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Beauty and the Beast
"Oh look at this, will you? It's unbelievable, but true," Tania sang, as she ran around the wide open mountaintop meadow encircled by lush green pine trees. Sonia pranced behind her, waving a small tree branch she had picked up on the trek and had been using as a hiking stick.
Mama's delighted laugh chimed through the air, as Papa lay flat on his back on the smooth sprawling grass-covered undulating ground, inhaling the cool pine scented mountain air.
Several patches of white daisies danced in the gentle breeze. Brightly colored butterflies with exotic patterns flitted between sporadic flowering bushes, a couple of them engaging in a lively graceful dance.
Panting, Sonia plonked down next to Papa and rested her head on his leg. "Papa, you're bleeding," Sonia gasped, pointing at a spot on his track pants under his knees.
Tania dashed over to see what the commotion was all about. Papa sat up to check his leg, and burst out laughing. "That's not blood, Sonia." He pinched her cheeks. "Come, look closely. What do you see?" Sonia and Tania peered at the red spot.
"It's a ladybug!" They exclaimed in unison.
"What a beautiful deep shade of red it is, just like a drop of fresh blood. It's beautiful." Tania sighed, while Sonia continued to gaze at it mesmerized.
"There are loads of them all over the place," Mama remarked from a few feet away. "Look carefully at the grass, and you'll find that it's teeming with life.
"Bugs, flies, moths, strawberries and whatnot."
"Strawberries!" Sonia smacked her lips.
"Where, where?" Her eyes darted around.
Tania laughed and walked over to where Mama was pointing. She bent down to examine the little red fruit smaller than a cherry seed. "This is a strawberry?" Her eyebrows furrowed in confusion.
"It's so tiny," Sonia squealed. "Are you sure it's a strawberry?" She frowned, skeptically.
"Yes," Mama smiled. "It's a wild strawberry. Fruits in the wild are usually much smaller than we see in our markets. It takes years of cultivation and seed selection to get the large fruits we buy."
"Are these poisonous?" Tania asked, looking warily at a strawberry she had plucked.
"No," Papa clapped her back and bit into one he had picked.
"Yay! So we can eat them." Sonia's eyes sparkled as she bit into one, but then her nose scrunched up in disgust. "Pooh, these are tasteless," she spat.
"They're wild," Mama shrugged.
Tania, on the verge of popping a strawberry into her mouth, stopped. "Never mind. I think I'll stick to cultivated strawberries from Mahabaleshwar and let these decorate the hillside.
- License: Private Label Rights
- Category:Ebooks
- Tags:2023 Ebooks Private Label Rights