Once upon a time there was a mean little girl named Cynthia. She didn't have any friends at school or any friends in her neighborhood. She was so mean that nobody would play with her. Her momma was mean, too. She yelled at Cynthia after school. She told Cynthia she was dumb. She told her she was messy. Every day Cynthia walked to school and thought of new, mean things she could do to other kids.
Cynthia got in trouble a lot at school. She didn't like the other kids and called them the meanest names she could say. This drove her teacher crazy and made her so mad at that she would sit Cynthia right next to her desk at the front of the class. The other children would then stare at her all day. But Cynthia didn't care. She would make faces and stick her tongue out at the other children when the teacher wasn't looking.
One day, her teacher got very sick and so a substitute, Mr. Butler, had to come teach their class for three weeks. Cynthia was especially mean to substitutes and usually made the girl ones cry at the end of the day. Mr. Butler was different, though. He didn't seem to get mad at Cynthia, even when she said the meanest things she could think of. He would just look at her and say, "hmmmm". After a day and of a half of "hmmmm's", Cynthia was feeling worn out. She had tried every possible mean thing she could think of to make Mr. Butler mad. She purposely jammed the pencil sharpener with a crayon, she tied all of the jump ropes into a huge knot before recess, and she clogged the back sink with tissue and then left the water running. The other children tattled on Cynthia and told Mr. Butler that she caused the messes. He would just look at her, turn his head a little and say, "hmmmm."
On the third day of Mr. Butler's substituting, Cynthia was very quiet. She had run out of mean things to say and do so she just sat at her desk and carved small pictures into her desktop with a rusty nail she had found on the ground while walking to school. After morning recess, Mr. Butler whispered to Cynthia and asked her if she would please help him with a project. They went to the back of the class while the other kids were copying their spelling words from the board. Mr. Butler quietly explained that he needed her help with a project he called "Playing Nice". At first she didn't think she would be good at this project but as Mr. Butler explained, you don't have to actually BE nice, you just have to PRETEND to be nice. He told her to go around to the other kids and say extra nice things to them and then leave. He said it was a kind of experiment. He said it would really, really help him. She was so tired of trying to think of mean things and her head was hurting so she decided to just say yes. She was too tired to say no.
At recess, Cynthia went up to two boys, Larry and Marcus and asked them what they were doing. They looked very scared when she talked to them but they quietly told her that they were about to start playing a basketball game. Cynthia smiled a big, fake smile with all of her teeth showing and shouted, "Oh! Have fun!" and skipped away. Larry and Marcus looked back at each other with very confused expressions on their faces.
During social studies, Cynthia noticed that Missy, the girl who sat next to her, was searching in a desk for a pencil. Cynthia leaned over quietly, and with a big, fake smile on her face whispered to Missy, "do you want to borrow a pencil? I have ten?" Missy jumped and leaned back a little bit. She had never seen so many of Cynthia's teeth all at one. Then she noticed that Cynthia was trying to smile and her face didn't look mean for once. She said she would like a pencil and so Cynthia gave her one. Cynthia noticed Mr. Butler watching her give the pencil to Missy and just quietly nodded to Cynthia and gave her a little wink. Cynthia didn't know why he nodded but she felt like she was part of a special project and liked the way it felt inside.
Cynthia started the Playing Nice project at home, too. Her mom yelled at her anyway, and told Cynthia to "wipe that stupid grin" off her face. But after 3 days, her mom stopped saying quite so many mean things. Instead of telling Cynthia she was dumb, she started telling her she was "a weird kid". But she had a half smile on her face when she said that. Cynthia hadn't seen a half smile on her mom for as long as she could remember and it felt good inside. So she kept Playing Nice at home.
After five days of the Playing Nice project, the whole class wondered if the real Cynthia had been replaced and twin Cynthia with a new personality. They noticed she was always smiling and saying very VERY nice things. They also noticed that she was never mean. A few of the children asked Cynthia to join them at recess for a game of soccer. One time, during art class, Missy offered to share her paints with her because Missy's set had 20 colors instead of just 10.
By the time Mr. Butler was finished substituting and her real teacher could come back to work, Cynthia's smile wasn't fake any more and her nice comments were real. Cynthia had some new friends and none of the kids were scared of her any more. One day, while walking to school, she remembered that she used to think of mean things she could do on the way to school but now she found herself thinking of super nice things she could do. She decided this made her feel good and that she would keep Playing Nice forever.
