The Greedy Girl

 

Little May was soon to be nine years old and she knew exactly what she wanted for her birthday. She didn’t tell anyone what it was because she knew they would call her greedy. Instead she just waited and waited for her mum to finally ask, as she always did “May what would you like for your birthday?”

 

May smiled and looked down, she didn’t want her mum to know just how much she wanted this; she didn’t want to be called greedy, or have her mum say no.

 

“Well,” she said turning her head a little to one side and looking as if she really didn’t care that much and hadn’t thought about it at all, “you can just get me a cake” “A cake?” her mother was puzzled she always got her a cake, what did May mean? “Mmm, yes, a cake’s OK - a chocolate one. It doesn’t have to be big but I’d like a whole cake all to myself”  

 

Now it wasn’t that May was an unkind girl or that she hated sharing but she was the smallest child in a family of 4 children and she was tired of everything always having to be shared. She found it so hard to watch everyone eating her birthday cake year after year. By the time she had her slice and then her two sisters had theirs and then her brother, her mum and her dad – that was six slices gone and there would only be enough cake left for her to have just one more slice before it was all gone.  Worst of all she couldn’t say anything at all but just had to look like she was happy to share otherwise she would be told off for being greedy or selfish. But she knew she wasn’t really - it was just that they ate too much of her cake!

 

Mum smiled at May and to her surprise just softly said “OK May, for your birthday you can have a whole cake all to yourself”  May was so happy, she couldn’t stop smiling and smiling, she just knew that this was going to be the best birthday ever.

 

After what seemed like forever her birthday finally came and the whole family gathered round to sing her happy birthday and give her the present she had asked for – a big, chocolate cake all to herself.  It looked so yummy, it had frosting and was decorated and was so high with a squidgy filling in the middle – it was everything she had dreamed of – her very own cake.

 

Then her brother said “aren’t we going to cut the cake?” May froze horrified, “NO!!! “ She thought but she didn’t say a word because she didn’t want to get told off for being greedy. Her mum looked at her, smiled and said “No, this year the cake is May’s for her to eat all by herself.”

 

May sighed in relief. She didn’t feel bad when everyone had to leave the table with no cake. She didn’t even think about how they felt or if they liked cake. She didn’t ask her mum if she wanted some and she even ignored her favourite cat. She was too busy thinking about how much she loved cake and how it was all hers. She was really, really going to enjoy every mouthful of that lovely cake and she wouldn’t have to share any of it.

 

May had her first slice of cake – it tasted so good, it was soft and creamy and chocolaty and yum, yum, yum – it was delicious.  May didn’t even notice the rest of her family just sitting there with no cake at all. The only thing that mattered to her was the cake. Her cake.

 

Then she thought “that was so lovely, it tastes as good as all those cakes I had to share and now I can have it all and have that lovely feeling over and over again.” So she took another slice. It was still very nice but as she got to the end of that slice it seemed not quite as nice as before.  “Mmm” thought May “I’m a little bored of cake now maybe I should go and play and come back later for more.”

 

And so she did. She played with her doll and went into the garden and then when she came back inside she had another slice. She expected it to taste as yummy as the first slice but it didn’t.  It just tasted OK and the cake seemed very, very big. May began to wonder how many more slices she would have to eat. “Oh well,” thought May “I love cake and I’m going to eat them all.”

 

May still didn’t offer anyone else in her family any cake. She didn’t even think about it and no one asked. It was her cake and she was going to eat it all.

 

By the time May came to eat the third slice of cake she didn’t really want to eat it at all and when she had the fourth slice it tasted a bit like sand. This wasn’t what she had expected at all. She thought it would all be delicious but it wasn’t! She was tired of eating chocolate cake and had four slices left.

 

“Oh dear” May muttered to herself as she realised something that her mother had known all along “it tasted so much better when I had just a little slice. A whole cake just doesn’t taste as nice. Being greedy and not sharing doesn’t make any sense at all.”

 

May’s mother smiled a little smile; this was exactly what she had wanted May to learn all along.