
My 11-year-old grandson and I challenged one another to write a story about a pencil and this is mine. And, I challenged myself to draw a pencil: a task much harder than writing a story!
If you were to ask the people of Santa Fe, Argentina to describe Damien, they would say one thing — he’s a great soccer player. And how true that was! On days with no school, Damien would rush through his breakfast of mate cosido and fresh homemade bread slathered with butter and dulce de leche and run out the kitchen door.
He would play soccer with the other neighborhood boys until hunger sent them home looking for lunch — a lunch that they often grabbed and brought back to the field, where they sat cross-legged on the ground eating pieces of beef with more of the morning’s bread. Stomachs full, they returned to their game, playing until it was too dark to see the ball. Damien was one of the best young soccer players in Santa Fe and everyone knew it.
What they didn’t know was that Damien loved to make up stories — stories about anything. He’d lay in bed, listening to the night sounds of the house, dreaming up stories that he would never write down.
You see, that was long ago and pencils in Argentina were very expensive. Most families in Santa Fe were poor like Damien’s. Pencils were an extravagance they couldn’t afford.
In school, each child was assigned one pencil, with his or her name carved in the wood by the principal. Each morning, the children lined up to get their pencils and each afternoon they returned the pencils to a special wooden box that was locked in the principal’s desk until the next morning. Each pencil would be used until there wasn’t enough wood for a child to grip before another would be issued.
Without pencils, only reading could be assigned for homework. And, without pencils, Damien could not write down his stories.
One day, Damien’s father took him on the bus to a large government building for testing to see if he was smart enough to go to military school. Back in those days, wealthy families paid for their sons to get a good education and start a career at the military schools around the country. Poor children like Damien were denied the opportunity to go to military school until the new president decided to give them a chance. Each year, a test was held in every province to choose a poor boy to complete his high school education at one of the military academies. The high schools in each province sent their smartest male students to take the test. The boy with the highest score in each province would go to the academy closest to where he lived.
When Damien entered the test room, he was given a royal blue pencil that was smooth and long with a perfect point of lead. He’d never seen such a beautiful pencil! He ran his fingers over the smooth wood and dreamed of writing stories with it. After the test, he reluctantly returned the pencil to a box in the front of the room. Oh, how he wished he could keep that beautiful blue pencil!
Damien had the highest test grade in his province. His family, friends, and everyone in Santa Fe were so proud of him! On the first day of the school year, he rode on a bus with his father to a military academy twenty miles away.
Damien looked at the tall metal gate in front of the school and felt scared. He knew the military school was a great opportunity so he swallowed his fear, said good-bye to his father, and walked through the gate to the place where he would live and study.
He was assigned a bed in a large room with many other beds. All the boys came from wealthy families and by simply looking at Damien’s clothes, they knew he was one of the poor scholarship students. They didn’t introduce themselves or talk to Damien, but he didn’t care. He knew he’d eventually win them over with his charm, jokes, stories, and soccer skills. Still, he felt a little lonely as he walked to his first class.
The room had rows and rows of wooden desks and on each desk sat a notebook of paper, several study books, and a bright blue pencil. At the end of class, Damien almost cried when he handed the pencil to his teacher, who stared at the pencil, confused for a moment until he remembered that Damien was one of the scholarship students. He handed the pencil back and said, “No, Cadet, you keep the pencil. It’s yours.”
Damien was the one who looked confused now. “But, isn’t it a very expensive pencil?”
“I don’t know how expensive it is, Cadet, but whatever the price the military can afford it. Look in your desk drawer. There is a box full of pencils just like that one. They’re all yours to use for the school year.”
Damien gently took the pencil from the professor. He ran his fingers over it, remembering the same sort of pencil he used for the military school acceptance exam. The beautiful pencil, and many others, were his, all his!
As he walked to his next class, Damien didn’t notice the snobby rich students who wouldn’t talk to him — he could only think about all the stories he was going to write with that beautiful, blue pencil.

