Art Town

Mickey was a nice, cheerful, and optimistic boy. No one could remember ever having seen him angry; he didn't mind whatever people said to him. He seemed incapable of insulting anyone. Even his teachers admired his good disposition, which was so unusual that a rumor was going round that Mickey´s goodness must be due to some special secret. The fact that there was a supposed secret meant that no one could think about anything else. They interrogated Mickey so much that one afternoon he invited his favorite teacher, Mr. Anthony, to tea. When they had finished, Mickey showed Mr. Anthony around the house. When Mickey opened his bedroom door, the teacher froze, and a big smile spread across his face.

The huge far wall was a unique collage of thousands of colors and shapes! It was the loveliest decoration Mr. Anthony had ever seen.

"Some people at school think I never think badly of anyone," Mickey started to explain, "and that nothing at all bothers me, and that I never want to insult anyone, but that's not true at all. I'm just like anyone else. I used to get angrier than all the other kids. But years ago, with the help of my parents, I started a small collage. I could use any kind of material and color for it. With every little piece I stuck on I added some bad thought or act.”

It was true. The teacher looked closely at the wall. In each one of the small pieces he could read, in tiny letters, 'fool', 'idiot', 'pain', 'bore', and a thousand other negative things.

"This is how I started turning all my bad times into an opportunity to add to my collage. Now I like the collage so much that, each time someone makes me angry, I couldn't be happier. They've given me a new piece for my work of art."

That day they discussed many things, but what the teacher never forgot was how an ordinary boy had shown him that the secret to having a cheerful and optimistic character is to convert the bad times into a chance to smile.

Without telling anyone, on that very day, Mr. Anthony began his own collage. He would recommend it so often to his students that, years later, they called that neighborhood 'Art Town'. Each house contained its own magnificent works of art, made by those cheerful and optimistic children.

Pedro Pablo Sacristan