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The boy saw the interesting book on the highest shelf. For a moment, he paused
and stared at it intently. Suddenly, without any warning, he began to grab the
top shelves with his bare hands and instinctively swung his feet up. Like an
agile monkey, he climbed effortlessly up the top shelf in order to get the book,
all the while making strange hums, like an aeroplane. Everyone gasped in horror
at the precarious position the boy was in. The metal shelves had leaned
dangerously on one side and they were vibrating with great gusto. Then, as he
reached out to the book, completely oblivious to the anxious faces below him, a
sudden movement across the window caught his attention. Book quite forgotten, he
turned around just in time to see a kingfisher perching by the branch outside
the library.
The boy gave a long squeal of delight and promptly jumped down to the ground
like a seasoned stuntman and rushed to the window to take a look. Had the window
not been locked, he would have opened it and made his way on the ledge and to
the branch hoping to be nearerthe kingfisher.
However, he could not do this and this irked him beyond words. His eyes
watered and he started to wail.
"That naughty boy," grumbled one.
"Annoying brat!" snorted another.
"Don't ever let me see you behaving like him," muttered a mother to her son
who was seen nodding away solemnly, rather taken aback by the boy's apparent
show of bravado.
The words, said in audible whispers, shot through a lady's heart, apparently
the boy's mother. She kept her eyes trained to the ground as she hurried to the
window where her son was crying his eyes out.
Gently, she held the boy's hands.
Frowns appeared on the others' faces.
Softly, she spoke to the boy.
An exchange of angry whispers could be heard.
"If I were her, I would definitely slap the boy..." a fragment of a sentence
wafted through the air and was caught by her ears. Still, she acted as if
nothing happened.
The lady reached for her handbag and out came a bottle of water and a bottle
of pills. She calmed the boy and gave him the medication. The boy picked the
blue candy-like thing and popped it into his mouth. With the help of some swigs
of water, he washed it down his throat. A few minutes later, he looked at his
mother cheerfully and they left the library silently. There was no more noise or
disruptions from the boy.
Things had gone back to normal, but not for the lady. She shook her head
sadly muttering to herself, "They just cannot understand..." |
