There was once a boy who had no face. He didn’t mind this difference, but he was often teased by others because of this crippling deficiency. When others would play, the boy would want to join in their fun, but because he had no face, they would not let him play with them. "Why won't you let me play with you?" he would ask. "Because you don't have face," the others would shout back. "That doesn't make me wrong, just different," the little boy would reply, but to that the other children would only laugh and laugh. “Maybe if you had a face like a normal person, you could play with us,” said the kids as they went back to their games.

Now these laughs were not the cheery chortlings of friends but the hurtful cackles of those who mean to do harm. Sadly, this boy took the mean words they would say to heart, and the little boy grew very sad. Over time, the little boy began to forget that being different wasn't wrong and one day when the children were being especially mean to him, the little boy with no face ran into the woods to hide.

When at last he had escaped the mean children's hurtful words, the little boy sat on a stump and cried and cried. He did not like his differences anymore. He didn't want to be wrong. He just wanted to be like everyone else.

As he cried, the wind whistled through the trees sweeping up a great gust of leaves. When the leaves had settled, the little faceless boy saw a mask lying in the pile of leaves at his feet. This was a truly wonderful mask that the boy had found. It was so detailed, and it seemed almost real. The boy ran his fingers across it and it almost felt like real skin. The more the little boy looked at the mask, the more it looked like a real face. “Maybe with this mask, the children will not hate me as much,” thought the little boy. So the boy put on the mask and returned to the field where the children were playing.

To the boy’s immense surprise, he was greeted with happiness. These children didn’t laugh at him anymore. They asked him to join them in their games, and the boy eagerly accepted.

“What is your name?” they asked them as he ran to them in their game. This question put the little boy on his heels, because no one had ever asked him what his name was, and the boy was unsure how to reply. “I am um… Alex,” said the boy newly named Alex. The children accepted this name with without question and they went off to play.

Time went on without notice, just as time tends to do for kids at play. The boy grew accustomed to his new name and his new face. He loved being accepted by these children, and for a while he was satisfied. However, there were several children who didn’t like him. “Why don’t you like to play with me?” asked the Alex breathless from a game of chase. “I don’t like kids with brown hair. I only like people with red hair,” said the main girl with her arms crossed. The other’s standing behind her nodded in agreement.

Alex was shocked that his new face wasn’t good enough, and he really wanted these new people to like him just as much as the others. When the other children weren’t looking, Alex slipped back into the woods. After a time searching for the stump, Alex at last came to it and sat down. “Oh I wish I could have red hair,” said Alex.
Suddenly, the wind began to blow once more and waiting in the pile of leaves was another mask. This mask was even more fantastic then the last and best of all, this mask’s hair was red, just like the girl wanted. So Alex donned his new mask on top of the other and returned to the children not wanting to miss anything.

The children cheered when this new boy joined them, and in the crowd of children were some of the people who didn’t like him before. “What is your name?” asked the girl who had so recently disliked him. “Um, my name is… Harry.”

“Welcome, Harry,” screamed the children and they went off to play. For a while, Harry was content and his old role as Alex was almost forgotten. Time passes much as it had before without much notice and Harry was happy.

Unfortunately, one girl remained who was not happy with Harry. “Why do you frown at me so?” asks Harry. “I only like older boys. You are far too young,” said the girl with her nose in the air. Harry was not concerned. He only needed to go get another mask and she would like him. So Harry went back to the stump and wished for a mask of an older boy. Again the wind granted his wish, and another mask was placed on top of the last.

“Hello, my name is Dennis, and I am an older boy,” said the boy who had once been Harry and a time before that was Alex. “Do you like me?”

“No, I only like guys who are cuter than you,” said the girl and turned her back on him.

“No matter,” thought Dennis. He returned to the forest and once again got a new mask on top of the last, and returned to this girl. Sadly, she still was not pleased. She demanded the boy to be funnier. So another mask was acquired and again it was dismissed. The boy frantically ran back and forth. Faster, stronger, kinder, tougher, smarter, richer. The girl’s desires seemed insatiable, and with each new request another mask placed upon the last. The poor boy’s head began to be brought down by the weight of the masks and his breathing became stunted. This weakness only seemed to frustrate the girl into more demanding and complex requests.

At last, the boy could no longer stand from the weight of all the masks, and so he could only drag himself to the feet of girl. When the cruel girl saw this poor sad wretch of a boy wheezing and whimpering at her toes, she laughed at him. The other children heard her laugh and turned to join in. The laughter grew and grew as the boy tried desperately to get his head up enough to tell them his name, but it would not come out. The boy began to cry anew as the children made cruel jokes about him. The boy turned and dragged himself away.

Now the boy had nothing left. The children were still laughing at him, and he couldn’t put on any more masks to make them like him again. He cried and cried as he lay at the trunk of a great tree.

“Why are you crying?” asked a girl who the boy named Alex, Harry, and Denis had not seen from before. “No one loves me. My masks don’t please them anymore, and I am too tired to wear another that they would like more,” cried the boy. The girl standing by the tree looked down at the boy and smiled sympathetically, “I don’t really like those masks all that much. You don’t need them anymore.”

“You don’t understand,” proclaimed the boy through a torrent of tears, “I don’t have a face of my own. I need these masks. No one will love me without them.”

“Here, let me help,” said the girl with a smile as she gently lifted the top mask off. As the mask was taken away, the boy felt a little better. The girl continued to remove the masks bit by bit, until the boy felt so good that he started to take them off himself. With each mask removed, the boy felt happier and happier. He stopped crying and began to smile, which made the girl smile even more. They started ripping off the masks in a flurry of laughter.

At last, the boy ran his hand across his face to take off the last mask. He was feeling better than he had ever before. He ran his hand along his chin to find the edge of the mask, but to his surprise, there was no mask to be found. He looked up at the girl in surprise and confusion. “This mask is stuck,” the boy said in surprise.

“No, this isn’t a mask. This is your face, hidden under all the masks that you put around yourself. It was just waiting to come out,” the girl said with a proud smile and a gleam of joy in her eyes that none of the other kids had ever shown the boy.

The boy was so happy to at last have a face. He found that it fit better than any of the masks that he had worn up until now. It wasn’t something just to make people happy. It only made him happy but that seemed to be enough. The girl laughed as the boy ran his fingers across his face feeling out all the contours in it. “I like this one a lot more than the others,” said the girl with a grin. Suddenly, happiness bloomed inside the boy that he had never felt before. Someone actually loved something about him that was truly his and not something he had to fake. “Thank you, friend,” said the boy who had found his face at last as they returned to the field hand in hand.

Some of the children liked his true face and others did not. He could not fulfill everyone's wishes anymore and faced some insults because of it. However, the boy realized that the only opinions that truly mattered were from those who could see past all the masks into the true face.