A very cute birthday gift, ceramic heart shape coin bank in bright red color, was the reason why this tale happened.
To view full picture in PDF please click the link Birthday Gift
Early in the morning, a girl named “A” and her best friend “Nid” were talking in the classroom. It was A’s birthday. So, A got a special birthday gift, red ceramic heart shape coin bank, from her best friend.
She really loved it and could not wait to show her other friends in class that cute coin bank.
“Koi” was the first classmate she met. “Koi! Look here. Is it cute? It’s my birthday gift from Nid. I love the color that’s so bright red,” A lifted her gift a little bit higher to show Koi.
Koi gazed at that cute coin bank, “Oh! It’s really cute. May I take a closer look?”
So, she handed Koi her birthday gift. Suddenly, something unexpected happened. That cute coin bank slipped from Koi’s hand and crashed to the floor, shattering into several pieces!
“Whoops! Sorry! That was really wrong of me. I’ll ask my mom buy the new one for you.” Koi was startled by what had just happened.
So was A. “No, no you don’t have to. It’s fine, really,” A took a deep breath and replied. She was so sad and tried not to be upset because she knew it was an accident.
During lunch break, while A and Nid were sitting on a bench near school yard, another girl in their class walked directly toward them.
“Nueng” just wanted to talk to A about the birthday gift, “Hey A! I heard that Koi broke your coin bank. Why didn’t you let her buy a new one for you? If I were you, she must have bought a new one for me. Didn’t you see she really meant to break it?”
Gradually A calmed down and lost her sadness, but listening to what Nueng said really triggered her anger. She walked straight toward the girl who broke her gift, “Koi, tell me the truth. Did you mean to break my birthday gift?”
“No, no, of course not!” Koi quickly replied in a trembling voice.
The birthday gift was one of the causes of this conflict, but who made the situation worse?
No more conflict would have happened only if Nueng hadn’t said all those words to A. In normal life, there are quite a few people, like Nueng, who love to proliferate the tension between two or more feuding people.
In Thai proverb, we called “Stirring the pot” or “Stirring up trouble”.