Page 54 - English Class 06

Some people look at a shooting star and make a wish. Do you know why? Because they

believe their wishes will come true! In this story a little boy makes a wish. Do you want to
know if his wish comes true?

Life seldom turns out the way we expect it to. The house in Dehra had to be sold. My
father had not left any money; he had never realised that his health would deteriorate so
rapidly from the malarial fever which had grown in frequency . He was still planning for the
future when he died. Now, that my father was gone, Grandmother saw no point in staying

on in India; there was nothing left in the bank and she needed money for our passage to
England, so the house had to go. Dr Ghose, who had a thriving medical practice in Dehra,
made her a reasonable offer which she accepted.

Then things happened very quickly. Grandmother sold most of our belongings, because
as she said, we wouldn’t be able to cope with a lot of luggage. The kabaris came in droves,
buying up crockery, furniture, carpets and clocks at throwaway prices. Grandmother hated

parting with some of her possessions such as the carved gilt-wood mirror, her walnut-wood
armchair and her rosewood writing desk, but it was impossible to take them with us. They
were carried away in a bullock-cart.

Ayah was very unhappy at first, but cheered up when Grandmother got her a job with a
tea planter’s family in Assam. It was arranged that she could stay with us until we left Dehra.

We went at the end of September, just as the monsoon clouds broke up, scattered and
were driven away by the soft breeze from the Himalayas. There was no time to revisit the
island where my grandfather and I had planted our trees. And in the urgency and excitement

of the preparations for our departure, I forgot to recover my small treasures from the hole in
the banyan tree. It was only when we were in Bansi’s tonga, on the way to the station, that I
remembered my top, catapult and Iron Cross. Too late! To go back for them would mean
missing the train.

‘Hurry!’ urged Grandmother nervously. ‘We seldom : rarely
mustn’t be late for the train, Bansi.’ deteriorate : to become worse
frequency : the number of times
Bansi flicked the reins and shouted to his pony, something happens in a particular period
and for once in her life Grandmother allowed thriving : successful

herself to be carried along the road at a brisk trot.
‘It’s five to nine,’ she said, ‘and the train leaves at nine.’

‘Do not worry, memsahib. I have been taking you to the station for fifteen years, and you

have never missed a train!’
‘No,’ said Grandmother. ‘And I don’t suppose you’ll ever take me to the station

again, Bansi.’

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