Born into a medical family, Amar, a 15-year-old boy, was expected to be a doctor, but deep down in his heart, he was eager to take up writing as his future career. He was in a great dilemma whether to pursue his dream or live up to his parents’ expectation. until one day when his father gifted him a parrot.

The parrot had two hazy lines in her neck: black and red. Amar knew the hazy lines mark the stage of learning. “When there is a good teacher, how can his student be stupid” ,he used to believe. It was absolutely true.

Metto’s cage was yellow with a big door and a shiny silver rod (杆) running through the centre. Metto’s world was fantastic, surrounded by eight-foot white walls with some plum trees. And a lawn, with a palm tree in the middle, was dotted with multiple-color roses.

Back home from school every afternoon, Amar always slid the door of the cage up for Metto to set her free nearby the palm tree. Metto could set herself free because she learned how to slide up the door but she had never tried to do so. It was either love with Amar or, might be, she had never tasted the taste of a bigger world.

Amar always talked with Metto in Pashto (普什图语). Whenever Amar fished out peanuts from his pocket, Metto talked frequently “Toti choori khore” —parrot! Wanna eat choori. She had learned one more sentence after meeting with a friend belonging to jungle outside the white walls. She always said that at the end of meal “Da wakht bam teer she”—this shall to be passed, which Amar had never taught her.

Amar saw her friend coming daily and sitting in the plum tree nearby Metto’s cage. He let them and did nothing. “The new one can never succeed in winning her. After all, I feed her well. She will never leave me”, Amar murmured. But he didn’t know the new teacher had taught her something the old one hadn’t. It was the outer world with untouchable horizon.

One day, on the way to feed her, Amar was shocked at what Metto was doing.

His head hanging down; Amar came back home after long running.

Once upon a time, there was a big mango (芒果) tree. A little boy loved to come and play around it everyday. He climbed to the treetops, ate the mangoes, and took a nap (小睡) under the shadow...He loved the tree and the tree loved to play with him. As time went by, the little boy grew up, and he no longer played around the tree.

One day, the boy came back to the tree with a sad look on his face.“Come and play with me ,” the tree asked the boy.“I am no longer a kid. I don’t play around trees any more, ” the boy replied. “I want toys. I need money to buy them.” “Sorry, I don’t have money...but you can pick all my mangoes and sell them so that you will have money.” The boy was so excited. He picked all the mangoes on the tree and left happily. The boy didn’t come back. The tree was sad.

One day, the boy grown into a man returned. The tree was so excited.“Come and play with me ,” the tree said.“I don’t have time to play. I have to work for my family. We need a house for shelter. Can you help me? “Sorry, I don’t have a house, but you can chop off my branches to build your house.” So the man cut all the branches off the tree and left happily. The tree was glad to see him happy but the boy didn’t come back afterward. The tree was again lonely and sad.

One hot summer day, the man returned and the tree was delighted.“Come and play with me!” The tree said.“I am sad and getting old. I want to go sailing to relax myself. Can you give me a boat?”“Use my trunk to build your boat. You can sail far away and be happy.” So the man cut the tree trunk to make a boat. He went sailing and didn’t come back for a long time.

Finally, the man returned after he had been gone for so many years.

The tree in the story represents (代表)our parents.

I first became conscious of my body image last year in fifth grade. One day I was walking by my mirror getting ready for bed and I noticed that my stomach looked big. I started to really hate that and think I was fat even though my family always told me how skinny I was. It wasn’t only my stomach—I started to think my nose was ugly and that my laugh was disgusting. I was even afraid to laugh or smile in public.

Then, in the sixth grade, a popular guy in my class named Luke made it worse. He told his table group that my body looked swollen in skinny jeans. I heard about it from someone else, but then Luke even told me to my face! I couldn’t stop thinking about what Luke had said. Even worse, I started to believe it was true, and I hid my skinny jeans all the way at the bottom of my drawer.

I know I cared too much about what other people said and thought about me. I guess I just wanted to be liked. In fact, I really wish I could have just brushed off comments like that, but I couldn’t change my personality and what I care about that easily.

Luke’s mean comment affected me in a big way. I lost confidence in more than just my body—I started to think that I didn’t matter and that I didn’t have a place in the world. To make it worse, some people also started telling me that I was not meant to be an author, which is what I really want to be. That especially hurt and I started to feel really sad all the time.

I hadn’t really told anyone how I’d been feeling until a couple of months ago when I got a call from my cousin. I’m really close to her, and hearing her voice and laugh made me feel so good inside. I thought about how I used to be that way too, and how I was so sick of feeling sad.

Then I started telling her and it all came out.

When I went back to my bedroom, I looked at myself in the mirror for a long time.