Folktale

By Tommy P.

There once was a boy that was very rich. He had a tremendously huge house surrounded by a stone wall. The boy was having a lot of rough times in school and decided to play hooky for a day. On the day that the boy was playing hooky he wanted to explore the city of Beijing. So he got into his expensive clothes and set off for his journey to Beijing. As he got there he saw the dirt roads and it was nothing like he expected. So for a while he walked the streets because he had nothing else to do. He saw many beggars in rippled dirty clothes, with cuts all over their bodies. As the boy walked by the beggars, they were on their knees asking for money. The boy was petrified of the beggars but stayed there because he thought it was better than suffering in school. After a decent walk on the dirt road, the boy was getting hungry so he decided to stop and eat his lunch he had packed. As he sat on the side of the road a group of beggars came up to him and started grunting and as soon as the boy heard that he knew they were begging for food. The boy got really scared and ran off to anther part of town.
As the boy had reached a different part of Beijing, he started eating his lunch, being very cautious of beggars. Unfortunately, the boy still thought that it was better than school.

Later in the day the sun started to fall and the boy decided to go home.
As the boy got home, his mother asked him how school was. The boy's reply was, "fine." The boy went to sleep and wondered what he was going to do the next day but the idea of going to school was in the very, very back of his mind. So the boy fell asleep with this thought in his mind.

During his sleep he had a nightmare about the beggars in Beijing. In his nightmare there were beggars chasing him and he was running away in a panic. He woke up and was covered with perspiration and the covers were sticking to him like glue. The boy could not go to sleep because he couldn't stop thinking about the beggars in Beijing.

After a long night the boy pretended to get ready for school so his mother wouldn't think that he was playing hooky. So, the boy walked out of his house and headed for Beijing. As the boy reached Beijing the boy was very, very cautious of beggars on the street. As the sun ran down the boy went back to his house exactly like yesterday.

The boy kept doing this for weeks and late one day a beggar kid napped him. The beggar took him and tortured him and his clothes got all raggedy and the very rich boy turned into a beggar.

So, the proverb that explains this little folktale is "no one gets into trouble without his own help. "

 

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