It makes a difference

Sara, a seven year old, was a bright girl who stayed near the sea. She would carry a carrot in her while helping her father clean the docked filthy ships. Once aboard, she would look for unclaimed lost items such as pen, pencil, rings, books etc and pretend that it would make no difference to the owner, if she kept the items with her. Her peculiar habit, that did not amount to stealing; did not go well with her parents and they would explode only to aggravate her bad habit further.

One day, fate played a trick. Sara was busy looking at a lost toy tiger, when down swooped a crow and took away her carrot that she had put on the table deck, near the radio appliance. Sara heard the flutter of wings, but could only watch the crow fly away with her carrot. "My carrot, my carrot ...." Sara shouted but the bird had flown away. She started to cry when her father heard the commotion. He spoke softly to Sara, "Why do you cry, dear ? You had kept the carrot on the table, it means that it made no difference to you if the carrot would be claimed by somebody, isn't it ?"

Sara realized the pain of losing her precious belongings. She realized how the owners of unclaimed lost items would have felt on losing their belongings. It would have been appropriate of her to keep the things in the right place for people to later on claim them. Surely, getting back your things does make a difference.