The school bell had rung and it was time for all the children to go home. The children hurriedly packed their bags as the teacher said with a smile” Time to go home safely”. Lots of children came to the school from far off distances and it was a quite a task for many of them to reach back home on time.

As the gates opened the children in the little village in tamilnadu, selvi and her friends made a group of five before they could head back home. The school was 6kms away from her house and it was a walk selvi and her friends did everyday to reach school.

As her parents were uneducated and worked at the tea plantations faraway, they knew to get a better life one required to study and do well in professional life. They always wanted selvi to study and be able to look after herself well in life, hopefully with a good job and sound education.

There was however one stretch that ran close to the jungle border and there was the possibility of a wild animal coming in front of the little girls. Yet selvi and her friends had always decided to be brave and use presence of mind to save each other from any untoward incident.

It was an everyday game, each girl would pick three to five sticks from the road, and keep herself guarded as long as they were crossing the interior jungle stretch. Soon when they came closer to the village, they would put the sticks to one side together and go back home.

This evening, a long snake came in front of the girls. The five girls panicked and were thinking whether they should hit the snake or run from there. Selvi immediately whispered to others. “Stand still, do not panic or hit it. It will not harm us.” Two girls started crying out of fear. The snake hissed and left on a different route. All of them hugged selvi and said, “We must run home”.

Soon they reached home and within a few minutes selvi’s parents came from work after a long day. As her mother was getting about household chores, selvi told her mom and dad about the unpleasant encounter in the evening. Her father patted her for being brave and said that it is the right thing that the children didn’t provoke the animal unnecessarily.

Selvi went off to sleep after dinner and waited for the morning to come by. After all she had a story to share with her teacher and other classmates, “The 5 brave girls.”