Fantastic Friends

• Sri Darshna Deepak Nagapandian , Grade 4
• Short Story
• 2020

“Wow! Clean fresh air, Rivers better than bottled water, Houses with solar panels, Rainwater harvesting drains, Roads made from recycled plastics, Second-hand toy shops, Gold coins for recycling”-Yes, Sustainable Suburb was the dream of the two optimistic best friends in the universe named Illa and Crystal. Crystal was a smart and intelligent girl who is good at planning creative ideas. Illa was an ardent speaker who had the goals of becoming a journalist and she believed that she was talented in communicating the ideas. The girls clubbed their skills together to give life to their sustainable suburb dream. They kick started the process with the idea of purifying the air by increasing the number of native plants in their suburb.
Crystal came up with the plan of buying some seeds and plants from the local nurseries. She used the money from her savings in the Dolphin bank. Illa supported Crystals’ idea and loved to contribute her savings too for the good cause. They bought the native plants and seeds and distributed to all the houses in the suburb. Unfortunately, the plan didn’t work as the people didn’t bother to take their time to plant or sow the seeds in their busy life. It was time for plan B! Crystal suggested that they could spread the idea of growing more plants through a song. Illa was overjoyed with the idea and wrote the song which read,
“More plants More trees
More plants More Trees…La di la di la….
La di la di la.. for clean air,air..ir..ir…”
and sent it through the Whatsapp..When the girls were expecting the song to be a hit, the people on the other hand found it to be less interesting and almost ignored it. Plan B was a big floppy flop! The two besties carefully thought of a plan C to drop their idea to each household in the suburb. This time they decided to create an animation with the help of a slow-motion app! Finally, the animation worked! Phew!
The people in the suburb recognised and appreciated the tremendous efforts made by the girls to increase the number of plants in each household. In the spotlight, Illa took the opportunity to highlight the importance of having sustainable practice for pollution free life. The two fantastic girls brought the whole suburb together by their awesome teamwork. They all celebrated Earth Day together by acknowledging the beauty of nature and promised to protect the beauty by following sustainable practices. The girls saw their dreaming coming true to life!