after him as he walked away. Where the road turned, he looked back and waved to her. Then he quickened his steps and moved briskly towards the bus stop. There was sprightliness in his step, and something cried aloud in his heart. Dark dancing eyes, melon sweet lips, lissome limbs…. The mango scented summer breeze made the blood course in his veins, and he forgot, for a moment, that he couldn’t climb trees any more….

About the author	Ruskin Bond was born in Kasauli, Himachal Pradesh, in 1934. He wrote a number of short stories, essays, novels, and many books for children. The Room on the Roof was his first novel, written when he was seventeen. It received the John Llewellyn Rhys Memorial Prize in 1957. In 1992, he received the Sahitya Akademi Award for his short story collection, Our Trees Still Grow in Dehra, given by the Sahitya Akademi, India's National Academy of Literature. He was awarded the Padma Shri in 1999 for contributions to children's literature

turnstile (n) : a mechanical gate consisting of revolving horizontal arms fixed to a vertical post, allowing only one person at a time to pass through
dizzy (adj) : having a sensation of spinning around and losing one’s balance
hollyhock (n) : a tall garden plant with large showy flowers
disembodied (adj) : (of a sound) lacking any obvious physical source
trapeze (n) : a swing used by circus acrobats
bougainvillaea (n) : an ornamental shrubby climbing plant widely cultivated in the
tropics, with bright coloured flowers
budgerigar (n) : a small bird belonging to the parrot family
eddy (n) : (pl. eddies) a circular movement of dust (here)
sprightliness (n) : liveliness and energy in action
lissome (adj) : slim; graceful SCERT
course (v) : (of liquid) flow