Tania's Cycling Adventure

KanikaG

Copyright2014byKanikaG

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Tania's Cycling Adventure

It was summer. The month of May wasunbearably hot in Bombay. So everyyear during the worst of thesweltering hot weather, Tania andher parents left the city for aweek long vacation to a hillstation. This year they went toShimla. Shimla is a hill stationin the mighty Himalayan mountainrange.

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Tania and her parents were stayingin a resort with sprawlinggrounds. The area around the hotelwas surrounded by lush green cedarand pine forests. The place wasindeed very picturesque.

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Every morning after breakfast andevery evening after a scrumptioustea, Tania and her parents went

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for walks in the forests. Mamapointed out pretty flowers of manydifferent colours and sizes. Taniawould sometimes spot the flowersbefore mama and cry out "Mama,look there is an orange flower."

During the day there was not muchfor Tania to do. Her parents likedto read, laze, play cards or chat,and that was too boring for theenergetic little four year old.The hotel had a children'sactivity room where Tania hadfound a pretty pink tricycle. Shewanted to ride the tricycle around

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the hotel grounds. Mama thought itwas a good idea and comfortablysettled down to read a book on ashady spot on the lawn. She said"Tania, don't wander off too faraway. You may get lost. Thegrounds are quite big. Stay whereI can see you."

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Tania was merrily cycling up anddown a path in front of the lawnwhere mama sat. She was a fairlygood girl and typically listenedto mama. After a few minutes Tania

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spotted a squirrel. Tania lovedlittle furry animals.

She started riding towards thesquirrel. But as she got close the

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squirrel started running away. Shefollowed as fast as she could,completely forgetting what mamahad said about staying in sight.She saw that the squirrel hadstopped near a large tree at ashort distance. She got off thecycle and slowly approached thesquirrel so as not to startle it.She pulled out a couple of almondsfrom her pocket and stretched outher hand offering the nuts to thesquirrel.

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The squirrel looked at hersuspiciously for a minute. Taniaknew she should not get too closeor the squirrel would run awayagain. Cautiously the squirrelstarted approaching her. Then it

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suddenly darted towards her,grabbed the nut and stepped backagain. It chomped away on the nutkeeping a sharp eye on Tania.Tania waited patiently holding thesecond nut. Slowly the squirrelbegan to trust her. He was lessskittish when he approached herfor the second nut. Tania fed thesquirrel a few more nuts and madefriends with it. She was happy shehad the nuts in her pocket. She hadput them there to snack on duringthe morning walk with her parents.After playing with the squirrelfor sometime, Tania got up to get

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back on her cycle.

It was only then that Taniarealised that she had never seenthis part of the hotel groundsbefore. She was so intent onfollowing the squirrel that shedid not see where she was going."Oh, oh!" she thought, "Now I amlost." She decided to cycle alongthe path for a little while. May beshe would see something familiar.

In the mean time mama was gettingworried. She had not seen Tania ina while. She started looking for

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her but couldn't find her. Thegrounds were huge and mama wasfeeling annoyed with Tania forwandering off. She informed thehotel staff and they sent out a fewpeople in different directions tosearch for her.

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As Tania cycled on she came acrossa fountain. It had a shallow poolof water around it. It was reallyquaint, and Tania walked up to itfor a closer look. She saw a frogin the pool. She was seized with

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the desire to touch the frog, soshe leaned over the edge of thepool and stretched out her hand.But she slipped, lost her balanceand fell in to the pool. Soakingwet and a little bruised, shestarted crying loudly for mama.

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Fortunately one of the hotel staffsearching for Tania heard her cry.He picked her up and took her toomama. Mama was relieved to see

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Tania and she gave her a big hug.Then she noticed that Tania wassoaking wet. She asked her "Whathappened Tania? Where were you,and why are you wet?". Tania toldher everything that had happened.Mama scolded her for wandering offand told her that she could havebeen badly hurt. Tania apologisedand mama hugged her again. Thenshe carried Tania off to the hotelroom to give her a nice warm bath.

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pictureofsquirrelbythefixerpostedat

https://www.flickr.com/photos/fixersphotos/3422383430/

underthefollowinglicense

https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/

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pictureoffrogbySamuelSharpepostedat

https://www.flickr.com/photos/67262490@N04/6187273416/

underthefollowinglicense

https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/

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pictureoffountainbydecar66postedat

https://www.flickr.com/photos/decar66/14529094126/

underthefollowinglicense

https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/

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