8. Summary of the lesson

This story is about a school trip to Ooty, explained by a 6th standard girl called Merlin, to her friend Malli, through a friendly letter. They started from Coimbatore and took the toy train to Ooty. Since it was her first time, Merlin was very much excited. She had reserved a place for her friend Fatima, near her seat. The train snaked along slowly in the steep hillside. The scenery outside was beautiful and looked like a movie sequence. They spotted monkeys along the tracks. Suddenly the train jerked to a halt. Muthu, one of the naughty boys of the class, made his way to the door, while slowly others also started getting down from the compartment. They saw a cute baby elephant, sitting on the tracks. The engine driver tried to coax it off the track, but could not. Muthu went ahead with a bunch of bananas and tricked it by moving it away every time the baby elephant neared it. Thus, he brought the elephant out of the track easily. All of them clapped, and the train started again, after a delay of half an hour. They felt so lucky to have spotted elephants. They realized the difference between a normal train and a toy train - they could enjoy the beautiful scenery outside, only when the train moved slower. They had a wonderful trip, and the whole group kept talking about it, all the time.