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Bakil
kicked the ball high into the air. It soared through the sky and fell to
the ground, landing in a date palm. He laughed and danced around, waving
his arms high above his head. He’d never kicked the ball that high before
and felt very proud.
Bakil
loved to play ball. As soon as he got home from school, he’d go to his
room and get his black and white ball. He’d take it outside and practice
kicking it, trying to make it go as high as it could fly. Sometimes it
went high up in the air, other times he kicked it the wrong way and it
flew into his mother’s flower garden. He tried not to do that.
He went
over to the date palm and shook the trunk. His ball was stuck. It was
wedged between several clusters of orangish-brown dates. How was he going
to get the ball down? He shook the tree again but it didn’t move. He
picked up a few large stones and threw them at the ball, but his aim
wasn’t very good and the stones hit the trunk before falling to the
ground.
Bakil had
an idea. He decided he would climb the tree. He’d seen others do it before
and it didn’t look that hard. Even though date palm’s had jagged, rough
trunks, he knew if he was careful, he’d not get hurt. So he wrapped his
legs around it and started to climb. He climbed higher and higher up the
trunk. His arms were covered with scratches and pieces of the bark got
into his shirt, making him itch, but he kept on climbing. Soon he was at
the top. The leaves were long and kept poking into his face. He looked
down to the ground. He suddenly felt very scared. He was much higher up
than he had wanted to be. He held onto the trunk tightly, scared to move.
He didn’t care about getting his ball anymore. He just wanted to get down.
He stayed still for several minutes and then looked up
at his ball. It was not that far out of his reach. If he could just move
those dates, it would fall to the ground, but he was afraid to move his
arm. He stared at the ball and then looked down at the ground. He took a
few deep breaths and slowly let go of the tree trunk with one of his arms.
He tightened his legs around it and held on with the other arm. He started
wiggling the date clusters back and forth. Several dates fell, plonking
him on the head. A couple fell right down inside his shirt, along with the
bits of bark. He kept wiggling the dates and finally his ball came loose.
It fell down to the ground.
Bakil was
relieved. Now, all he had to do was get back down. He started sliding
down, ever so slowly, holding on tight as he slid his body towards the
ground. After several scary minutes, he stood on the grass. He pulled the
bottom of his shirt out of his pants and shook it. The bark and the dates
fell to the ground. He picked the dates up and started eating them.
Feeling
very proud, he breathed a sigh and picked up his ball. He was just about
to kick it, and then remembered the tree. From then on, when Bakil wanted
to kick his ball, he made sure it was far away from the date palm. He
never wanted to have to climb it again. |
