There once was a boy called Jack who lived with his mother in a big city.  The city was noisy and dirty and Jack’s mother felt it wasn’t the best place to raise her son, so they moved to a small house in a quiet town.  The house stood at the bottom of a large, grassy-green hill that seemed to protect the house from the whole world.

 

On the first day of arriving at their new house Jack’s mother told him to go out and see if there were any new friends he could make.

Rather than go straight out, Jack asked his mother:  “When I meet the new children, how will I know if they are a good friend to make?”

His mother always gave Jack wise and thoughtful advice, and she thought carefully before she replied.  “A good friend is someone who makes you smile when you are with them, and who you miss when they are gone.” 

So the next morning Jack left the house bright and early and began making his way up the hill where all the children from the town gathered and played.  When he reached the top of the hill he saw the park in which the cheerful voices played.  There was a climbing frame, a goal for football, a hoop for basketball, and a seating area where the children would sit at to eat.  On the other side of the hill stood a lonely old tree, surprisingly lacking in leaves for the summer months they were currently enjoying. 

“Who are you?” said a girl with pony tails tied with pink ribbons.  Her sudden question had made Jack jump.

“Don’t be rude, Sophie,” said an older girl. “My mother says we should always welcome people like this.”  She straightened, stood more formerly and addressed Jack with an arm outstretched.  “A pleasure to meet you.  My name is Jessica.”

“I’m Jack.”

“Jack?  Like from Jack and Jill?” asked Sophie, with a mischievous grin dancing across her face.

“Don’t be silly, Sophie,” snapped the older girl.

Jack smiled.  “No, I don’t know anyone called Jill.  Sorry”. 

“Do you want to come and play with us?” asked Jessica.

Jack nodded and smiled as he followed the two girls, excited about where they were going.

The girls took Jack to join in with all their other friends playing games and having fun at the top of the hill. 

He had a wonderful day, and when the sun started to go down he rushed home to tell his mother all about it.  She was so proud of her son she gave him a little notebook to write down all his new friends names whenever he met them.  Jack wrote Jessica and Sophie, and looked forward to new names he could add.

The next day Jack played at the top of the hill meeting new children, writing down their names so he wouldn’t forget them, and enjoying their games.  Occasionally he would run down the hill to his house and tell his mother what new friends he had made.

As each day went by he met more and more children and added new name to his book until it was filled with friends after just a few days.

One day, Jack climbed the hill as usual and saw the other children playing a game together, gathered in a circle, dancing around.  Jack approached the other children and asked what game they were playing.

“Don’t you know this one?  Are you stupid?” replied one of the children, with a frown and a crumpled up nose.  He was one of the bigger boys and Jack didn’t think it was a good idea to argue.

Jack couldn’t help the feeling of confusion from building in his belly, wondering why these children who had been so kind to him the day before had suddenly been so unwelcoming.

“I was just wondering if I could join in.” Jack asked, with a slight shake in his voice.

“I tell you what,” said Asif, a small boy with unusually spikey, black hair, “we’ll let you play with us if you tell us something.”

“What do you want to know?” asked Jack

“Tell us why you smell so bad!”  Asif broke out into a strange, wicked laugh that seemed to come from so deep inside him he had to hold his belly so his body didn’t collapse.

 “Why is your mum so fat and ugly?” Asif added, buckling again under the weight of his own laughter.  All the other children seemed to be struck with the same strange laughter, like an illness had spread amongst them.

Confused and hurt, Jack walked away from the children to the far side of the hill  on his own.  He found himself wandering to the lonely tree and looked carefully up at its withered, empty branches.  Jack examined the tree a little closer, running his hand across the jagged bark that wriggled and snaked around its trunk, jutting out in various places.  He began to climb the tree, going only as far as the first branch.  From this new height Jack was able to look down on the world below this lonely old tree.  The hill was steep on this side, with ragged trees and broken branches spread down a side of uneven, rocky hillside.  At the bottom all he could see was a bed of small, jagged stones which he thought would make a particularly uncomfortable place to find yourself lying.  It was as if he was looking at a completely different hill. 

After sitting in the tree all on his own for some time he decided to make his way home so he could ask his mother about what had happened. 

 “Why would other children say horrible things to me?” he asked.

 “Sticks and stones may break your bones but words can never hurt you,” she said, in a firm and knowledgeable voice.  “You shouldn’t listen to such silly things,” she continued, “and if that Asif enjoys talking to people like that, then perhaps you should spend no more time considering him a friend.”

Jack thought long and hard about this, and later that night he opened up his little notebook, found the page with Asif’s name on it, and tore if from the book.

 

The following morning Jack woke up refreshed and feeling excitement once again, rushing to leave the house as fast as he had the day before.  As he ran up the hill he could hear all the children laughing and playing and he wondered what new game he could learn with them today.

When he reached the top he saw all the children running around  throwing a ball to each other.  Jack rushed over and asked if he could play too, and Jessica immediately nodded and waved him over to join her.  Jack couldn’t quite make out what the game was, but still tried to join in. 

However, Jack struggled to work out what to do, and it quickly became clear he didn’t know how to play this game either.

“Don’t you even know the rules?” asked Steven, a small freckled boy with shiny braces.

Jack thought he could feel the heat on his cheeks as he blushed with embarrassment.

“Maybe you should just run off back to his mummy and do some sewing or something.”

Jack looked at Jessica, hoping for a little support, but she just shrugged her shoulders.  So he

walked away and returned to the tree on the other side of the hill.  This time he decided to climb up to a slightly higher branch.  As he sat on a higher, thinner branch, he took his notepad and tore out the page with Steven’s name before making his way back home again.   

When he got home and told his mother, she said to him that “sometimes children just say whatever they can to try and hurt each other.”  Jack thought it was odd thing for children to do, and thought about it all night until he finally got to sleep.

The following morning Jack woke up and thought to himself:   “I hope my friends are going to be a bit nicer to me today.”   Soon enough he forgot his worries and ran along to join them in their games.

But soon enough Jack would found himself a victim of names and laughs from all the children.  He tried to shrug them off and remember what his mother said: Sticks and stones my break your bones but names can never hurt you.

Jack went over to the tree again, moving a branch higher than last time.  He took out his note pad and removed the pages of another child who didn’t make him smile when he was with them, or be someone he would miss when they were gone.

 

The same pattern repeated itself each day for many days to come.  Jack would climb the hill, try to join in the fun with the other children, and then walk away when the names or teasing started.  He’d climb the tree just a little higher each day, one more branch, just a little thinner than the one before.  Each time, he would take out his little book, find the child’s name, and would tear out the page.  Each new day brought a new game, then a new nasty name, a higher branch, and a page torn out of his book.

 

After many days and weeks had passed Jack had grown used to the way his playing with the other children would work.  He was no longer surprised by the way the others treated him and got used to the time spent sitting in the little old tree, another branch higher up each day.  That was until one final day when something was slightly different.

“I think you’re stupid,” said Jessica, in a cruel tone Jack had never before heard her speak.  “You spend more time sitting up that stupid old tree than playing with me and the others,” she exclaimed.

“Well if everyone stopped being so nasty to me maybe I wouldn’t have to,” Jack shouted.

Jack turned and began running towards the tree, unsteady on his feet, nearly tripping in the uneven ground.  He could feel the tears begin to run down his cheek and he didn’t want Jessica to see them.

When he got to the tree he climbed faster than he’d ever climbed before, springing up the branches until they got thinner and thinner.  He knew he was climbing higher than he’d climbed before and the branches felt much weaker.  He wanted to be as high up away from the children as he could get.  He wished he could climb so high he wouldn’t be able to hear their happy, cheering voices as they carried on playing their games and having fun.  Without him.  He opened his little notebook and found the page with Jessica’s name on it.  An angry tear dropped from his eyes and landed on her name, soaking into the page.

He was alone.  Only the tree seemed to be a friend of his now, holding him in its hand of branches where Jack now sat balanced on the fingertips, or so it felt.  Feeling the bubble of anger in his belly he snatched wildly at the page, tearing Jessica’s name from the book and throwing the page out from the tree as hard as he could.  He threw it so hard that he felt a sudden jolt and a cracking sound. 

Jack froze. 

Another crack.  Another jolt. 

Crack.  Crack.  Crack.  Could it be that even now the tree itself was trying to break out a laugh against him? 

There was another final almighty crack and a lurching jolt and Jack felt himself begin to fall.  Jack swirled his arms around desperately trying to grab hold of a branch. 

But it was too late and he began to fall.

Jack bounced and crashed and scraped and tumbled through the branches of the tree until he hit the ground with a hard thump.  His body bounced like a discarded toy and he rolled away from the ragged old trunk of the tree, and toppled over the side of the hill. 

Jack’s body began to crash and smash its way down the hill.  Stick after stone, Jack could feel each stabbing pain as he tumbled down the hill, picking up speed all the way down until he came to a crashing end at the bottom.

Everything went quiet. 

Jack’s arms began to sting from the scratches and cuts from the broken sticks.

The jagged stones dug into his back. 

He could barely move through all the pain.

Jack opened his mouth to shout but a sudden thought clouded away the words.  Who could he shout for?  Whose name could he scream?  Whose help could he count on?  How would he know they would come?  He could see his little book lying on the stones just to his side so he carefully reached out and opened it up.

But each page he turned was blank.  There were no names left in his book.  Each name had been removed just as his mother had said such people were not his friends. 

Jack lay at the bottom of the hill amongst broken sticks and jagged stones, all alone, with no-one to call for help.  He thought of all those names he’d written into his book as friends.  Then he thought about all those names he’d torn out because he believed they would not smile when he was with them, and would not miss him when he was gone.

He was alone.  One by one he’d removed those names until he was alone on top of that hill.  Alone on top of the old tree.  And now alone at the bottom of the hill.

Jack thought about what his mother had always said: sticks and stones may break your bones but words can never hurt you.

He thought carefully and wondered why his mother had not told him:

The sticks and the stones may only hurt bones

But it always hurts more

To be feeling alone.