Kids Learning English IV

 

4th Standard English Term-II

I. A TRUE FRIEND

Nandhini and Pandi were good friends since childhood.  They lived in the same street, so they were always together.  Every day Pandi would stop at her home on the way to school.  Both would walk to school chatting and playing.  Sometimes, they would race home from school.  They always took part in school activities together.  They helped each other in their lessons.

One day, as usual, Pandi came to Nandhini's home.  She looked upset and sad.  Pandi asked her "Why are you sad?", she did not answer.  Instead, she shook her head.  "Did your parents scold you?", asked Pandi.  She did not answer him.  He grabbed her bag and said excitedly, "Catch me if you can."  But she did not respond.  Pandi stopped and gave the bag back.  They walked silently to the school.

Nandhini walked into the classroom slowly.  Her eyes glued to the ground.  She looked sad, "Did someone scold you?", asked one of her friends in the class.  Nandhini shook her head.  She sat down, with her head bowed down.  The teacher entered the classroom and started calling out the names for attendance.  Nandhini did not answer when the teacher called her name.

The teacher was annoyed.  This time she called her name louder, "Nandhini!" and then, she raised her hand but did not answer.  The teacher went near Nandhini.  She touched her forehead and asked, "Are you feeling okay?" Nandhini shook her head.  Her cheeks were red, and it looked like she had a fever.  "Do you have a fever? Shall I call your parents?" asked the teacher.  She shook her head, but she still did not look at anyone.  Her head was still bowed down.

"Why does Nandhini look so sad?" exclaimed her friends.  Her friends pestered her with a hundred questions!  The questions were about everything that you think about.  They asked her family, her house, her shoes and even about her street pets.  Each question that she was asked, Nandhini only answered by shaking her head.

Pandi had enough of Nandhini's silence.  He had never seen her so dull.  He wanted on idea to make her smile.  He thought, thought and thought for many hours.  Finally, he had an idea! He took out something from his bag and ran to show it to her.  He tumbled, and it slipped from his hands.  It was flying straight to Nandhini.  She saw something flying towards her and screamed with fear.  She closed her eyes and tried to catch it.  THUD! She caught it.  It was a big green frog.  Everyone ran away as they were scared of the frog.

Nandhini's eyes were wide open with surprise.  Then, she burst into laughter.  It was a rubber frog! As soon as she laughed, her friends and teacher knew why she did not smile or talk to anyone all day.  Two of her front teeth were missing!

II. A Lesson to Save

On the way to the playground, in the fields, Amir saw dirt thrown out of a pit on the ground.  He went near it and saw a small rat-like creature.  He called out, "Hey! Who are you? What are you doing in there?"

The creature came out and took a glance at the boy and said "I am a mole.  I am digging a burrow to catch the earthworms and save them for the winter."

"Interesting, How do you catch and save them?"

The mole replied, "I dig 'worm traps' along the tunnels, when the earthworms cross it they fall into it.  It will bite and paralyze them and store in the tunnel to eat later."

The boy asked, "How many earthworms will you store?"

The mole replied, "As many earth worms as I can get.  I don't eat all of them.  I save them for using later.  Now, I don't have any time to waste.  I must build a lot of worm traps.  See you later."  The mole went inside the burrow.

Just then, near the mole's burrow.  Amir saw a leaf moving.  He went near it and saw a small ant.  The ant was carrying a big leaf.

The ant yelled, "Get out of my way.  It will take too long to go around your feet."

He asked the ant "Hey! Why are you carrying this big leaf? Isn't it easy to eat and then go home?"

The ant dropped the leaf and replied, "I am a 'leafcutter ant'.  I am collecting leaves for my colony.  I can carry leaves that weigh nearly twenty times my weight," Amir was surprised.  He asked, "Do you eat leaves?"

The ant replied, "No, we don't eat leaves! We drink the leaf Sap.  We also use the leaves to grow fungus.  We need the fungus to feed our babies.  We also store the leaves for the winter."

The ant asked, "By the way, do you, the humans save the food that you need?" Amir replied, "Yes we also save food in granaries, but we need money to buy it, so we usually give importance to save money.  What else do we have to save?" "Don't you have anything other than money to save?" asked the ant.  After taking some time to think, Amir answered, "My mom asks me to save water, food, electricity, forest and fuel.  We have a lot of things to save, to make sure that future generations can use these." This interaction with the mole and the ant changed the way Amir thought about the things around him.  Earlier, he let the fan run as he left the room.  He let the water drip as he never closed the tap tightly.  Now, he always care and save the resources around him.