Page 130 - Lavender-B-7

he stood there, trembling with fear, for nearly twenty minutes,

till his uncle arrived. Mama (uncle) took him by the scruff of Can you guess Just a Minute!
his neck and hauled him off home. what Dashu did? Get
into groups of five and
‘Standing there in the middle of the road, looking like a clown!’ make your guesses.
Mama thundered.

Nabinchand could only squeak in fear, ‘What could I do? Those dacoits…’

‘Keep quiet! Stop your nonsense!’

Nabinchand saw there was no point in arguing. No one at home was going to believe
that dacoits had attacked him. So he kept the story to himself, till now, when he had
reached school.

After telling everyone at school the story, things looked up for him. Because more than
half the boys in the school listened to him spellbound and examined each and every boil,
pustule, scratch on his body, pronouncing them to be
the results of the dacoits’ attack. A few suspected that scruff: roughly holding the back of a
the scratch on his elbow was an old one, but even they person’s neck

had to agree that the wound on his knee was lividly hauled: pulled with a lot of effort
kept the story to himself: did not share
fresh. But what about that little mark on his ankle? information with anyone
Keshta took one look at it and said, ‘Looks like things looked up: things appear to be
improving
a shoebite.’ spellbound: very impressed and not
noticing anything else as though by
Nabinchand got very angry and shouted, ‘Scram all of magic
lividly: having a discolored, bluish
you, I will not tell you of my adventure.’ appearance
scram: to go away quickly

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