The rough stone’s tale

Rough Stone

The rough stone watched as Ben and Marc began to build a city in the sand pit. They made mounds of sand into hills and parks, and arranged thick wooden blocks to make walls for shops and houses and garages. Ben then balanced some large flat bricks on top to make roofs.

“We don’t want the rain to get in,” he said.

“Or tigers,” said Marc. “They might jump over the walls if there are no roofs.”

Rough Stone felt a bit jealous of the blocks. No one would want to use him for anything. Who would need a blotchy white-and-yellow stone that wasn’t properly round or properly square and had lots of holes all over it?

His heart sank even lower when Marc spoke again. “We need some statues in the park. Parks always have big interesting stones for people to look at.”

Rough Stone knew he would be ignored. Ben grabbed the basket of stones and immediately chose a dark red shiny one to be the statue. He then stood three lego people next to it. “They’re visitors,” he said. “They’re admiring it.”

Rough Stone was very sad. He wanted to be admired.

He grew even sadder when Marc leant over and picked up the large flat stone lying next to him. It was blue-grey and very beautiful.

“This will be for cars to park on when they visit our city,” Marc said, laying the stone flat in the sand pit.

Rough Stone had fallen into a corner of the basket by now. He lay there moaning, “I’m rubbish, I’m useless, and soooo ugly no one will ever want me. I may as well live at the bottom of the sea.”

Just then, Marc gave a shout. “HEY!”

Rough Stone and Ben both jumped.

“We haven’t got any water,” said Marc. “Ben, help me dig a river!”

The two boys set about digging a long winding channel in the sand with their hands. It wound its way through all the houses and shops and garages, from one side of the sand pit to the other. They dug down so deep that they could see the blue bottom of the sand pit. “Brilliant,” said Marc. “It looks like water now.”

“But how are people going to get across?” said Ben. “We’ve used all the long bricks so we can’t build a bridge.”

Marc looked round. “I know!” he said. “What if we put a stepping stone in the middle of the river? People will be able to get across in two jumps.”

Ben agreed. “But it needs to be a really rough stone,” he said. “People will slip on a smooth one.”

Rough Stone sat up straight. He was rough. He was also just about the right size for a stepping stone. Maybe he was meant to be a stepping stone! He held his breath and hoped.

After looking at all the stones in the basket, Ben picked up Rough Stone. “This stone is exactly the right one,” he said. “And his creamy yellow colour will be easy to see when anyone wants to jump onto him.”

Ben placed him in the middle of the blue stream. Rough Stone felt at home straight away, and made himself comfortable. As he fell asleep, he realised that whenever someone needed to cross the river, he’d be just the right stone to help them. And it made him very happy.

The moral of this tale is that there is always something you can do better than anyone else.