You are Special

The Wemmicks were small wooden people. All of the wooden people were carved by a woodmaker named Eli. His workshop sat on a hill overlooking their village. Each Wemmick was different, but all were made by the same carver and all lived in the village. And all day, every day, the Wemmicks did the same thing: they gave each other stickers. Each Wemmick had a box of golden star stickers and a box of gray dot stickers. Up and down the streets all over the city, people spent their days sticking stars and dots on one another. The pretty ones, those with the smooth wood and fine paint, always got stars. But if the wood was rough or the paint chipped, the Wemmicks gave dots. The talented ones got stars too. Some Wemmicks had stars all over them! Every time they got a star it made them feel so good! It made them want to do something else and get another star. Others though, could do little. They got dots.

Punchinello was one of these. He had so many dots that he didn’t like going outside. He was afraid that he would do something dumb such as forget his hat or step in the water, and then people would give him another dot. In fact, he had so many gray dots that some people would come up and give him one for no reason at all. “He deserves lots of dots,” the wooden people would agree with one another. “He is not a good wooden person.” After a while Punchinello believed them. “I’m not a good Wemmick,” he would say.

One day he met a Wemmick who was unlike any he’d ever met. She has no dots or stars. She was just wooden. Her name was Lucia. It wasn’t that people didn’t try to give her stickers; it’s just that the stickers didn’t stick. Some of the Wemmicks admired Lucia for having no dots, so they would run up to her and give her a star. But it would fall off. Others would look down on her for having no stars, so they would give her a dot. But it wouldn’t stay either.

That’s the way I want to be, thought Punchinello. I don’t want anyone’s marks. So he asked the stickerless Wemmick how she did it.

“It’s easy,” Lucia replied. “Every day I go see Eli.”

“Eli?”

“Yes, Eli. The woodcarver. I sit in the workshop with him.”

“Why?”

“Why don’t you find out for yourself? Go up the hill. He’s there.”

“But will he want to see me?” Punchinello cried out. Lucia didn’t hear. So Punchinello went home. He sat near a window and watched the wooden people as they scurried around giving each other stars and dots. “It’s not right,” he muttered to himself. And he decided to go see Eli.

He walked up the narrow path to the top of the hill and stepped in the big shop.

“Punchinello?”

Punchinello stopped.

“Punchinello! How good to see you. Come and let me have a look at you.”

“You know my name?”

“Of course I do. I made you.”

Eli stooped down and picked him up and set him on the bench.

“Hmmm…” the maker spoke thoughtfully as he looked at the gray dots. “Looks like you’ve been given some bad marks.”

“I didn’t mean to, Eli. I really tried hard.”

“Oh you don’t have to defend yourself to me, child. I don’t care what the other Wemmicks think. Who are they to give you stars or dots? They’re Wemmicks just like you. What they think doesn’t matter Punchinello. All that matters is what I think. And I think you are pretty special.”

“Me, special? Why? I can’t walk fast. I can’t jump. My paint is peeling. Why do I matter to you?”

“Because you’re mine. That’s why you matter to me.”

Punchinello had never had anyone look at him like this- much less his maker. He didn’t know what to say.

“Every day I’ve been hoping you’d come,” Eli explained.

“I came because I met someone who had no marks,” said Punchinello.

“I know, she told me about you.”

“Why don’t the stickers stay on her?”

“Because she has decided that what I think is more important than what they think. The stickers only stick if you let them. The more you trust my love, the less you care about their stickers.”

“I’m not sure I understand.”

“You will, but it will take time. You’ve got a lot of marks. For now, just come to see me every day and let me remind you how much I care. Remember, you are special because I made you. And I don’t make mistakes.”

Punchinello didn’t stop as he made his way out the door. But in his heart he thought, “I think he really means it.”

And when he did, a dot fell to the ground.