Mazen and the House of Colorful Shapes

Mazen was a little boy of four with wide eyes that loved to discover everything, and he had a small white kitten named Qutna, with a soft tail and pink ears. One winter day it was cold outside, so Mazen sat on the colorful rug in his room with a big box full of wooden pieces of every color in front of him. He looked at Qutna sleeping in a corner of the room on a small piece of cloth and said, "Poor Qutna, you don't have a warm house! Today I'm going to build you the most beautiful house in the world."

Mazen tipped the box over, and the pieces tumbled onto the rug: clack, clack, clack! There were red, blue, yellow and green pieces; some were round and some had corners. Mazen took a round red piece and put it on the floor, then tried to put another piece on top of it, but the red piece rolled away: roll, roll, roll, all the way under the bed! "Why did the piece run away?" Mazen wondered.

Suddenly he heard a small, cheerful voice coming from under the bed: "I didn't run away, Mazen. I just love to roll!" The red piece rolled out and stopped in front of him. It had two little eyes and a big smile. "Hello! I'm the Circle. I have no corners and no sides. I'm round all the way around, so I roll easily. Look around you and you'll find me in lots of places." Mazen looked around. "The clock on the wall is a circle! The plate is a circle! The ball is a circle! The wheels of my little car are circles!" The Circle laughed. "Well done! I help cars and bicycles move."

"But I want to build a wall for Qutna's house," said Mazen, "and a wall mustn't roll." Then a blue piece jumped out of the pile and said in a steady voice, "That's my job! I'm the Square. I have four equal sides, all the same length, and four corners. Count them with me." Mazen counted with his finger along the Square's edges: "One, two, three, four!" "Right!" said the Square. "And I never roll. I stand still, and you can put another square on top of me, and another, and the wall becomes strong."

Mazen was delighted and began to stack the blue squares: a square, then a square, then a square. Then he made another wall beside it, and a third. He counted as he built: one, two, three, four, five... until he had two tall walls. But he looked at the house and said, "The house needs a tall door for Qutna to go through, and the square is too short."

So a long yellow piece stretched out on the rug and said, "I'm here! I'm the Rectangle. I look like my brother the Square, because I have four sides and four corners, but two of my sides are long and two are short." Mazen compared the Rectangle and the Square and saw that the Rectangle was longer. "Look around you," said the Rectangle. "The door is a rectangle, the window is a rectangle, the book is a rectangle, and even your bed is a rectangle!" Mazen laughed. "That's true! Even Mama and Baba's bed is a big rectangle!" The Rectangle stood in the middle of the wall and became a lovely door.

Now the house had walls and a door, but Mazen said, "The house has no roof! It will rain on Qutna!" He tried to put a square on top of the walls, but the house looked like a flat box. When he tried to put the Circle on top, it rolled down to the floor again, laughing, "I told you, I don't like high places!" Mazen laughed too, and then he heard a voice from the top of the pile.

A pointed green piece was standing on top of the pile. "I think you need me! I'm the Triangle. I have only three sides and three corners, and my head points up." Mazen counted its sides: "One, two, three!" "My sloping roof makes the rainwater slide down to the ground so it doesn't stay on the house," said the Triangle. "I also look like a slice of pizza, a boat's sail and the top of a mountain." Mazen put the green Triangle on top of the blue walls, and the house had a beautiful roof like the houses in the villages.

Mazen looked at the house and said, "Something's still missing! A window! Qutna has to be able to see the sun and the moon from her house." The Circle rolled back and said, "That's my job! I can be a round window like a ship's window." The red Circle stood on the side of the wall and became a small shiny window. "And I'll be another window on the other side," said the Square. So the house had two windows: one circle and one square.

Mazen sat and looked at the house. He saw the green triangle roof, the blue square walls, the yellow rectangle door and the red circle window. He clapped his hands. "How beautiful! Every shape did something different!" "Yes, Mazen," said the Triangle. "If we were all circles, the whole house would roll away." "And if we were all squares," said the Square, "the house wouldn't have a sloping roof." "And if I weren't here," said the Rectangle, "Qutna wouldn't have a tall door to go through." Then the Circle said, "We're different, and that's why together we make something beautiful."

Then Mazen said, "And every beautiful house needs a garden!" He took three small green triangles from the box and set them in front of the house side by side, so they looked like three little trees. On top of each tree he put an orange circle and said, "These are oranges on the trees!" From thin brown rectangles he made a short fence around the garden and counted the fence pieces out loud: "One, two, three, four, five, six!" And up above the roof he put a big yellow circle and said, "And this is the sun, so Qutna stays warm all day long." All the shapes laughed and said, "You've become a little engineer, Mazen!"

At that moment Qutna woke up, stretched and said, "Meow!" She walked slowly to the new house, sniffed the rectangle door, looked through the circle window, then went inside and curled up like a white ball of wool. Mazen laughed out loud and called, "Mama, Mama! Come and look!" His mother came and said, "Wow, what a wonderful house! Who helped you, Mazen?" "The four friends helped me," said Mazen. "The Circle, the Square, the Rectangle and the Triangle!"

His mother smiled. "Then let's play a game. I'll point at something and you tell me its shape." She pointed at the clock and Mazen said, "Circle!" Then at the window: "Rectangle!" Then at the slice of cheese on the dinner plate: "Triangle!" Then at a floor tile: "Square!" "You're the shapes champion!" said his mother. From that day on, whenever Mazen went out to the street or the park, he looked for shapes, counted sides and corners, and told his friends, "Shapes are everywhere. Just open your eyes!"

At night, before he went to sleep, Mazen looked at Qutna's little house and whispered, "Thank you, my shape friends." Mazen learned that every shape has a use and a place no other shape can take, and that different things working together make something more beautiful, just like different friends when they work together with love.