Amy sharpened her pencil for the millionth time that day. For the past two hours, she had been trying to write a story for the school magazine, but she couldn’t think of anything interesting. She frowned and blew her bangs out of her face. All around her were books of different shapes and sizes. Since she was a little girl, she had wanted to become an author, but no matter how hard she tried, she could never write something praise-worthy.

As she thought of ideas, her gaze fell upon a pink pencil lying on her desk. ‘This is new’, she mumbled as she picked it up. She tried writing with it, and to her surprise she couldn’t stop! Her hand moved continuously, writing word after word until a full-fledged story was in front of her. She picked up the sheet in amazement, and read the story in a daze. In the end, she gasped and exclaimed, ‘This is a fantastic story!’

The next day, Amy gave the story to her English teacher. Her teacher read it in amazement, her eyes getting wider every second. ‘Amy, this story is wonderful! Did you write it yourself?’ Amy nodded furiously, pleased at the praise. At that moment, she had completely forgotten about the mysterious pencil….

The next few days were like heaven for Amy. Everyone enjoyed reading her stories and as time passed, she wrote more and more of them with the pencil. Soon, she was selected for a story writing competition hosted by another school!

On the day of the competition, Amy boarded the bus which took them to the other school. She sat next to a blonde girl and said, ‘Hi! I’m Amy. Are you going to the story writing competition, too?’ The girl smiled at Amy and introduced herself as Sandra. ‘Yes, I am’, she said. ‘I’ve always loved to write stories and I’ve been writing since I was five. I want to take up writing as my profession, you know, even if it means learning boring grammar for two hours every day!’ She sighed but her eyes shown with determination. Seeing Sandra’s dedication made Amy feel guilty. ‘I don’t deserve to be here’, she thought, sadly. ‘I’ve been cheating everyone, including myself.’

A few minutes later, they reached the school. Sandra got up and went with the other students, leaving Amy all alone. Amy hurriedly took out her pencil and held it in front of her. ‘You made me cheat my friends’, she said, sternly. ‘But I won’t let you turn anyone else into liars.’ With those words, she threw the pencil out of the window and watched it get crushed under a car. She took a deep breath and followed Sandra.

In the competition, Amy wrote like she never wrote before. As she waited for the results, she said to herself, ‘I don’t want a prize. I’ve already won, by being truthful to myself.’ And even though she didn’t win, she went home carrying the best prize ever; honesty….