Chang and the Lesson He Learned

By: Katie

A long time ago in a village by the Yangtze River, there lived two friends, Chu and Chang. One day, Chang was bored and began to tell others that had Chu died because a river goddess carried him away. News of this sad event spread even more every day.

When Chang arrived at school the next day, his friends told him how sorry they were to hear about his friend's loss. The more attention was given to him, the sadder he made his story.

One of Chang's stories was that Chu was riding on his father's junk and fell off, and then the river goddess snatched him. In another story, Chu was struck with a stone while swimming in the river. Still another story told of Chu being struck by lightening. These stories continued until the villagers began to wonder how all of these catastrophes could happen to the same person.

Their questions were answered the next morning when Chu appeared at the school door and said "hee how", (which means hello). You can imagine everyone's surprise when they came to realize that all of the sad and terrifying stories had been made up. Instead, Chu had only been sick which was a lot less serious than death!

Several months later Chang and Chu were playing in the river when Chu was caught in between the rocks. Chang yelled, "Help! Help!" Chu was drowning, but no one would believe him because he had lied the first time when his story wasn't true. Since Chang was not as tall and strong as others were, he couldn't reach Chu. Chang swam down and saw that Chang was really piled under rocks and was unable to break out. Chang came up to get more air and realized how long Chu had been under the water. Chang knew he had to help him. Chang went down one more time. Chu was still alive, although he had been covered in rocks for too long. Chang realized that it was impossible to free Chu, so he had to give up, because the same thing could happen to him if he kept on trying to uncover Chu. Chang was not really that strong and so he had to give up.

Chang left the water and pretended that nothing had happened. He knew it was his entire fault but he couldn't change what he had said in the past. He couldn't change that Chu, his best friend, was dying, and how he pretended that nothing had happened. He couldn't change anything that could or did happen to anyone. He would just always feel that loss, which he didn't take care of.

Chang only cared about himself and enjoyed getting a lot of attention. It wasn't until Chu's accident in the river that he realized how important it was to tell the truth. Through this bad experience, he also learned to try to care more about others.

Later, Chu died, and the villagers all realized that they should have listened to Chang. Now Chang blamed himself for his friend's death.

Chang learned a valuable lesson, which was, "A word whispered into an ear can be heard for miles."

The End

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