Ghazal Mhanna, 15 — Trainers’ Academy, Tulkarm
He sat on his bench in the garden sipping his coffee quietly, enjoying the warm sunshine and the gentle spring breeze. Usaid glanced towards the wall to find that its shadow had disappeared…
The Bag
Rama Khaled Abu Sarhan, 16 — Al-Ubeidiya
One day, as I was walking home from school thinking about our family’s difficult situation and the desperate poverty we suffered from, I found a black leather bag lying at the side of the road. I looked around but saw no one. I approached the bag, picked it up, opened it and looked inside. It was full of many bundles of money. At first I felt overwhelming happiness. “Now we can bury poverty forever and say goodbye to misery for good,” I said to myself.
But something jolted me back. Should I take the bag and give it to my father so he could repair our crumbling house, buy us new clothes to replace the ones worn thin from use and washing, and get us lovely food and fruit? All these questions whirled through my head. Yes, I’ll take it… No, no, I can’t take it — it surely belongs to someone, and perhaps its owner desperately needs it, and perhaps right now they’re searching for it in tears.
After struggling hard with my thoughts, I decided to take it home and let my father decide. I took the bag and gave it to him. My father looked at the money for a long time. Then he said: “We’ll take it to the police. We don’t accept money that isn’t rightfully ours, and I won’t feed my children on money that isn’t mine.”
My father took the bag to the police, and two days later the doorbell rang. I ran to the door, feeling sure a surprise was waiting outside, and as soon as I opened it I saw a man in his fifties wearing a smart suit who looked wealthy.
“You must be Rama.”
“Yes, I’m Rama. And who are you, sir?”
“I’m the owner of the bag.”
“Oh, please come in. I’ll tell my father right away.”
The man entered our very modest house. My father came and they introduced themselves. My mother made coffee, and the man told us how he’d lost the bag — he didn’t know where or how he’d lost it. He said:
“Now tell me, Rama, what would you like as a reward for your honesty?”
“Mmm… honestly, I don’t want anything.”
“I can’t accept that. I must reward you.”
I looked over at my father. He said nothing, so I said:
“I’d like an amount that would help my father and pay off some of his debts.”
“Would a hundred thousand be enough?”
“What?! A hundred thousand! But that’s a lot, way too much!”
“No, it’s not a lot. Do you know how much was in the bag?”
“Honestly, no. I didn’t touch the money at all or try to count it.”
“There was a million dollars.”
“A million dollars? That’s enormous!”
“The hundred thousand is just a tenth of the sum, so you can improve your life.”
“Thank God! Thank you, sir. Now we can repair our house, and my father can pay off his debts and buy us new clothes.”
“No, I’ll take care of the new clothes.”
“But this is too much, sir.”
“No, it’s not too much.”
And so my story of the bag ended happily, and I learned that honest money, however little, is far better than a fortune gained dishonestly.
The End
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