By Maria Hyder

ASAD and his friends went regularly to a park to play cricket. Asad, being a good player, was often chosen as the captain for his team and always made the right choice of players. The kids played very good shots but sometimes the ball went into Mr Azhar’s house, which unfortunately was next to the park.

That day, the ball went there five times and each time they got a scolding. It was time for Asad to bat. As he played a shot, the ball accidently went straight towards the second floor and — crack — the window broke as the ball hit it with a big sound.

After a moment, Azhar Uncle, as the boys called him, looked out of the window and then came running out of the house, extremely angry. He shouted at them for ten minutes going red in the face.

“How many times have I told you not to play here! You will not get your ball back now, do you hear?” he screamed.

The boys went away sadly, looking for another place to play. But as they didn’t have another ball, each boy took off towards his home. When Asad reached his house, his father came to the door with an angry look and beckoned him inside because Mr Azhar had already called his father and told him of the incident.

Asad got scolded by his father too. ‘How nice,’ thought Asad, ‘First got a telling off by Azhar Uncle and now dad.’

For Asad, it was definitely not a good day. And to talk about luck, he was grounded for a week by his father. On top of that his pocket money that he had been saving for a new game was to be spent on buying a new window for Mr Azhar.

Hearing of this, Asad’s friends gathered at his house the next day, consoling him for being grounded and losing his pocket money.

Hasan, Asad’s best friend, said, “Let’s go to Asad’s father and all of us will apologise to him and promise him that we will play on the other side of the park now, even though the ground is uneven there. At least we won’t be breaking any windows as there are no houses on that side.”

So all the boys went to Asad’s dad, apologised and promised that they will not play near Azhar Uncle’s house. They also requested him to allow Asad to play and take back the punishment of being grounded.

Seeing that the boys were very earnest and sorry, Asad’s father allowed him to go out with his friends with a warning not to misbehave and that they had to be more responsible and caring towards others in the future.

The boys had learnt a good lesson that day of being more careful and considerate towards others.