[Vibo4Kids]A Helping Hand

A Helping Hand

Author: Payal Dhar

Illustrator: Vartika Sharma

Dear… well, you know who you are.

And it’s not like you’re ever going to see this letter.

Miss told me that I had to be your mentor and show you around because you are a new student.

I didn’t know what a ‘mentor’ is, so I looked it up in the dictionary.

Anyway, she didn’t tell me anything about that .

Ali and Gaurav and Sumi and Rani, they kept asking me about it when we were going home from school.

I told them that I didn’t know what they were talking about, but that’s not true.

How can I not know?

See, you made me lie to my friends.

Yours sincerely, Me

Hi again, Ma says that it is not good to stare at people, but I can see that everyone stares at you.

They stare at me too because I have to hang around with you and be your ‘mentor’.

Why did you come to our school?

Why couldn’t you continue going to whatever school you went to earlier?

Do you know what happened yesterday?

Gaurav, Ali and two of their friends from Class VII cornered me after school to ask about you-know-what.

They took my bag and wouldn’t give it back.

Then they threw it into the thicket by the side of the road and I had to scramble down into the mountainside to get it.

I tore my shirt and Ma was angry with me.

This is all your fault.

Me

Hello, I keep telling them that they can ask you whatever they want to know.

What’s the point of asking me?

How am I supposed to know why you have that thing or how it works?

To be really honest, I can’t say I’m not curious myself or that I don’t have the same questions the others are asking me.

Yes, I noticed it the first day when you came into the classroom.

I saw how you did everything with one hand and how your left hand never moved.

At first I couldn’t tell what the problem was.

Then, when I came closer, I saw that something wasn’t quite right.

It looked weird, like it was covered in plastic or something.

Then I thought it was a toy hand.

It took me some time to understand.

Also, I saw what happened at lunch.

See you, Me

Hello, My oldest sister, the one who’s studying engineering in Delhi, called today.

I told her, “There’s a girl in my class and she has a fake hand,” and she said that the term is “prosthetic hand”.

Listen, I have some advice for you.

You may be new and all, but if you want people to stop staring at you and talking about you, you have to stop standing in the corner all the time.

Why don’t you play with us?

Why don’t you come on the swing?

Everyone loves the swing.

It’s been two weeks, and you can jolly well come by yourself.

I am not going to be your minder for ever.

Sometimes I don’t know what to say to you.

Me

Hi again, After the lunch incident that day, I’ve been watching you.

I’m just curious.

Is it weird to have one hand?

Is it only your hand or is your entire arm fake, sorry, prosthetic?

Today, Sumi, Gaurav and I walked to school together.

They were playing a game they made up called One-Hand Challenge.

The rule is, you have to do things with one hand.

Like, packing your bag or buttoning your shirt.

Sumi couldn’t tie her shoelaces and she forgot about it and tripped and fell.

She got a cut on her chin.

Miss saw it and, even though she put some antiseptic cream on it, she scolded Sumi for being careless.

“You can’t run around in the mountains with your shoelaces untied.

What will happen if you fall while going home or something?”

I think adults worry too much.

Yours truly, Me

Hi, Do you know what a coincidence is?

It’s like when you talk about something and the same thing happens sometime later in a completely unrelated way.

In my last letter, I was telling you about Sumi and the shoelaces, and then, today, I saw you tying your shoelaces.

Wow, that was awesome!

I think you did it faster than I can do it with two hands.

If you were my friend, I would challenge you to a shoelace-tying race.

Or no, maybe I would ask you to teach me how to do it with one hand.

I have to confess, I did try to tie my shoelace with one hand when I got home.

But it’s impossible.

How do you do it?

Maybe I’ll ask you tomorrow.

Curious, Me

Hi, So, after what you said, I’ve tried to do a lot of things with only one hand, but it’s so difficult!

I still don’t get how you do it, like having a bath, wearing your clothes, packing your bag.

Since that day at lunch, I did realize that you have to do some things differently, but it’s not like you don’t do almost everything the rest of us do.

Listen, I’m sorry about what I said earlier... about playing with us.

I guess you were just feeling shy.

And also about coming on the swing.

I tried and it’s hard to get your balance if you don’t hold it with two hands.

But you’re great in the jungle gym, even if you don’t hang from the bars, and you can run really fast, even faster than Ali, who won the first prize at Sports Day.

Bye, Me

Hello!

That movie wa...

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