(Exposition) Once upon a time, there was a girl named Olivia. Olivia had a best friend named Lisa, and they loved to do everything together.

Olivia

Lisa

One day, Lisa came to school with a brand new pack of glittery gel pens, a gift she got for her birthday. 

(Conflict Introduced) Lisa excitedly showed her pens to Olivia, but Olivia was not happy for her. Seeing how beautiful the pens were, she became jealous, because her pens weren't nearly as pretty as Lisa's. 

(Rising Action) Later, Olivia saw that Lisa had dropped her pens on the ground. Olivia picked them up but didn’t tell Lisa that she had taken them. She had so much fun drawing with the pens at home that she wanted to keep them to herself forever. 

The next day, Lisa looked very upset. 

“What’s wrong Lisa?” Olivia asked. 

“I lost my pens, and I can’t find them,” said Lisa sadly.

Olivia felt bad for making her friend sad, but she loved the pens so much. Unsure about what to do, Olivia decided to ask her family for help. 

(Climax) The first person Olivia came across was her mom. 

“Mom, I took Lisa’s new pens because I wanted them really badly, but now Lisa is sad. What should I do?” she asked.

Her mom smiled, “In Buddhism, it is taught that wanting things like the pens will never end because you will only keep wanting more, and this will cause suffering, or pain (“Basics of Buddhism”). Nothing in life stays forever, so even if you have everything you want, you won’t be happy (“Buddhism: Basic Beliefs”).”

“To avoid suffering, you can follow two steps of The Eightfold Path, right effort and right action (Rahula). There are good ways to act that you should do rather than being bad (“The Noble Eightfold Path”).  You should make sure your actions don’t hurt others, like not stealing (“The Noble Eightfold Path”).” 

Olivia started to think about the reason why she took the pens. She thanked her mom and continued to find the rest of her family. 

The next person Olivia found was her dad, and she told him the same thing she told her mom.

He told her, “In Christianity, God gave people ten rules to follow, like wanting things that aren’t yours is bad because it can make you do bad things 

  (“What are the Ten   Commandments?”)."