our Christmas presents early again. I don’t know if it was that opening our gifts for the second time just wasn’t as much fun as the first time, or if we came too close to getting caught and didn’t want to think about what our mother would have done to us.

  I also learned something that year about my mother. I found out that she wasn’t as dumb as I thought she was. Maybe it was the lack of squeals on Christmas morning or the torn wrapping paper that tipped her off. For some reason, all of the packages for our birthdays, which she usually hid at the top of her closet shelf, never appeared. I never did find out where she hid them.

  Lori Menning

  What I’ve Learned So Far

  Never try to get corn off the cob with a fork.

  When playing in the gym, beware of steel beams.

  Never let guys in your room on an overnight school trip.

  The condiments at meals are not toys.

  Before you give a kid Listerine, make sure that he knows not to swallow it.

  NEVER throw up in a vent.

  Melissa Amyx, fourteen

  Don’t try to baptize your neighbor’s cat, especially with a hose.

  Marleigh Dunlap, thirteen

  Some teachers are there to teach and that’s all, but others are there to watch and help you grow.

  Janne Perona, thirteen

  Everything you do in your life cannot be taken back.

  Family is the most important g
ift of all.

  Be true to yourself and it won’t matter if others aren’t true to you.

  Nikki Chance, fifteen

  Don’t be afraid to make new friends and expand your relationships with other friends.

  Reanna Grissom, twelve

  Don’t trust anyone who knows how to give a wedgie.

  Sylvia Lares, nine

  If you have something bad to tell your mom, tell her when she’s on the phone.

  Brennan Shaw, eleven

  Never let a stain from the past make a mark on your future.

  Jillian Graham, twelve

  Read lots of stuff written in the 1700s, it’ll make you smarter.

  Dena Soffer, ten

  Never put your tongue on a really cold metal pole.

  Joshua White, twelve

  Never eat unsweetened chocolate. Yuk!

  Dylan Dudley, seven

  If you give your enemy a second chance they might turn out to be your best friend.

  Mandy Tallant, twelve

  Always pretend you understand what the Spanish teacher is saying.

  Tarek Audi, fifteen

  Never trust your fifteen-year-old uncle to make dinner.

  George Preston, fourteen

  Never eat prunes, no matter what your grandma says.

  Melanie Hansen, twelve

  Never fall asleep during a field trip if your friends have toothpaste with them.

  Filipe Romero, thirteen