The school busses sped past the acres of paddy fields, tea gardens, green meadows and pine forests and reached the Nuwara-Eliya town at eight-thirty am precisely just like the staff had scheduled. They arrived at Hakgala botanical gardens and teachers lined up the children before they entered through the main entrance. The children were astonished to see all the beautiful flowers that had blossomed inside the garden.
"The main sections of the garden are the rock garden, water garden, fern garden, Japanese garden and the seed room." Miss. Woods gave them a simple description of the gardens as they walked further inside. "Hakgala gardens are famous for the roses and orchids."
The flowers of Hakgala seemed to vie for the children's attention; reds, blues, purples, oranges and yellows, their names too many to remember as they stood to attention in well-formed squads. At Hakgala, trees made art. Huge trees and tree-scapes appeared to abound in the garden with their ancient knotted and twisted trunks. The teachers guided the children through the winding pathways to the rock garden and the water garden where lilies and lotuses had bloomed over the water. The tall tree ferns shaded the giant ground ferns at the fern garden. A network of small creeks, complete with wooden bridges, was seen throughout the garden, creating a magical atmosphere for the magnificent rose garden.
"This place is so beautiful!" Thasneem said with admiration as they set down on the grassy area to have their breakfast. "I never wanna leave these beautiful gardens!"
"Seems like our little Thasneem here is planning to live in these enchanting gardens forever." Miss Jayanthi Weerasekara, a teacher at the Silver Stars said with amusement.
"Yes, Ma'am," Thasneem said with twinkling dark eyes. "I'd live here if my Mama, Dada and Maryam stayed here with me."
"Aw... that's so cute of you!" Miss. Weerasekara said with fondness and shuffled her thick dark hair affectionately. "I'm afraid, the harsh watchman standing over there wouldn't be generous enough to let you settle down here though. He'd probably ask your sweet family to leave at the closing time in the evening." The children who had sat around the teacher giggled at her statement and started to open their lunch boxes.
"Ma'am!" Maryam called as she opened her lunch box and saw her favourite pancakes with butter and maple syrup. "My Mama asked us to share our food and snacks with our friend Mu'az. He's with the boys over there! Shall I go and ask him to come and sit with us here?"
"No, my dear girl, not this time." Miss. Weerasekara said with a kind smile. "It is a good habit to share with your friends. But it isn't safe for you to wander here and there away from us during the tour because you might get lost in the unusual places we tour."
"Okay," Maryam said disappointedly, but still she couldn't enjoy her favourite meal without sharing it with her best friend Mu'az, because she knew that he loved pancakes with butter and syrup as much as she does; they both had a lot in common indeed.
"Maryam!" Thasneem called her, rather in a hushed voice, noticing the disappointed look on her face. "Let's keep a pancake in each of our lunch boxes. We can give it to him with the chocolates and cookies when we meet up with him later."
"Are you sure that we'll get to meet him?" Maryam asked with hesitation.
"Yes," Thasneem said as she took a bit of her delicious pancake. "He is just over there. We can go and talk to him if we wanted to"
"But the teacher says..." Maryam's voice trailed off as she remembered that the teacher was sitting close to them.
"We might get to give him his shares of snacks and pancakes," Thasneem assured her, forgetting to hush this time and Miss Weerasekara's attention turned towards her once again. "Thasneem, dear!" She said with a kind look. "I hope that you wouldn't go anywhere without telling the teachers."
"I wouldn't, Ma'am." She ensured her with a charming smile.
"Hasten up, children!" Miss Woods hurried the girls when they had finished having their meals. "It's nine thirty-five now. We need to get to St. Claire's Major falls at ten am if we want to keep up with our trip schedule. Line up quickly and follow Miss Harrison towards the exit. The boys are already in their bus now." The children couldn't quite understand how the 'time' worked; it often confused them. It felt like it had been only a moment since they arrived at the gardens, but they had to leave already.
"Can't we stay here for a little longer, Ma'am?" Dheepa asked longingly.
"No, dear." Miss Woods said with a small smile. "I'd love to roam in these beautiful gardens for a little longer too. But I'm afraid, we won't get enough time to visit other places if we spent too much time in here."
"Ohh..." Little Amali said disappointedly.
"I'm sure that you'd love to see the other places we've planned to visit too!" Miss. Harrison said, trying to cheer up the little girls who certainly wanted to spend some more time in the gardens.
After a moment, the children stood in a line and followed Miss Harrison towards the bus while Miss Woods and Miss Weerasekara followed them from behind to make sure that every one of them safely reached the bus. The bus had a few extra seats even after all of them got inside. So the teachers had to count all the girls to make sure that all of them were inside. As the bus started to move, the children began to sing their favourite nursery songs and rhymes while clapping their hands along with cheerful smiles and giggles.
They arrived at St. Claire's Major falls on time. The teachers guided the excited girls to the viewing gallery situated on the main road where the boys from Silver Stars already took place near the balustrade, gazing at the stunning, multilevel waterfall, the widest in the country, amid a lush, mountain landscape.
The little girls ran to take place in the viewpoint beside them and the teachers had to rush to keep up with the enthusiastic children.
"Hello! Good morning, little ladies!" Mr James Carter, one of the male teachers at Silver Stars greeted the girls with a radiant smile as they shuffled in the balcony and stood closer to the balustrade with excitement. "St. Claire's falls is one of the widest waterfalls in Sri Lanka and is commonly known as the 'Little Niagara of Sri Lanka'." He gave them a simple description of the waterfall. The young children were astonished to see the majestic waterfall falls between magnificent green hills amid tea plantations in the Hill Country.
"Hey, Neem! Maryam!" They heard a voice calling from behind them and turned to see Mu'az trying to make his way towards both of them through the crowd of excited children.
"Mu'aaaz!!" Both girls said together with a cheerful grin on their faces and hurried to join him, leaving their spot near the balustrade.
"Assalamu alaikkum!" He greeted them with a bright smile when they neared him.
"Wa alaikkum salam!!" They both returned his greeting in the same way.
"We missed you a lot, Mu'az!" Maryam confessed as she took his hand and closed her fingers around his wrist and Thasneem stared at both of them with amazement. "You both look so much alike!" She said with astonishment. "You both look the same with your knit caps and coats on. I can't see any differences between both of you now, except for the colours of your clothes. Maryam is wearing a maroon colour coat and a cap, and you are wearing a green colour coat and a cap! That's the only difference I could see now."
"What are you talking about, Neem?" Maryam asked, trying to comprehend what she was trying to tell them.
"Do you want us to remove our caps, Neem?" Mu'az asked her and removed his cap, trying to make sense of her words and Maryam followed his action and took the knit cap off of her head.
"Well, you both still look-alike with your brown hair and brown eyes," Thasneem said, noticing the similarities between the two of them for the first time.
"Yes, we both have brown hair." Maryam acknowledged with a joyful smile.
"Neem's hair and eyes are very dark than ours." Mu'az said thoughtfully, "but you are my best friend too." Thasneem felt delighted to hear his statement and gave him a radiant smile.
"We wanted to share our breakfast and snacks with you," She told him. "But Miss Weerasekara didn't allow us to come and talk to you while we were in the garden. And now we both forgot to bring our backpacks along with us. I don't know if the teachers would allow us to go back to the bus to bring the backpacks."
"It's okay," Mu'az said. "My Mama also made some doughnuts for us too. I also forgot to bring my backpack while getting down from the bus. We'll share everything when we join again."
"Okay," Maryam said with a smile. "We shouldn't forget to take our backpacks with us next time."
One of my friends has binoculars!" Mu'az told them with an excited expression after awhile. "We watched the waterfall closely with it! Do you want to see?"
"Yes!!" Both girls said together and followed him through the crowd of children towards a group of little boys who had been inspecting something which one of them had in his hands.