The Difference for Daniel
“Grrrumpf!” Daniel threw down his pencil and growled again, “Humpf! If it wasn’t for these stupid subtraction problems I would probably get 100%. Multiplying is a whole bunch easier. Two times two is four, four times four is sixteen.”
“Still doing your math?” Chad asked, stopping by Daniel’s desk. “It’s really nice out. Hurry up so we can work on our tree fort before lunch.”
“I am hurrying,” Daniel muttered. Chad disappeared outside, and Daniel slowly reached for his pencil. If it wasn’t for that one horrid problem….
“Guess what!” Rosie poked her cheery face in the door. “I found a robin’s nest. Want to see it?”
“I have to do my math still,” Daniel said, frowning. “And I can’t do story problems, so I have to stay here the rest of the day.”
“Oh, I’ll help you,” Rosie said, coming in.
“Can’t. You don’t know them.”
“I can try at least.”
Daniel crossed his arms and squinted at his sister. Why did she have to be so cheerful about it? Math wasn’t usually so easy for her. He watched her look at the math problem.
“If a 1998 Ford was selling for $12,050 and a 1997 Toyota was priced at $9,580, what is the difference in price between them?” Rosie read slowly, stumbling over quite a few of the hard words. After staring at the sentence with a furrowed brow, she said, “I guess you have to find the difference, like it says.”
“Ha,” Daniel said, scornfully. “What is the difference anyway?”
Rosie bit her lip, but she only said, “I don’t know. Maybe you have to see what makes them different from each other.”
Daniel scribbled on the corner of his paper and didn’t look at Rosie. He knew he had been mean, but why did she have to be nice about it? He waited for her to walk away, but she only stood there. Finally he looked up and asked gruffly, “What do you want?”
“Will you come outside with me?” she asked, hopefully.
“I guess so,” Daniel said with a frown. He slapped his book shut and shoved it into his desk. “I can’t finish this math anyway.”
Together they entered the fresh air and sunshine. Rosie led the way with a little skip and her cheeks were soon glowing with a smile once more. Daniel followed, dragging his feet through the dew-wet grass until he felt the water oozing through his tennis shoes. He felt glum and grouchy, and now his shoes squeaked their complaints, too. Why could this day be so sunny for someone else, and not for him? What was the difference?
“There you are, Daniel,” Chad called from the tree fort. “Come up and help!”
Daniel turned his steps toward the tall maple tree, but as he climbed up the ladder he felt his heart sink even more. Someone else was up playing in his tree fort, and he knew who it was. “Why are Kyle and Emma here?” he asked, glaring at the two invaders. “I thought this was only for the big kids.”
“Oh, I told Mom I could watch them better up here. They won’t hurt anything and, besides, now we can—”
“What does Kyle have, then?” Daniel interrupted.
“Nes. Nes. See?” Kyle said, happily poking at a mass of twigs and mud.
“Is that my bird’s nest?” Rosie scrambling onto the plank floor, dropping her fistful of dandelions and daisies. She hurried to take the nest from Kyle, but it only crumbled in her hands.
“I—I’m sorry,” Emma said, “I didn’t know it was yours.” Rosie stood silently, blinking back tears. Daniel felt more angry than ever, but Rosie only knelt down to brush the twigs and mud into a pile. Then she gathered her fallen flowers and handed them to Emma and Kyle.
“Here’s a bouquet of flowers I brought you,” she said, kindly. “Please don’t play with the nests I get. I’m try to start a collection, OK?”
“And I’ll try to be more careful, too,” Chad said. “I didn’t know he’d wreck it.”
“That’s all right.” Rosie smiled, but Daniel only frowned more. How could she?
That day didn’t go very well for Daniel. Sometimes he tried to be cheerful, but it seemed that everything went wrong. Lunch was late because Mom was late coming back from town. Then they had to peel potatoes instead of riding bikes. Daniel’s sour mood only got sourer when Rosie began to sing “I’ll Be a Sunbeam.”
“Daniel Otis.” When Mom called him that, Daniel knew he was in trouble, but he didn’t care, really. “You know it is not kind to grab. Please come to my room.” Leaving the potato, Daniel slid from his seat and trudged after Mom.
“Daniel, I know you’re disappointed about not going bike riding, but I expect you to do your work cheerfully. Why don’t you take time to pray and ask the Lord to help you have a good attitude?”
“It’s too hard.” Mom was silent, but her gentle smile told Daniel she wouldn’t accept that for an answer. Finally Daniel burst out, “I’ve tried all day, and I just can’t!”
“Would you mind telling me about it?” Mom asked. So, slowly, bit by bit, Daniel gave her the story, from the beginning with the terrible math problem.
“Why don’t you bring me your math book,” Mom said, pleasantly. She looked at the problem and then said, “This is subtraction, so that means to find the difference between the smaller number and the bigger number. The answer is the difference, see?” She lined them up for Daniel on his paper. “Now can you do it?” Daniel nodded, and soon had the problem worked. When he looked up, Mom was gone. For a long time he sat thinking, and then he went to find Rosie.
“I’m sorry, Rosie, for being mean about things,” he said, and bit his lip. “You were right about the math, too—I’m sorry I was cross.”
Rosie smiled and said, “Jesus helped me to smile. And do you remember about the nest Kyle wrecked up? I was really upset about it.”
“Then how did you—how could you be nice like that?”
“Because I prayed. Jesus helped me to remember that I must love those that hurt me. And it is so much nicer to make others happy.”
Daniel looked at his sister closely, and slowly returned her smile. Now he knew what made the difference: it was Jesus, not just trying, that gave her that smile.
