Great Stories for Children

by Ruskin Bond

  Great Stories for Children

  By the Same Author

  Angry River

  A Little Night Music

  A Long Walk for Bina

  Hanuman to the Rescue

  Ghost Stories from the Raj

  Strange Men, Strange Places

  The India I Love

  Tales and Legends from India

  The Blue Umbrella

  Ruskin Bond's Children's Omnibus

  Romi and the Wildfire

  When the Tiger was King

  School Days

  School Times

  Funny Side Up

  Roads to Mussoorie

  All Roads Lead to Ganga

  The Rupa Book of Great Animal Stories

  The Rupa Book of True Tales of Mystery and Adventure

  The Rupa Book of Ruskin Bond's Himalayan Tales

  The Rupa Book of Great Suspense Stories

  The Rupa Laughter Omnibus

  The Rupa Book of Haunted Houses

  The Rupa Book of Travellers' Tales

  The Rupa Book of Great Crime Stories

  The Rupa Book of Nightmare Tales

  The Rupa Book of Shikar Stories

  The Rupa Book of Love Stories

  The Rupa Book of Wicked Stories

  The Rupa Book of Heartwarming Stories

  The Rupa Book of Thrills and Spills

  The Rupa Carnival of Terror

  The Rupa Book of Snappy Surprises

  Shudders in the Dark

  Stories Short and Sweet

  First published in 2011 by

  Rupa Publications India Pvt. Ltd.

  7/16, Ansari Road, Daryaganj

  New Delhi 110002

  Sales centres:

  Allahabad Bengaluru Chennai

  Hyderabad Jaipur Kathmandu

  Kolkata Mumbai

  Selection Copyright © Ruskin Bond 2011

  Cover design: kathanstudio@gmail.com

  This digital edition published in 2012

  Ruskin Bond asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

  e-ISBN: 978-81-291-2321-3

  All rights reserved.

  This e-book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated, without the publisher’s prior consent, in any form or cover other than that in which it is published. No part of this publication may be reproduced, transmitted, or stored in a retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic, mechanical, print reproduction, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher. Any unauthorized distribution of this e-book may be considered a direct infringement of copyright and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

  Contents

  A Special Tree

  The School Among the Pines

  The Wind on Haunted Hill

  Romi and the Wildfire

  Tiger My Friend

  Monkey Trouble

  Snake Trouble

  Those Three Bears

  The Coral Tree

  The Thief's Story

  When the Trees Walked

  Goodbye, Miss Mackenzie

  Pret in the House

  The Overcoat

  The Tunnel

  Wild Fruit

  The Night the Roof Blew Off

  A Traveller's Tale

  And Now We are Twelve

  A Special Tree

  ne day, when Rakesh was six, he walked home from the Mussoorie bazaar eating cherries. They were a little sweet, a little sour; small, bright red cherries, which had come all the way from the Kashmir Valley.

  Here in the Himalayan foothills where Rakesh lived, there were not many fruit trees. The soil was stony, and the dry cold winds stunted the growth of most plants. But on the more sheltered slopes there were forests of oak and deodar.

  Rakesh lived with his grandfather on the outskirts of Mussoorie, just where the forest began. His father and mother lived in a small village fifty miles away, where they grew maize and rice and barley in narrow terraced fields on the lower slopes of the mountain. But there were no schools in the village, and Rakesh’s parents were keen that he should go to school. As soon as he was of school-going age, they sent him to stay with his grandfather in Mussoorie.

  He had a little cottage outside the town.

  Rakesh was on his way home from school when he bought the cherries. He paid fifty paise for the bunch. It took him about half-an-hour to walk home, and by the time he reached the cottage there were only three cherries left.

  ‘Have a cherry, Grandfather,’ he said, as soon as he saw his grandfather in the garden.

  Grandfather took one cherry and Rakesh promptly ate the other two. He kept the last seed in his mouth for some time, rolling it round and round on his tongue until all the tang had gone. Then he placed the seed on the palm of his hand and studied it.

  ‘Are cherry seeds lucky?’ asked Rakesh.

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Then I’ll keep it.’

  ‘Nothing is lucky if you put it away. If you want luck, you must put it to some use.’

  ‘What can I do with a seed?’

  ‘Plant it.’

  So Rakesh found a small space and began to dig up a flowerbed.

  ‘Hey, not there,’ said Grandfather, ‘I’ve sown mustard in that bed. Plant it in that shady corner, where it won’t be disturbed.’

  Rakesh went to a corner of the garden where the earth was soft and yielding. He did not have to dig. He pressed the seed into the soil with his thumb and it went right in.

  Then he had his lunch, and ran off to play cricket with his friends, and forgot all about the cherry seed.

  When it was winter in the hills, a cold wind blew down from the snows and went whoo-whoo-whoo in the deodar trees, and the garden was dry and bare. In the evenings Grandfather and Rakesh sat over a charcoal fire, and Grandfather told Rakesh stories – stories about people who turned into animals, and ghosts who lived in trees, and beans that jumped and stones that wept – and in turn Rakesh would read to him from the newspaper, Grandfather’s eyesight being rather weak. Rakesh found the newspaper very dull – especially after the stories – but Grandfather wanted all the news…

  They knew it was spring when the wild duck flew north again, to Siberia. Early in the morning, when he got up to chop wood and light a fire, Rakesh saw the V–shaped formation streaming northward, the calls of the birds carrying clearly through the thin mountain air.

  One morning in the garden he bent to pick up what he thought was a small twig and found to his surprise that it was well rooted. He stared at it for a moment, then ran to fetch Grandfather, calling, ‘Dada, come and look, the cherry tree has come up!’

  ‘What cherry tree?’ asked Grandfather, who had forgotten about it. ‘The seed we planted last year – look, it’s come up!’

  Rakesh went down on his haunches, while Grandfather bent almost double and peered down at the tiny tree. It was about four inches high.

  ‘Yes, it’s a cherry tree,’ said Grandfather. ‘You should water it now and then.’

  Rakesh ran indoors and came back with a bucket of water.

  ‘Don’t drown it!’ said Grandfather.

  Rakesh gave it a sprinkling and circled it with pebbles.

  ‘What are the pebbles for?’ asked Grandfather.

  ‘For privacy,’ said Rakesh.

  He looked at the tree every morning but it did not seem to be growing very fast, so he stopped looking at it except quickly, out of the corner of his eye. And, after a week or two, when he allowed himself to look at it properly, he found that it had grown – at least an inch!

  That year the monsoon rains came early a
nd Rakesh plodded to and from school in raincoat and chappals. Ferns sprang from the trunks of trees, strange-looking lilies came up in the long grass, and even when it wasn’t raining the trees dripped and mist came curling up the valley. The cherry tree grew quickly in this season.

  It was about two feet high when a goat entered the garden and ate all the leaves. Only the main stem and two thin branches remained.

  ‘Never mind,’ said Grandfather, seeing that Rakesh was upset. ‘It will grow again, cherry trees are tough.’

  Towards the end of the rainy season new leaves appeared on the tree. Then a woman cutting grass scrambled down the hillside, her scythe swishing through the heavy monsoon foliage. She did not try to avoid the tree: one sweep, and the cherry tree was cut in two.

  When Grandfather saw what had happened, he went after the woman and scolded her; but the damage could not be repaired.

  ‘Maybe it will die now,’ said Rakesh.

  ‘Maybe,’ said Grandfather.

  But the cherry tree had no intention of dying.

  By the time summer came round again, it had sent out several new shoots with tender green leaves. Rakesh had grown taller too. He was eight now, a sturdy boy with curly black hair and deep black eyes. ‘Blackberry eyes,’ Grandfather called them.

  That monsoon Rakesh went home to his village, to help his father and mother with the planting and ploughing and sowing. He was thinner but stronger when he came back to Grandfather’s house at the end of the rains to find that the cherry tree had grown another foot. It was now up to his chest.

  Even when there was rain, Rakesh would sometimes water the tree. He wanted it to know that he was there.

  One day he found a bright green praying-mantis perched on a branch, peering at him with bulging eyes. Rakesh let it remain there; it was the cherry tree’s first visitor.

  The next visitor was a hairy caterpillar, who started making a meal of the leaves. Rakesh removed it quickly and dropped it on a heap of dry leaves.

  Come back when you’re a butterfly,’ he said.

  Winter came early. The cherry tree bent low with the weight of snow. Field-mice sought shelter in the roof of the cottage. The road from the valley was blocked, and for several days there was no newspaper, and this made Grandfather quite grumpy. His stories began to have unhappy endings.

  In February it was Rakesh’s birthday. He was nine – and the tree was four, but almost as tall as Rakesh.

  One morning, when the sun came out, Grandfather came into the garden to ‘let some warmth get into my bones,’ as he put it. He stopped in front of the cherry tree, stared at it for a few moments, and then called out, ‘Rakesh! Come and look! Come quickly before it falls!’

  Rakesh and Grandfather gazed at the tree as though it had performed a miracle. There was a pale pink blossom at the end of a branch.

  The following year there were more blossoms. And suddenly the tree was taller than Rakesh, even though it was less than half his age. And then it was taller than Grandfather, who was older than some of the oak trees.

  But Rakesh had grown too. He could run and jump and climb trees as well as most boys, and he read a lot of books, although he still liked listening to Grandfather’s tales.

  In the cherry tree, bees came to feed on the nectar in the blossoms, and tiny birds pecked at the blossoms and broke them off. But the tree kept blossoming right through the spring, and there were always more blossoms than birds.

  That summer there were small cherries on the tree. Rakesh tasted one and spat it out.

  ‘It’s too sour,’ he said.

  ‘They’ll be better next year,’ said Grandfather.

  But the birds liked them – especially the bigger birds, such as the bulbuls and scarlet minivets – and they flitted in and out of the foliage, feasting on the cherries.

  On a warm sunny afternoon, when even the bees looked sleepy, Rakesh was looking for Grandfather without finding him in any of his favourite places around the house. Then he looked out of the bedroom window and saw Grandfather reclining on a cane chair under the cherry tree.

  ‘There’s just the right amount of shade here,’ said Grandfather. ‘And I like looking at the leaves.’

  ‘They’re pretty leaves,’ said Rakesh. ‘And they are always ready to dance, if there’s a breeze.’

  After Grandfather had come indoors, Rakesh went into the garden and lay down on the grass beneath the tree. He gazed up through the leaves at the great blue sky; and turning on his side, he could see the mountains striding away into the clouds. He was still lying beneath the tree when the evening shadows crept across the garden. Grandfather came back and sat down beside Rakesh, and they waited in silence until the stars came out and the nightjar began to call. In the forest below, the crickets and cicadas began tuning up; and suddenly the trees were full of the sound of insects.

  ‘There are so many trees in the forest,’ said Rakesh. ‘What’s so special about this tree? Why do we like it so much?’

  ‘We planted it ourselves,’ said Grandfather. That’s why it’s special.’

  ‘Just one small seed,’ said Rakesh, and he touched the smooth bark of the tree that he had grown. He ran his hand along the trunk of the tree and put his finger to the tip of a leaf. ‘I wonder,’ he whispered. ‘Is this what it feels to be God?’

  The School Among the Pines

  1

  leopard, lithe and sinewy, drank at the mountain stream, and then lay down on the grass to bask in the lat36February sunshine. Its tail twitched occasionally and the animal appeared to be sleeping. At the sound of distant voices it raised its head to listen, then stood up and leapt lightly over the boulders in the stream, disappearing among the trees on the opposite bank.

  A minute or two later, three children came walking down the forest path. They were a girl and two boys, and they were singing in their local dialect an old song they had learnt from their grandparents.

  Five more miles to go!

  We climb through rain and snow.

  A river to cross…

  A mountain to pass…

  Now we’ve four more miles to go!

  Their school satchels looked new, their clothes had been washed and pressed. Their loud and cheerful singing startled a Spotted Forktail. The bird left its favourite rock in the stream and flew down the dark ravine.

  ‘Well, we have only three more miles to go,’ said the bigger boy, Prakash, who had been this way hundreds of times. ‘But first we have to cross the stream.’

  He was a sturdy twelve-year-old with eyes like raspberries and a mop of bushy hair that refused to settle down on his head. The girl and her small brother were taking this path for the first time.

  ‘I’m feeling tired, Bina,’ said the little boy.

  Bina smiled at him, and Prakash said, ‘Don’t worry, Sonu, you’ll get used to the walk. There’s plenty of time.’ He glanced at the old watch he’d been given by his grandfather. It needed constant winding. ‘We can rest here for five or six minutes.’

  They sat down on a smooth boulder and watched the clear water of the shallow stream tumbling downhill. Bina examined the old watch on Prakash’s wrist. The glass was badly scratched and she could barely make out the figures on the dial. ‘Are you sure it still gives the right time?’ she asked.

  ‘Well, it loses five minutes every day, so I put it ten minutes forward at night. That means by morning it’s quite accurate! Even our teacher, Mr Mani, asks me for the time. If he doesn’t ask, I tell him! The clock in our classroom keeps stopping.’

  They removed their shoes and let the cold mountain water run over their feet. Bina was the same age as Prakash. She had pink cheeks, soft brown eyes, and hair that was just beginning to lose its natural curls. Hers was a gentle face, but a determined little chin showed that she could be a strong person. Sonu, her younger brother, was ten. He was a thin boy who had been sickly as a child but was now beginning to fill out. Although he did not look very athletic, he could run like the wind.

  Bina ha
d been going to school in her own village of Koli, on the other side of the mountain. But it had been a Primary School, finishing at Class Five. Now, in order to study in the Sixth, she would have to walk several miles every day to Nauti, where there was a High School going up to the Eighth. It had been decided that Sonu would also shift to the new school, to give Bina company. Prakash, their neighbour in Koli, was already a pupil at the Nauti school. His mischievous nature, which sometimes got him into trouble, had resulted in his having to repeat a year.

  But this didn’t seem to bother him. ‘What’s the hurry?’ he had told his indignant parents. ‘You’re not sending me to a foreign land when I finish school. And our cows aren’t running away, are they?’

  ‘You would prefer to look after the cows, wouldn’t you?’ asked Bina, as they got up to continue their walk.

  ‘Oh, school’s all right. Wait till you see old Mr Mani. He always gets our names mixed up, as well as the subjects he’s supposed to be teaching. At out last lesson, instead of maths, he gave us a geography lesson!’

  ‘More fun than maths,’ said Bina.

  ‘Yes, but there’s a new teacher this year. She’s very young, they say, just out of college. I wonder what she’ll be like.’

  Bina walked faster and Sonu had some trouble keeping up with them. She was excited about the new school and the prospect of different surroundings. She had seldom been outside her own village, with its small school and single ration shop. The day’s routine never varied – helping her mother in the fields or with household tasks like fetching water from the spring or cutting grass and fodder for the cattle. Her father, who was a soldier, was away for nine months in the year and Sonu was still too small for the heavier tasks.