It is summer and holidays are here!

What do I do?

Should I read a book?

Or help mummy to cook?

Or should I chase the butterflies

That circle round the flowering nook?

I think and think and think

Till mummy calls out, “Radha, come here quick!

“Pack your bags. It is time to visit Nani for a week,

Who lives far away in the white, snowy hills!”

I do somersaults all across the floor

And dance to a song I hear on the radio!

For I can’t wait to see my Nani

And gallop away with Raju, her brown pony.

I neatly pack my sweater, hat, and gloves

A painting I made for Nani with lots of love!

Our long train chugs along the tracks

Coooooo chhuk chhuk chhuk…

It sings as it passes a brook.

My Nani waits by the door of her house

That has blue windows and green walls.

“Sweet Nani! It is so good to see you!

For all of this week, what shall we do?”

“Dear Radha, do not worry about this week.

It will be as colourful as the rainbow, you shall see!

On Sunday by the violet tulips we sit.

On Monday we knit an indigo scarf and mitts.

On Tuesday we dip our feet in blue waters, so clean.

On Wednesday we walk under pine trees, so green.

On Thursday I ride Raju by yellow mustard fields.

On Friday we see the orange sun set by the hills.

On Saturday we dry red chillies on the floor.

It’s Sunday again and time to go back home.

“My sweet Radha, I shall miss you once you board your train.

But next summer, we shall meet again!”

“Sweet Nani! What a colourful week we have spent!

This summer holiday with you, I shall never forget!

Vaishali Shroff is a freelance writer, editor, columnist, and runs a reading club (www.eikthirani.wordpress.com) for children in Pune. Her work has been published in over 10 titles of the Chicken Soup India Series, her children’s stories can be read at smories (http://www.smories.com/author/vaishali-shroff/) and she can’t wait for her first children’s book to be out.

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