The Hidden Pool

by Ruskin Bond

  The station bell began to clang and a guard blew his whistle.

  We shook hands.

  ‘Goodbye, Laurie,’ said Kamal and Anil.

  I left them on the platform and entered the compartment, looking out of the window. The train had started moving, pulling slowly out of the station, and Anil and Kamal moved along with it, walking at first, then breaking into a run. Then they reached the end of the platform, and could follow the train no more, but they waved furiously and I waved back, and the train gathered speed and my friends went further and further away, two dark specks in the glow of the lighted station, and then only the station lights were visible, and soon these too were lost in the darkness, lost in the vast formless darkness of the country.

  A Letter from Kamal

  Dear Laurie,

  I have waited for over a month before writing to you, because I knew you would be at sea all this time and now you must be busy settling down in your new school or college. Anil and I received the picture postcards you sent us from Aden and Port Said and Gibraltar. Anil says he will write to you very soon but, as you know, he is hopeless at writing letters.

  After you left, I sat for my examinations a second time and at last I passed! Now, if you were here, we would have had a celebration in the chaat shop, or a picnic at the pool. I have gained admission to a college in Lucknow, so I will have to leave this place very soon. In Lucknow I may have to continue selling things in order to pay my fees. Anil is a little annoyed that I have passed, because now he will be left to himself and will have to look for new friends and, of course, that will be different.

  We haven’t been to the pool since you left, but yesterday I went there myself to take a last look at it. And do you know, Laurie, the pool had disappeared! The stream had changed its course and gone another way, and the bed of our stream was dry. There was no pool, only sand and rocks. Even the buffaloes had gone.

  Anil says the pool has gone because you have gone. It was your discovery, remember. He says that when you come back the stream will start flowing again. That’s like one of his mother’s stories, but I hope it comes true.

  Remember, you promised to come back to India one day. I know it will be many years before you can do so, but we will always be expecting you. Even if by then we are old men of seventy, with long white beards and crooked backs, we will have to meet again. And then we will go to the pool—and if it isn’t there, we’ll find another—and swim together as we did this past year.

  But don’t wait until we are all old, Laurie, otherwise we won’t be able to reach the glacier again. Come back as soon as you can. The mountains are waiting for us.

  THE BEGINNING

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  Published by the Penguin Group

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  First published in Puffin by Penguin Books India 2008

  This illustrated edition published 2015

  www.penguinbooksindia.com

  Text copyright © Ruskin Bond 2008

  Illustrations copyright © Archana Sreenivasan 2015

  Cover illustration by Archana Sreenivasan

  Cover design by Aparajita Ninan

  All rights reserved

  ISBN: 978-0-143-33392-0

  This digital edition published in 2015.

  e-ISBN: 978-81-8475-455-1

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and any resemblance to any actual person, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

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