The Sea Pencil
Xiang Xiang lived by the sea. Her father was a sailor, often traveling the world, and whenever he returned, he would bring Xiang Xiang all sorts of strange gifts. Xiang Xiang loved them dearly, spending hours in her room playing with these treasures before finally coming out for meals. She never allowed other children to touch them, fearing they might break her precious trinkets.
This time, when her father came back from the sea, he brought her a beautiful pencil.
A pencil? What’s so special about a pencil? Yet, when Xiang Xiang received the gift, she stared at it in a daze, almost forgetting to breathe.
What a beautiful pencil it was! The barrel was a vibrant purple, reflecting the sunlight brilliantly, and at the top was a tiny white bear-shaped eraser, like a small snowflake that had accidentally landed on the pencil, so white it was nearly transparent, like a tiny dream.
Xiang Xiang hid it at the bottom of her pencil case, only taking it out each night before bed to gaze at it, which would then lead to a long, sweet dream. She treated this adorable pencil as her most cherished treasure, never daring to use it.
—How could she bear to use it? Her father said that the brilliant purple color came from the juice of a type of purple seaweed, distilled from the purest essence of dozens of purple seaweed leaves. And that nearly transparent white? It was the color of the silver beach, the cradle of seashells. As Xiang Xiang listened in a daze, she silently gave this rare pencil a beautiful name—The Sea Pencil.
One day, she suddenly realized that all her other pencils were used up, and the ones in the store were sold out. She had no pencil and couldn’t do her homework—what should she do? She was frantic. If she didn’t turn in her homework tomorrow, she would be scolded!
After thinking it over, she gritted her teeth and took the purple pencil out of the pencil case.
“I’ll only use a little bit, not too much,” she thought to comfort herself.
Xiang Xiang began sharpening the pencil, and with each stroke, her heart ached a little more. Finally, it was sharpened. She took out her homework notebook, but the moment the lead touched the paper, it broke. Xiang Xiang was startled and thought it was just an accident, so she sharpened it again. The pencil grew shorter by a small bit.
But the second attempt had the same result. Xiang Xiang started to get angry and sharpened the pencil more forcefully—
By the third time, the pencil was a third shorter;
By the fourth time, this beautiful pencil was down to just half its original length;
By the fifth time, it was so short that it was difficult to hold;
By the sixth time, Xiang Xiang was shocked to find that her cherished pencil had become nothing more than a small, barely-holdable stub!
It turned out that the pencil had been left unused in the box for too long, and the lead inside had already broken into several pieces.
She held the poor little pencil stub in her hand, stared at it for a few seconds, and then burst into tears.
That night, Xiang Xiang quietly buried her once-beloved pencil under the roots of the gardenia tree in her yard, not wanting to feel sad every time she saw it. She returned to her room, climbed into bed, and had a long, sigh-filled dream.
Winter passed, and spring came. Xiang Xiang had almost forgotten about the pencil. One unusual morning, as she was yawning her way to the living room, she saw her mother, back turned to her, tending to the gardenia tree. Xiang Xiang felt something was off and tiptoed over, planning to give her mother a little scare. But when she got close, she couldn’t help but gasp!
What was going on? The gardenia, which usually bloomed with many small, butterfly-like red flowers in spring, had only grown a dozen or so peony-sized purple buds this year! That brilliant purple—it seemed to have appeared many times in her dreams…
Her mother said that these buds seemed to have grown overnight.
“Just wait,” her mother said happily to Xiang Xiang, “once they bloom, they’re going to be especially beautiful.”
So Xiang Xiang waited patiently, spending half an hour each day sitting by the flower pot, eagerly watching.
After days of anticipation, the flowers, which had spent so much time getting ready, finally bloomed. —Nine-petaled flowers!
Xiang Xiang was captivated by the beauty of these flowers. They looked like a group of purple elves, with purple garments and snow-white crowns. Even her mother exclaimed that not even night-blooming flowers could compare to their beauty!
The scent of the sea wafted steadily from the blossoms.
These flowers only bloomed for a week. Soon, their petals dried up and curled, rolling inward from both sides, with the snow-white cores clustering into nine bundles. To Xiang Xiang, they looked more and more like tiny bear heads. The petals curled tighter and grew longer, becoming straighter and harder each day.
By the middle of summer, Xiang Xiang finally saw the final form of the petals—they had turned into clusters of purple pencils growing on the branches of the gardenia tree! These were the fruits of the flowers.
Xiang Xiang suddenly remembered the small pencil stub she had buried in the flower pot last year.
When the pencil fruits’ stems turned yellow, the beautiful pencils were ripe. Xiang Xiang picked them.
They were so beautiful, with vibrant purple barrels and snow-white bear erasers, just like the pencil she once had.
At her mother’s suggestion, Xiang Xiang decided to put these pencils in envelopes and send them around the world to children who couldn’t afford pencils. She didn’t sign her name, only writing on the note: “This is a gift from the sea.”
After sending them, she could almost imagine the delighted smiles on the faces of the children receiving this mysterious gift.
The gardenia tree continued to bloom with those miraculous purple flowers, year after year, producing one pencil more beautiful than the last. The whole tree shone brilliantly, beyond compare in its beauty.
People passing by Xiang Xiang’s house could see a little girl leaning by the window in the summer sun, beside a strange plant with peony-sized purple flowers. She would squint her eyes and smile warmly, reading a colorful stack of letters in her hand.
Thank you for reading! ” Sitestorys “
