The Little Dawdler

Hello everyone,

    The story that I am going to tell you today is my own creation.

    It is a story of a little girl who used to dawdle a lot. See what happens when she dawdles once too often. This story is based in U.K. although I have never been there. I wrote this story based on the facts that my friends gave me and the stories I read, i.e. the way of life there and the way the houses are over there.

    I hope you enjoy it and I hope you will forgive me if I have made a mistake anywhere. I do not wish to offend anyone.

    Read on and find out how she is cured of being a dawdler.

THE LITTLE DAWDLER

    Mary-Anne was a little girl. She was a very kind and a very sensible little girl, i.e. when she was outside. But once she was at home she was a very different person altogether! Her mother had to call her a hundred times before she answered or appeared. She was the biggest dawdler there ever was.

    Her mother would call her, “Mary-Anne, Mary-Anne, please, come here a minute! I have some work for you. Could you please go to the grocer’s and buy me some sugar.”

    After a lot calling, she would answer, “Yes, Mother! Let me finish this one paragraph, please!”

    After a few minutes, she would call again, “Mary-Anne, haven’t you finished your paragraph yet?”

    Again, Mary-Anne would answer, “Coming, Mother!” Then, there would be silence!

    Her mother got so fed up, that she, herself, would put on her coat and go out and buy whatever she wanted.

    Now, one Saturday, it was dinner time. Mary-Anne’s mother called her to come down for dinner. As usual Mary-Anne dawdled! She didn’t answer the first time and she did not answer the second time. She answered the third time! Her older brother Harry was already at the table and eating!

    Mary-Anne’s mother got so tired of calling that she gave her the last warning, “Mary-Anne, are you coming down or not? This is the last time I’m calling you!”

    Now, as she said this, Mary-Anne wished that she was in a place where other people didn’t bother her. Now, a very strange thing happened! Although, everything was as it was before, the atmosphere seemed to have changed! Mary-Anne noticed that her mother was not calling her as before and everything seemed to have gone quiet! She got puzzled and decided to go down after all.

    When she got down, she got the surprise of her life!

    Her mother was in the kitchen alright, but she was not cooking and was browsing through some magazine! The whole kitchen was a mess! The dishes of breakfast were still in the sink, unwashed! The cookers were dirty and floor had mud stains on it and the whole kitchen was stinking!

   Normally, Mary-Anne’s mother kept the kitchen so clean that it was a pleasure to enter it! Also, you would find aromas of baking and other cooking coming from it, so that you would find it extremely difficult to get out of it.

   This sudden change surprised Mary-Anne very much, indeed!

    “Mother, you called me for dinner, where is it?” She asked.

    “I have not called you for dinner, dear,” her mother answered. “I haven’t even cooked yet. Let me finish browsing through this magazine and then I will cook. Why don’t you have something to eat in the meantime?”

   Mary-Anne was even more surprised!

    She went to find her brother Harry. She found him in the sitting room, lying on his stomach on the sofa and reading some comics. His school bag and his books were lying around all over the place. Normally, he was a very clean and tidy boy!

   “Harry, why are your books scattered all over the place?”  She asked. “Have you finished your homework?”

    “Oh, I’ll just finish it later,” he said, much to the surprise of the little girl, because Harry never let his homework get overdue.

      Mary-Anne could not understand what was going on. Then, it slowly dawned on her that it was her own doing that this was happening. She had wished that she would be in a place where nobody would disturb her and here she was!

    Mary-Anne sat down to think what to do. She decided to do a bit of cleaning. So she started with the kitchen. First of all, she washed all the dishes and then she sat about cleaning the rest of the kitchen. By now she was so hungry that she decided to make some sandwiches for herself as her mother was making no move to do any cooking. So, she took some bread and cheese from the refrigerator. When her mother saw her doing that she looked at her and said, “You are making sandwiches? Good, make some for me too and ask Harry if he wants some as well. And make some for Daddy as well. He will be back from work just now. I don’t have time to cook.”

    Mary-Anne just nodded her head and went to ask Harry if he wanted some sandwiches as well. Harry was still lying on the sofa reading comics.

    “Harry, do you want some sandwiches?” She asked him.

    “Yes, make two for me,” he answered shortly.

    Just then, her father arrived from work. He just said hello to everyone and went and flopped down on a sofa chair.

    Mary-Anne began to make the sandwiches. Suddenly, her mother turned around and looked at her angrily and said, “Hurry up, will you? We don’t have all day.”

    Tears welled up in Mary-Anne’s eyes. She was tired and now instead of her mother appreciating her work she was scolding her. This had never happened before and she knew she was to blame for her foolish wish. Now, she wished she had never been so lazy and had done what her mother had wanted her to do. Now, she knew what she felt like when she called Mary-Anne to help her and she didn’t bother to answer her. Now, she knew how her mother must have been so tired after doing all the work. Mary-Anne felt very bad. If only she would get another chance, she would show her mother how much she loved and appreciated her.

    She finished making the sandwiches and put on the table for everyone. When she called her mother and Harry they dawdled for about an hour and then they came to eat. By now, it was about eleven o’clock. Normally, by this time she would have been in bed for about three hours. Mary-Anne was tired that all she wanted was to flop in bed.

    When everyone had finished to eat, they got up and went to bed with her mother saying, “Clean up and then go to bed, dear.”

And so Mary-Anne had to clean up and then she slowly went upstairs to her room and flopped into her bed. Once in her bed, she gave way to her tears and began to cry as if her heart would break and wished that her mother, Harry and her father were their old selves again.

    Suddenly, the atmosphere seemed to change and she found herself sitting at her computer the way she was when her mother had started calling her. She heard her mother call her again, “Mary-Anne, are you coming down or not for the last time. I will not call you again.”

    When Mary-Anne heard her mother’s voice, she jumped for joy! She felt she had never heard anything sweeter in her life! She jumped down from her chair and ran downstairs, straight into her mother’s arms and held her so tightly that her mother gasped in astonishment.

   

“Whoa, slow down! What’s the matter with you? You are hugging

me like we have met after a long time!” She said, laughing.

    “Oh, Mother! I will never ever disobey you again,” Mary-Anne said, sobbing and still holding on to her mother. “I’m so sorry I’ve been so horrid to you. From now on you will never get to complain about me again, ever.”

   Her mother stroked her head.

   “What’s the matter, child?” she asked, wiping her tears.

   Then, Mary-Anne told her extraordinary story to her mother, father and Harry. They were so surprised to hear her story that could not say a word for quite a while.

    From that day onwards Mary-Anne was a different girl altogether. She always jumped up and ran whenever her mother called her.

Little Ali and his Car

Hello everyone,

    Today I am going to tell the story of little boy who lived in India. He loved to play with cars. He had a beautiful one and wished to have many more.

    Read on and find out what he does and if he is able to do that or not.

Little Ali and his Car

    Ali was a little boy. He was four years old and he loved to play with cars. His father had bought for him a beautiful car. It was red with black tires and you could even open the doors and there were seats inside just like a real car. The seats were black too and it had safety belts that were brown. All in all it was really beautiful.

    One day, he was playing in the garden. The gardener was there and he was planting some seeds. Ali went near him and sat down on his haunches to see what he was doing.

    “What are you doing?” he asked the gardener.

    “Well, I am sawing seeds,” replied the gardener, looking at him.

    “Why do you saw these seeds?” he asked, curiously.

    “I saw seeds so that they would grow into plants and give beautiful flowers,” he replied, and added, “we can even grow trees with them so that we get fruits.”

    “So if I plant something that plant will grow and give me fruit, isn’t it?” he asked, again.

    “Yes,” replied the gardener, but knowing the little master and his ways he asked, curiously, “what do you intend to plant, little master?”

    “Oh, nothing,” replied Ali, looking really thoughtful.

    The gardener went back to doing his work and did not think about the conversation.

    Ali sat thinking. If you plant seeds to grow into trees and then they give you lots of fruits what if he planted his car?

    He went inside the house and got out his beach set. Then he went to a corner of the garden and dug out the soil and put his car in the hole and covered it with the soil.

    A few days passed, his mother noticed that he did not play with his car as usual. He was just sitting there on the patio with his chin in his hands as was his habit.

   “Ali, where is your car?” she asked him, “Why aren’t you playing with it?”

    “I have put my car to grow,” he said, as if it was a normal thing to happen.

    “You have done what?” asked his mother, stopping what she was doing.

    “I am waiting for my car to grow,” he said, again innocently. “I have put my car in the ground like the gardener so that there will be many cars to play with.”

    His mother looked at him with disbelief and when she understood what he was saying, she burst out laughing.

    His mother came down sat beside him.

    “Ali, you don’t grow cars on trees,” she said wiping the tears from her eyes and explained, “cars are made by man. They are non-living things. They do not grow. People make them in factories.”

    Ali looked disappointed.

    “They don’t?” he asked in a small voice.

    “No, darling,” she said, hugging him. “You can grow flowers and trees but you can’t grow things. Now, where have you ‘planted’ your car?”

    Ali stood up and led the way and his mother followed. He took her to the place where he had buried his car. His mother explained to the gardener what had happened and asked him to bring a shovel and dig the car out. When the gardener heard the story he laughed, too.

    “So that is why you were so curious and asking me so many questions?” he said, grinning.

    Soon the gardener dug out Ali’s car. His mother took it and cleaned it and gave it to him.

    “Ali, if you had kept your car buried for a very long time it would have rotted and we wouldn’t have been able to clean it and you wouldn’t have been able to play with it,” said his mother. “Don’t go burying things again, please.”

    “Yes, Mummy,” he said, smiling.

    From that day onwards, he always asked before he did anything of the sort.

The Three Gifts

Hello, everyone,

    The story that I am going to tell you today is a folktale of India.

    It is the story of a dishonest sister who tries to cheat her brother out of his gifts. Although, she succeeds at first but her brother outsmarts her.

    Read on find out how he does it.

    Happy reading.

 THE THREE GIFTS

    Once upon a time, there was an old woman and she had two children. The elder one was a girl and she was married and lived in the next village. The other was a boy. He worked very hard but earned very little. So one day he decided to try his luck where his sister lived. He told his mother about his plan. So, the next day he woke up very early and started on his journey so that by nightfall he would reach there. His mother had made seven chapattis for him which he had wrapped in a cloth and took them with him to eat for lunch.

    In the olden days there were no cars so people had to either take bullock carts or walked. Now, this boy did not have any money so he had to walk to the next village. He walked until noon when came to a well.

    “I will eat my lunch here and then have a drink of water from the well,” he thought.

    He took out his chapattis and started to say out loud, “Shall I eat one or two or three or four or five or six or seven.”

   

    Now, in the well there lived seven genies. When these genies heard the boy counting they thought that he had come to eat them. They got very frightened and discussed the matter amongst themselves. They wanted to get rid of the boy but they did not want to kill him for they were not violent genies but very peaceful ones and wanted to settle the matter in a peaceful manner. So they decided to offer him a gift.

    The leader of the genies came out of the well and stood before the boy. The boy was startled at first but then took courage and asked, “Who are you?”

    “I am a genie and I live in this well with my six brothers,” the genie replied. “We heard you wanted to eat us all. Please, don’t do that. We mean no harm to anyone and to show our gratitude I have brought you a gift. Take this stove. It is a magic stove. Whenever you want to eat you just say, “Stove, give me food” and the stove will give you whatever you want.”

    The boy realized that the genies were scared of him more than he was scared of them because they thought he was greater than them.

    “Alright, I will not eat you,” said the boy, “since you have brought me this gift.”

    “Thank you so much,” said the genie. “We are all very grateful to you.”

    So saying, he vanished in the well.

    The boy took the gift and went on his way, happy to get such a gift. He knew his mother would be very happy, but first he had to go to his sister in the next village and see how she was doing and then return home to his mother.

    By nightfall he reached his sister’s village and on to her house. The sister was very happy to see him. Then, the boy told her all about his adventure and showed her his gift and told her to keep it in a safe place until he would go home and then he would take it with him.

    The sister did not seem too happy about his gift. She just congratulated him offhandedly and went on with her work. The boy was surprised at her attitude but did not say anything.

   

    Then, he tried out the stove. He said, “Stove, give me vegetable biriani” and at once a big pot appeared with a very delicious looking biriani. That day everyone ate that biriani. It was the most delicious biriani anybody had ever eaten.

    After a few days, the boy decided to go home. So he asked his sister for his stove which the sister gave it to him silently.

    The boy went on his way. He did not take the same route home as he did not want to meet those genies again. He reached home by nightfall and showed his stove to his mother and told her everything about his adventure. The mother was amazed to hear everything her son told her.

    After taking his bath and getting refreshed the boy decided to try out the stove. He said, “Stove, give me biriani” and at once there was a big pot of biriani. The mother and son had a good meal. From that day onwards they did not have to worry about their meals. They just asked and they got what they wanted.

    After a few months the boy decided to go and visit his sister again.

  

  He started on his journey the same way that he did the last time. He took seven chapattis with him and took the same route that he had taken the last time. When he reached the well again he sat down and took out his chapattis and started to count.

 

 “How many shall I eat today?” he asked. “Shall I eat one or two or

three or four or five or six or seven?”

    Again the genies were very upset when they heard that and the leader brought a goose to the boy.

    “Please, don’t hurt us,” he said pleadingly. “I have brought you this goose. It will lay you a golden egg every day. All you have to do is to say, “goose lay me an egg” and the goose will lay you a golden egg. Please accept it?”

    “Very well,” said the boy. “I shall not hurt you. Thank you for the gift.”

    With that the boy went away to his sister.

    Once more, he related his adventure to his sister. His sister again congratulated him offhandedly and went on her work. Again he gave the goose to his sister for safekeeping.

    After a few days, he decided to go home. He took his goose from his sister and went home the same way that he had taken the last time that he had returned home.

   Once he was home he related to his mother everything that had happened to him and showed her the goose.

    “Goose, lay me an egg,” commanded the boy, but nothing happened. The boy was rather puzzled. He knew that the genies would never lie to him. And so he tried again and nothing happened. He tried several times but still nothing happened. Then, he knew that he had been cheated. His sister had changed the goose with an ordinary one. He became very angry. Now he understood why his sister had congratulated him offhandedly. It was because she was jealous.

    “Mother, my sister has cheated me,” he said. “What shall I do?”

    “Why don’t you go and ask her?” the mother suggested.

   “If I know her,” the boy said, “she’ll just deny the whole thing and say that the genies had cheated me. I think I’ll go to the genies and ask if they had done so.”

    “No, no, my son,” said the mother fearfully. “The genies are very dangerous. Do not cross swords with them. They will kill you.”

    “Don’t worry, Mother,” he said. “I shall be very careful. Besides they are very peaceful genies. I know they will help me.

    The old woman tried to dissuade the son from going to the well, but the son would not give in.

    The next day, he set out very early in the morning. He took with him the seven chapattis that his mother had made for him.

  Once he reached there he sat himself down beside the well and started to count the way he did before.

    The genies were angry. They thought the boy was trying to take advantage of their peacefulness and so the leader of the genies appeared.

    “Are you trying to take advantage of our peaceful behavior?” he asked, angrily.

    “No, I’m not,” replied the boy, fearlessly. “The gift that you gave me last time is not working. The goose has not laid even one egg. Did you cheat me by any chance?”

    “What?” the genie roared in anger. “Are you accusing me of cheating you? You mortals are so ungrateful.”

    “Please, don’t get angry,” the boy said, pleadingly, seeing that if did not make amends the genies would most certainly kill him. “The goose that you gave me does not lay any golden eggs.”

    “Then, you have been cheated by someone but not by us,” said the leader of the genie, calming down. “We never lie, because if we lied nobody would trust us anymore. Whom did you give your goose for safekeeping?”

    “I gave it to my sister,” replied the boy.

    “Then your sister took it, most probably,” said the genie. “I can help you if you want.”

    “Please, do,” said the boy, in frustration, not knowing what to do.

    The genie put his head in the well and shouted, “Bring me that flute.”

    At once, another genie brought a flute.

    “Take this flute,” he said, giving it to the boy. “This is no ordinary flute. This is for defeating your enemies. You ask your sister about the goose. If she denies it you play the flute and everything in the room will start to attack her and she’ll tell you the truth.”

    The boy thanked the genies and went on his way.

    When the boy reached the sister’s place, the sister received him innocently as if nothing had happened. The boy went inside the house. He said nothing about his gift. Now, the sister was rather curious to know if he had any gift this time. Her brother refreshed himself and had his dinner but still did not say anything at all. She could bear it no longer.

    “Haven’t you got any gift this time?” she asked curiously.

    “Why do you ask?” asked her brother. “Last time I got a goose it did not even lay golden eggs as they had claimed. I think they are lying.”

    “Oh! I don’t think they were lying maybe something happened,” she said innocently.

    “What could happen?” he asked looking at her closely. “I gave it to you for safekeeping and you couldn’t take it, could you?”

   “Of course not,” she said going red in the face. “May be you left it somewhere on the way here and someone replaced it.”

    “What if I told you that I did not leave it anywhere when I was coming here, because I never stopped anywhere on the way?” he asked again. “What if I told you that you took it?”

     “How can you say such a thing?” she asked angrily. “You know, I would never do anything like this.”

    “Either you give me my goose or else I use my gift,” threatened the brother.

    “So you do have a gift but you do not want to tell me,” the sister said getting angrier by the minute. “Well, I do not have your goose, so there.”

    “Well, you leave me no choice,” he said and took out his flute and started to play.

    Now, as soon as he started playing the flute, the broom which was in the corner started to beat the sister and then came clothes hangar and then a chair that was standing near the wall lifted itself and wanted to come and hit her. Seeing this, the sister panicked.

    “Stop! Stop!” she cried. “I’ll give your goose. I took it. I’m sorry. I’ll never ever do it again. Now, please tell everything to stop.”

    Seeing that his sister had learnt a lesson he ordered the things to go back to their places. Then, the sister went and brought the goose and gave it to her brother.

    The boy took the goose to his mother and they lived happily ever after.