Flipped: School Stories / Sports Stories

By Harper Children's

The Flipped Anthology series gives you two themes, two covers and two sides to open the book from ... and you get to choose! Now you don't need to keep a book away if you don't like a story or a theme, you only need to flip the book over and start reading again! The third book in the Flipped series is a collection of Sports and School stories.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Harper Children's
• Release date: May 6, 2020
• ISBN: 9789353579258

Book preview

CHRONICLES OF GOODMORNING

Valentina Trivedi

‘Good morning, Ma’am …’

‘Good morning …’

‘Good morning …’

The school corridors resounded with the greeting in varied voices as teachers, students and working staff briskly went about attending to their respective duties.

‘Good morning!’

‘Good morning!!’

‘Good morniiiing!!!’

Frantic cries in hushed squeaky tones resounded in a much lower volume in the space behind the wooden cupboard in the KG 1 classroom of Blossoms Academy. An observant human would have spotted the quivering whiskers peeping out from behind the glass and wood cupboard, but then humans are seldom so observant.

The classroom was situated in an old building and all the members of the mouse colony living in the empty space behind the wall knew that ‘good morning’ was an alarm call. Every morning as the humans came marching in calling out ‘good morning’, they had to make a hasty exit from the human infested areas. The humans had given the mice the perfect warning system to know when to hide themselves. But ever since this new litter had become old enough to venture out, there had been trouble.

The small curious mouse, who was the runt of the litter, seemed oblivious to the humans’ warning call and would often still be poking around behind desks or running around chairs, when everyone else was running back home. They had to frantically call out ‘Good morning … Good morning’ to him several times before he realized what he was supposed to do; which is why he came to be called Goodmorning.

The schedule of the mice was simple. After the ‘Good morning’ alarm call, they would run back and sleep till the school fell silent, when they emerged to retrieve the fallen crumbs. This raid had to be executed at the right time, that is, after the students left and before the sweeper came and swept up all the fallen crumbs. The post meal siesta continued till nightfall when they woke up to run around in the semi-darkened classroom. They didn’t need much and what they found was just enough for the survival of their ever-growing tribe. The younger mice learnt automatically from the older ones and the whole operation had continued smoothly since the great cat attack of 2015. But Goodmorning was different. Ever since he had opened his eyes for the first time, he was bubbling with curiosity. Nothing was too insignificant or too useless for him to not be interested in. One day, while running across the room, he went skidding on a piece of chalk and was fascinated with the mark it left on the floor.

‘Look, Ma!’ he said excitedly, rubbing it on the floor once back home.

‘This isn’t food!’ wailed his mother exasperatedly.

‘Why must we only bring food?’

‘Because our motto is Find food.’

‘But there are so many other fascinating things out there too.’

The conversation went along similar lines every day. Contrary to everyone’s expectations, holding him back only made Goodmorning’s curiosity grow.

The mice had a code of conduct and by his irresponsible behaviour, Goodmorning was causing a lot of concern in the colony. His siblings were embarrassed, his mother was exasperated and the senior members of the colony were worried. He showed scant regard for the universal motto of mice, which was ‘Find food’.

One evening, when the classroom had been locked up for the night, a meeting was called. Grandpa, who was the oldest and wisest among them, cleared his throat and spoke up, ‘We have been living here for a long time; living by our motto.’ Here he paused expectantly as everyone shouted ‘Find food!’ Looking pleased, he continued, ‘I remember when the great flood happened and hundreds of our family drowned. I was …’

That’s the trouble with Grandpa, thought Goodmorning. He remembers too much. What is that in the corner. Must get it before leav …

‘Goodmorning’s ...’ Goodmorning was startled to hear his name and turned his attention to Grandpa now. ‘… behaviour is incorrigible and inexcusable.’ At this point Goodmorning was tempted to roll his eyes. Grandpa’s propensity for using foreign words was well-known. Who knows what it meant!

‘It is putting our lives in danger!’

‘What?!?’ I couldn’t have heard right, thought Goodmorning as all the others gasped.

‘With each moment’s delay in leaving the human infested areas, the danger of being spotted goes up manifold,’ said Grandpa in an ominous voice. ‘And you know what that means!’ he continued, raising his quivering whiskers towards the ceiling. ‘The humans’ cruelty will not end with spotting and catching Goodmorning. They will know of the existence of our colony and will not stop till they exterminate all of us.’ This was a word everyone understood.

It was unani‘mouse’ly decided that Goodmorning was not to go crumb gathering any more. He had to stay in the colony and ensure all the younger mice got enough to eat. With ever-growing numbers, mothers found it difficult to keep track of all their young ones.

While discharging his new duties, Goodmorning enthusiastically told the youngsters about the strange and wonderful things in the outside world. They would listen with wide-eyed fascination but when the time came for them to start going to gather food, they would return with only that: food.

A disillusioned and disappointed Goodmorning started going on solitary jaunts along the pipes, pondering on why the others couldn’t feel excited about things other than food. The frustration of not being understood by his family propelled him to go further and further along the interconnected pipes. One day as he was making his way along a pipe, he got a whiff of a familiar foody smell. Could it be another source of food? He immediately changed direction and followed his nose. It was emanating from a crack at a junction where two pipes met at right angles. He peered into a classroom which, had he been a human he would have known, was a science lab.

‘Who has left the Kipps Apparatus on again?!’ yelled the teacher.

A ripple of suppressed laughter ran through the class as a student got up and walked slowly to a tall glass apparatus to turn off the tap that was giving off Hydrogen Sulphide gas, which smelt like rotten eggs.

Peering down from a vantage point, a pair of keen eyes were observing this. The smell soon dissipated but Goodmorning was fascinated by what was going on in this room. It was different from the one they went to collect food in. For one, the humans looked bigger. And yet, surprisingly, they were not making as much noise. The shrill noise of speaking, singing, chattering etc., was missing here. These humans were acting very strangely. They were pouring, collecting and adding things to glass objects of various shapes and sizes. The room itself seemed very strange to Goodmorning. It had large tables and glass and wooden cupboards which contained all kinds of peculiar objects which he had never seen before. Goodmorning stood rooted to the spot, his whiskers quivering. The sudden shrill ringing of the bell startled him. The humans below started putting away things as the teacher called out, ‘Be careful. Don’t drop anything.’

Clearly this is where the humans kept their most precious things, thought Goodmorning as he scurried back.

Goodmorning now changed his morning schedule so that instead of sleeping like the mice, he was awake like the humans. This was his secret uninterrupted time of observing the magical world of humans playing with precious things. He had widened the crack by clawing away at some of the plaster for a wider view. Every day the humans would do something different: pouring, mixing, measuring, shaking liquids and powders, which would bubble, hiss and change colour; make different smells or different sounds with metal pieces of different shapes or make lights of all colours with little glass pieces.

There was magic all around! His curious eyes would be darting here and there so as to not miss anything. It was both exhilarating and exhausting. And when he slept, his excited brain conjured up all kinds of kaleidoscopic dreams.

One day he was excited to see them playing with some shiny balls hanging from cords. One of the students pulled the ball in one direction and then left it so that it came back to hit the others, causing the one at the other end to swing out. Goodmorning was fascinated by the balls and yearned to do this. That morning he made a bold and scary decision. He was going to come back when the others were asleep. The science lab was at one corner of the building. It was the first one to be swept and locked when the students left for the day. That day, after eating the gathered crumbs and attending to his wards, he waited for everyone to fall asleep and then trotted back. He easily squeezed himself into the room and leapt at the electric wiring that ran along the walls of the room. His heart beating madly, he ran along the wire and covered the length of the room. From there he leapt off on top of a glass cabinet and froze! There, in the cabinet across from it, was a snake! It was suspended in a yellowish liquid in a glass jar and it was a few seconds before Goodmorning realized it was dead and got his breath back. His eyes widened in horror as he saw other creatures in similar jars. This was scary. What had the humans done to them?! A part of his brain said ‘Run!’ but that tiny voice was lost in the fog of curiosity, which propelled him to go on. He looked around. There were just too many things here. How would he ever be able to play with all of them? Then his perked-up ears relaxed. He could come back here every day!

From then on, Goodmorning led a secret double life, coming to the magic room twice a day: once to watch and the second time to explore. Before the excitement of scampering around the magic room could wear off, Goodmorning made the delightful discovery of small holes in the wooden back of each cupboard. These were probably made to insert wires to light up the inside of the cupboards but had never been used. Now he could enter the cupboards with ease and play with the shiny balls and explore other precious things. He was rarely missed as both were the time of the day when the mice slept. In fact, the older mice were relieved that he was not creating or getting into any trouble. It is so easy to fool adults, he thought. Just pretend to be like them.

One day, when the teacher had to go out of the room for some work, one of the students called out to her friends to come and see what she was doing on the sunny window sill. Goodmorning craned his neck and saw her holding the black handle of one of the small framed glass discs, over a piece of paper. Within seconds the paper caught fire! Goodmorning gasped and trotted back marvelling at the humans’ amazing abilities.

Time has a