ESL Blogs

Long time ago, (almost 15 years) two guys: John and Jack were living in absolutely ordinary village. They were the best friends and whatever they did, they did it together. They were neighbors and lived very close to the forest, only 300 meters separated their houses and forest. And like in all stories of this kind, these kids were different.

John was strong, agile and curious, he liked to work with his hands and wasn't afraid to contaminate them . And Jack was inventive, attentive and thoughtfull, he liked to construct and design something, but at the same time Jack was squeamish. Sometimes he even felt disgusted because of trifles like dirt on shoes or a worm on the road. Jack's worst nightmare was mold.

One sunny day after the rain a day before, these guys went to gather blackberries. But the place where blackberries grew was located on the opposite side of the forest. Therefore John and Jack had to go through the forest. But 500 meters away from the first trees there was a ditch in the forest. And whenever the rain fell, that ditch was filled with water. 

Living near, friends crossed this ditch many times and being curious, John always tried to jump over it. Unfortunatelly for these guys, the ground inside the forest dried slower than outside, and the edges of the ditch were still wet. And as always, John ran, jumped, and...

While John was jumping, his leg slipped over the wet ground and he fell into the ditch...(The wet, dirty, ugly and full of rubbish ditch!) He broke his right leg and screamed!

Being squeamish, Jack was crossing the ditch along bridge and it took him some time to reach the place, where John had fallen down. Jack stopped right at the edge of the ditch and suddenly realized that right now he had to make important choice: To help his best friend in spite of getting dirty from head to toe or to run away looking somebody's help and to leave John lying in the ditch.

For the first time in his life, Jack deliberately jumped into the ditch, took John under the arm and pulled him out!They quickly returned home together and called the ambulance. Only on the next day Jack realized that he had overcome his fear of ugly things. And more important was that John and Jack remained the best friends for the rest of their happy lives.