Ricky loved to make funny expressions on his face, hoping his friends would be happy. However, Ricky had another face that could make his friends scared and run away from him. This face appeared when he felt angry.
One summer day, Reggie went to look for his friends to tell them he wanted to play with them, and he would be able to keep his face smiling and never show them the angry face no matter what happened. He wanted his friends to love him and never be angry with him.
When Reggie reached the end of the street, he found his friends Elwood, Carla, and Bruce had just arrived and were all standing. He called to them and said, “Hello, what are you doing?” Carla answered him, “We haven’t decided yet what we’re going to do.”
Reggie said, “Let’s go look for some friends and play ball together.” Carla said to him, “Ball? Are you joking, Reggie? I’m a girl and can’t play ball.”
Reggie felt upset, but he decided to suppress his anger inside so his friends wouldn’t feel it. He said to them, “How about playing hide and seek?” Bruce said to him, “I hate that game.” In reality, Bruce was very fat and couldn’t run like his friends, so he constantly lost at hide and seek.
This time, Reggie moved his foot in anger, but he didn’t tell Bruce about his feeling. However, he felt his ear had become hotter. Finally he said, “What if we all run quickly in a race to the park, then throw rocks in the pond?”
Reggie was a skilled runner, and so was Elwood, so he agreed to the ball. They all ran, but Elwood was more skilled than Reggie that day, so he arrived faster than them. Reggie felt severe anger, his eyes filled with harshness, and his ear became hotter and redder. He said to them in a loud voice, “You’re not fun friends, and I don’t want to play with you anymore.”
At that moment, Bruce arrived at the garden and heard what Reggie had said. He said to him, “You’re our friend, Reggie, and we love playing with you, but you always get angry and spoil all our games, and your face becomes scary, so we don’t like being with you.”
Carla, Bruce, and Elwood all moved away from Reggie. He said to himself, “All right, I wouldn’t have played with them anyway.” He took the stones and threw them in the garden, saying, “I’ll go to a secret place and play alone.”
The secret place Reggie meant was a place in the middle of the grass behind a bush near his home. He would go there whenever he felt no one admired him. In this place, he found no one to make him feel frustrated or sad, so he felt he would become better when he went there, but he felt lonely.
Suddenly, he heard noise near him and found Mr. Jones, his neighbor, passing by him. He asked him, “What are you doing here, Reggie?” Reggie said, “I’m enjoying myself alone.”
Mr. Jones said to him, “Why then does your face look angry?” Reggie said, “I’m angry and want to sit alone.”
Mr. Jones looked at him and said to him, “Sometimes when we feel frustrated, anger overcomes us, and if we sit alone with our anger, we might become hotter, and this makes us do or say things that hurt people. He said to him, the next time you feel frustrated, tell your friends what you feel, and see if that will help prevent your anger or not.”
The next day, Reggie went to the park and found his friends playing hide and seek, but they didn’t invite him to play with them. He felt sad inside. Elwood saw he was sad and said to him, “Do you want to play with us?”
Reggie said certainly, but while he was running quickly to reach his friends, he slipped in the mud on the edge of the lake and fell into it. He was covered in muck. His friends laughed. Reggie’s ears turned red, but this time he decided to tell them as Mr. Jones had advised.
He said to them, “I’m angry because you’re making fun of me.” They said to him, “We didn’t mean to make fun of you, but we thought you were doing those funny actions again.” Reggie looked at himself and found his appearance was indeed funny. He started laughing. He felt that laughing was much better than anger and digging his feet into the ground. He started playing hide and seek with them, and they were all happy.
Translated from story: Reggie’s Angry Face