Joe was a boy with a special ability. He could make himself cry in less than a second. In this way, he could get almost everything he wanted.
One day, Joe met Pipo. Pipo had no family and was very poor. He was asking people for some money in the street. When people offered him some money, he would do something for them in return. Joe decided to help him make some money. He took off his hat, put it face-up on the ground and started crying sadly.
In a few minutes, Joe's hat was full of money, but when Joe gave Pipo the money, Pipo declined.
“It's much more fun making an effort to get things. Maybe I haven't got everything I want, but I've done a lot of interesting things,” said Pipo. Joe walked away sadly. He had got everything he wanted, but he'd done nothing interesting the whole day. He hadn't even enjoyed himself by spending almost all his time crying.
That evening, Joe wanted a piece of cake for his supper. When his mum refused, he wanted to cry. But he remembered what Pipo said. So he tried to get the cake in some other ways. To the joy and surprise of his parents, Joe spent the whole evening helping his mother with the housework. In the end, there was no cake. But that wasn't so bad because Joe discovered it was much more fun doing all those things that evening rather than just sitting crying to get a piece of cake.
