The Boy Who Cried Wolf

Once upon a time, in a village at the foot of a mountain, there lived a little shepherd boy. Every morning he drove his sheep out to the meadow: white, curly sheep with little bells around their necks.

The sheep nibbled the grass: munch-munch. The bells jingled: ding-a-ling. And the boy was bored, bored, bored.

“I wish something would happen!” he sighed.

Then he thought up a joke. He climbed onto a big rock and shouted as loud as he could:

“Wolf! Wolf! Help!”

Down in the village, everyone dropped what they were doing. The blacksmith put down his hammer, Granny Hanna her rake, Uncle Ostap his bucket of water. They grabbed sticks and ran all the way to the meadow until they were out of breath.

“Where’s the wolf?” they asked.

But the boy was rolling in the grass, laughing his head off:

“There’s no wolf! I was only joking!”

The people shook their heads and went back.

“Some joke that is,” grumbled Uncle Ostap.

A few days went by. The boy got bored again. Again he climbed onto the rock:

“Wolf! Wolf! Help!”

And again the people came running. Granny Hanna even lost her headscarf on the way.

“Where’s the wolf?”

“There isn’t one!” the boy laughed. “I was joking again!”

This time nobody smiled. Granny picked up her headscarf, tied it back on and said quietly:

“Oh, watch out, lad. One day you’ll call, and no one will come.”

The boy just shrugged.

But that evening, as the sun was setting behind the mountain, something rustled in the bushes. Rustle, rustle. The boy turned around and froze. Out from behind the bushes peeked two grey ears. Then two yellow eyes. Then a long grey tail.

It was a wolf. A real one.

The sheep bleated, “Baa-a-a!”, and scattered in every direction.

The boy jumped up onto the rock and shouted louder than he had ever shouted before:

“Wolf! Wolf! Help! This time it’s true!”

In the village, they heard him. The blacksmith looked up from his anvil. Granny Hanna peeped over the fence. Uncle Ostap set down his bucket.

“He’s joking again,” said the blacksmith with a wave of his hand.

“Let him shout,” added Uncle Ostap.

And nobody came.

“Wolf!” the boy shouted. “Please! Wolf!”

Meanwhile, the wolf raced all over the meadow. The sheep ran off every which way: one into the gully, one into the woods, one all the way across the river. And the wolf chased them farther and farther, into the dark forest. The bells jingled more quietly, and more quietly still… and then fell silent.

When it got dark, the boy ran into the village in tears.

“Why didn’t you come? There was a wolf! A real one!”

The people came out of their houses with lanterns. They searched for the sheep late into the night: in the gully, in the woods and across the river. But all they found was one little bell in the grass. The sheep never came back.

Granny Hanna stroked the boy’s head.

“We believed you,” she said. “We believed you twice. But the third time, we just couldn’t.”

The boy squeezed the cold little bell in his hand. He didn’t feel like shouting anymore. Now he needed people to believe him again. And that is much harder than shouting “Wolf!”