A boy would give his lunch to a street girl every day instead of bringing it to school. His classmates didn’t know this, so they made fun of him for not having food. They didn’t know that he would eventually give the girl a permanent home.
Brian Williams always took food with him when he left the house. His mum liked making him home-cooked meals because she thought it was much better than the food in the school cafeteria.
Brian’s lunchbox would always be empty when he got home from school. Mrs. Williams was happy because she thought Brian liked the food she made for him. But she didn’t understand why he went straight to the kitchen every afternoon to grab more food.
“Wow, you’re really grown up, aren’t you? She once patted his head as he ate a snack she had made and told him, “Go ahead and eat.” Brian didn’t say anything else as he kept eating.
Mrs. Williams had no idea that Brian was going to school without eating. His friends would make fun of him because they thought he didn’t have enough money to eat at home or in the restaurant.
One of his friends made a joke: “Do you want my leftovers?” Brian didn’t care about them. Instead, he hid on the field while everyone else ate in the classroom or cafeteria. He would sit alone on the swings until the bell for the next class rang.
Soon, Brian’s teachers were worried about how much his friends made fun of him, and they wondered why he never ate lunch. They knew he came from a rich family and would have been given money to buy food at the cafeteria if he didn’t have lunch.
When they asked him where his food was, he would say he had left it at home, wasn’t hungry, or had eaten before lunchtime. But Brian’s teachers weren’t sure, so they called Brian’s mum to find out.
“Brian hasn’t been eating, Mrs. Williams,” a teacher told her. “Every day, he came up with a reason why he couldn’t have lunch with us.”
“But that can’t be!” Mrs. Williams said something. “Every day, he takes his lunch box with him, and I make sure it’s full. What happens to the food?” she said in shock.
When Brian got home that afternoon, his mom asked him what he did with the food. Brian just said that he ate it before class when he was hungry, which was often. His mum believed him, so she bought him a bigger bag so he could bring more food.
His mum called his teacher to make sure he was okay because she thought he had more than enough food for school. But his teacher said that the boy had again come to school without lunch. She told Brian’s teacher, “I’ll look into it,” and she did.
The next day, before she left, Mrs. Williams gave Brian his lunch box. When he left, she chose to follow him from a distance. She saw that he turned left towards the park instead of right towards the school.
Brian sat next to a girl about his age when he got to the park. She looked weak and her clothes were torn and old. He gave her his food, and she quickly started to eat it.
Mrs. Williams finally understood everything, and she couldn’t help but cry. Her little boy was so kind that he gave up his lunch every day for this little girl.
Mrs. Williams went up to Brian and the little girl and said she had seen everything. Brian was shocked, and he was afraid his mum would be mad at him. The little girl thought she was in trouble, so she hid behind Brian’s back.
“It’s all right. “Don’t worry,” she told him with a smile as she held his hand. “Honey, you should have told me right away. Every day, I would have made you both lunch.”
“I apologise, mom. I thought you would stop me from going to the park. Melissa is her name. She lives in a shelter nearby, but there isn’t enough food for everyone, so she goes to the park to beg for food. “I met her while biking one day, and I told her to meet me here every morning so I could feed her,” Brian said.
Mrs. Williams made sure to tell Brian that she was proud of him for being a kind young boy. She said they would take care of Melissa and feed her when she was hungry.
Mrs. Williams chose to call Brian’s teachers that day while he was at school. She told him that he hadn’t been eating because every day he had given his lunch to a poor girl.
His teachers couldn’t believe it and asked Mrs. Williams to come to school the next day. “I think this is a story worth telling to the other kids,” they said. “They’ve been making fun of Brian because he doesn’t have any food, but this could teach them a lesson.”
Mrs. Williams agreed to go and told the class about Brian’s story. “I really thought Brian loved the home-cooked meals I made for him,” she told them. “Every day, he would come home with an empty lunchbox, which made me want to cook even more! I didn’t know that he’d go to school hungry.”
Brian’s friends were wondering where Mrs. Williams was going with her story. They were surprised to hear that Brian left the house every day with food, because they had never seen him eat.
“It turned out that he went to the park every morning before school. He would meet up with a girl your age who was hungry. So she wouldn’t go hungry, he’d give her his food. Why else would he come straight to our kitchen after school every day to eat?” Mrs. Williams took turns.
When the kids heard this, they were shocked and felt bad that they had teased Brian. Some of his classmates who wrote for the school newspaper chose to write about how kind Brian was.
Parents of other students heard about it, and in the end, one family chose to adopt Melissa. She not only found a loving home, but she also went to the same school as Brian and became best friends with him.
What does this story teach us?
You don’t know what’s going on in someone else’s life, so don’t judge them so fast. When Brian didn’t have any food at school, his friends were quick to judge him. Instead of helping him, they made fun of him and didn’t hang out with him because they thought he was poor.
If you can help someone who needs it, you should. Brian didn’t think twice about helping the poor girl, even though it meant he wouldn’t have any food at school. He knew he’d get to eat more, while Melissa had to wait every day for someone to help her.
