Written by Flavia
I had planned to read out this story by A.H. Benjamin, about a mouse, to a class of 5th Std. students at the Govt. School at Kudchire, Goa. The picturesque village of Kudchire lies 8 kms. from Bicholim city, the capital of that taluka. The city lies around 35 kms. from the Bookworm office at Taleigao, Goa. So every Saturday, most of the team plans the journey in advance and leaves the office by 9.20 am, in order to reach the school by 10.45 am, in time for the first session at 11.00 am.
One Saturday morning, since our designated drivers were not available, we had a taxi-driver from Taleigao to drive the Bookworm van to school and back. At 9.30 am, this man calls and says he could not make it because of some personal reasons. It took a while for the enormity of the situation to settle in. It could have been worse – only Malcolm had to make the journey from the office – the other 3 were scheduled to join en route. Also, Niju’s bike was available. And, we had a stationery box at the school, so we did not need to carry all the stationery from the office.
Melcolm called me (in Aldona, en route to school) as he left the office, loaded with supplies, requesting me to hire a taxi from here to the school – from this point on, the team would consist of 4 members. Shraddha met Malcolm en route to Aldona and they both met me at my house, where the taxi and I were waiting. At this point, we found that the 4th member of the team had got tired of waiting for us and was not at the meeting point. There was no way to contact her since she had lost her phone. It was just 3 people who had to conduct 5 sessions, 3 of which were parallel. As we drove towards the school, we shared our lesson plans, so that Shraddha, the newest LiS member, would conduct the session with the smallest class. We reached the school at 11.30 am – we had missed half our first 2 sessions.
It could have been worse – when we reached the school, we were informed that 2 of the classes in which we were scheduled to conduct sessions had gone on a picnic. Shraddha was happy that she would not have to conduct her LiS session alone. I was able to take one hour with Std. 5, since their Hindi teacher was absent (the class after our session).
It was an appropriate story for me that day. The adventures of the mouse seemed to match those of the LiS team. Fortunately for us, no one was injured, unlike the mouse.
