Tale of Gingerbread men

ONCE upon a time there lived four children called Vinolia, Kathy, Bharathy and Akhilan. One day while they were playing, the ball rolled into a deep ditch. Kathy went to fetch it. When she stooped to pick the ball up she saw something. It looked like an arm of a chair. She called out to her friends who soon hauled it up. They found that it was big enough to seat all of them at the same time. They sat on it and started chatting happily. "Hmmm.... Sad! Christmas is over." "To think of all the gingerbread I have eaten. I wish we could go to a land of Gingerbread men," said Kathy. At once the legs of the chair grew wings and they were in the air. "Where are we going?" cried Vinolia. "How should we know?" retorted the rest.

Soon they landed. It seemed a strange land somehow. "Where have we come?" cried Akhilan. "Hey, look," said Bharathy throwing a friendly arm over his shoulder. "These look like marshmallows." She pinched a little and popped it into her mouth. It melted. "Mmmm... delicious," she said closing her dreamy eyes. To their surprise everything they saw in that land was edible. But, no one seemed to be happy. An old man passed by. They stopped him and asked, "Why do you all look so unhappy?" He pointed at something behind him and with a frightened glance said, "It is because of him." The children looked over his shoulder and cried out in unison, "Wwhhaat! Gingerbread man!" "Shhhh! Not so loud," he cautioned. "Many years ago at Christmas time mothers were baking goodies at their homes, when some gingerbread men came alive! They broke into each house and made us their slaves." Suddenly the old man scurried away as if he had seen a ghost. The children wanted to look what it was and came out, when a gingerbread man caught them and put them in a dungeon. "The prison bars sure look very strange," muttered Bharathy. "These are made of candy sticks," cried Kathy excitedly. The four started eating the bars. Soon they were free.

They then caught all the gingerbread men, who turned into pieces of delicacy.

BHARATHY SINGARAVEL,VI,

Abacus Montessori School.

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