By Manahil Atif

EVERYONE around Sarah was laughing hard at what she had just said.

“And oh my God! She looks pathetic and smells … aghh,” Sarah said loudly to all those gathered around her. She pinched her nose while saying this, to add a dramatic effect. All the other girls started nodding their heads in agreement.

Sarah was the most popular girl in her class, she was rich, proud, rude and careless; she changed her bag every now and then and brought many expensive gadgets at school just to show off her wealth to her class fellows. Some girls disliked her while others were under her wealth spell!

In reality, Sarah was just a spoilt kid who gave more importance to fashion and style instead of her studies, which automatically resulted in poor grades. But she didn’t really care as long as she managed to get just passing marks.

“But of course,” she continued, “what can you expect from a girl like her? I mean, how can she clean up when she has no water in her house at all?” her laughter boomed in the class and soon the girls around her joined in as well.

“I think that’s enough Sarah!” said the humble-natured Maria, who had been listening to Sarah for the last ten minutes from the corner of the class while doing some work.

“Just because you don’t like her, doesn’t mean you can go around insulting her,” Maria confidently confronted Sarah.

Maria was the opposite of Sarah. She studied well, talked politely and made sure nobody got hurt by her behaviour or words. Everybody liked Maria too as she was a pleasant person to hang around with.

“And who do you think you are, to tell me what to do?” Sarah asked angrily. She was now standing face to face with Maria. “You’re nothing but a goody-two-shoes.”

Everyone gasped in surprise around the two.

“Call me whatever,” Maria said calmly. “But, you better not insult anyone! I’m just saying what is right and I do not want to create a fight,” with that, Maria walked away.

Sarah felt insulted in front of her classmates. She started criticising Maria as well. “Who does she think she is? How could she talk to me like that? Her face isn’t even close to being as pretty as mine. She’s nothing but a bookworm who always has her nose deep in a book. If anything, she’s even worse than dirty Dania. Am I not right girls?”

There was hesitation in the group of girls. Sarah had just said so many bad things about a girl who was right. The other girls thought about it and realised that yes, Sarah was indeed always criticising people. They didn’t feel so appreciative of Sarah now. Instead, they resented her for all she had said about Maria because they all liked Maria. However, they reluctantly nodded in agreement with Sarah as they didn’t want to be her new target.

The next day, however, things were different. Most of the girls were not following Sarah around, instead they were with their own friends, ignoring her. Nobody laughed with Sarah as she made rude comments and no one came to talk to her.

This continued for the next few days, even when Sarah showed new jewellery items she bought recently to the girls, all they said was “Nice!” and walked away. For the first time Sarah felt lonely and miserable.

At first, Sarah assumed that it was Maria who must have had told everyone to ignore her. But later she found out that she was wrong. No one was happy with her anymore. Her teachers and parents were not satisfied with her grades.

During recess one day, Sarah was sitting alone in the school ground while all the other girls of her class were chatting as they ate their lunch at a little distance. Sarah had brought a box of chocolate that day to tempt the girls into talking and being with her but it hadn’t work. Dejection was written all over Sarah’s face.

Miserable, she left the chocolate box on the bench she was sitting on and got up to leave. She had just taken a few steps when she heard someone behind her call out her name. Sarah turned and saw Maria standing behind her holding the chocolate box.

“Sarah, I think you left your chocolates,” Maria said as she held out the box towards her. These were the first words someone had spoken to Sarah that day.

“Let it be, I don’t want it. It’s no fun when no one is sharing it with me. You take it,” Sarah replied in a dull but polite tone.

Kind-hearted as she was, Maria warmly put a hand around Sarah’s shoulders and said, “Hey, why so sad? We’ll eat it together, come!”

Sarah suddenly felt very happy, happier than she had ever felt when she had insulted others or when others had praised her things when she had showed them off. For the first time she felt what real happiness was, the kind one feels when someone does something good to them. She realised how badly she had behaved with her friends and everyone around her. How she must have hurt them when she had made fun of people just because she didn’t like them for no reason. She realised she needed to feel the warmth of friendship, not the glitter of wealth. She realised that nobody liked those who criticised others.

Almost in tears of joy, Sarah smiled and took the box from Maria, opened it and offered a chocolate to her. Then the two sat down where Sarah had been sitting earlier and started eating chocolates while talking — and Sarah realised it was not too difficult to talk without putting someone down.

Seeing Maria, whom everyone liked, talking to Sarah, soon the other girls too joined in and the box of chocolates was empty in no time! But Sarah’s life was now filled with friends, real friends.