I Kissed A Girl In My Class Read Online Free PDF

teams were left alone in the class. It
was the first time most of them had stayed back in school, and at
first, no work was done. Forgetting their rivalry, the two groups
shared meals and talked. Only Manu held aloof, pretending to be
deep in thought.
    ***

5. Getting
Down To Work
    Then the work
started. Of course, there was more talk and merriment in it, but
what do you expect from 11-year-olds on a day camp?
    Manu surveyed his
team’s goods with a critical eye. Neha’s brother’s old pull-back
car for wheels, check; thermocol, check; paints, check; motor,
battery, wires and switch, check, check, check, check. “Let’s get
this started,” he said and the others waited for instructions.
“Neha, you take charge of the moon’s surface. We will need to make
tracks for the rover to go round and round, but I will take care of
that. You just focus on the craters and peaks for now.”
    “I will need more
thermocol to make the peaks,” she said, “and something sharp to
scoop out the craters”. “Of course,” agreed Manu, “Akshay, haven’t
you brought any cutters, and why only one sheet of thermocol?” Poor
Akshay was speechless for a while. “You said I was to bring a sheet
of thermocol,” he protested. “I said bring thermocol. Use your
common sense, Akshay,” Manu replied. “Now we will waste a day.”
    There were titters
from the other team, but when Manu glared at them, they looked
away. Akshay was packed off to fetch more sheets, Fevicol and a
cutter from the stationery outside.
    “Never mind, we
will make the rover today,” said Manu. He picked up the tiny
barrel-shaped motor and attached wires to its terminals while
Vikram touched their other ends to the blue-coloured 9-volt battery
he had brought. Wheeeeee, the motor whirred and everyone smiled in
delight. Its working seemed like half the battle won and even the
other team, Ginny included, came over to have a look.
    “Vikram, you fix
these things together in a circuit with that switch, and Samar, you
get the wheels off that toy. If we are lucky, the motor will fit
into the spring’s groove and we won’t need to do much there. Now,
if you will excuse us (this to the other team, especially Ginny),
we have work to do,” Manu said.
    Vikram had
everything connected in 10 minutes, and then making the motor run
was as easy as flicking the large white switch. But turning that
pack into a rover was the big challenge. The wheels of the toy car
were large and chunky, and looked the part, but the thin axle
didn’t have any groove to fit the motor’s pin into. Raj said they
could make it a three-wheeled rover, with the motor driving a
single rear wheel and the front wheels moving freely guided by the
tracks.
    It sounded like a
good idea and Samar pried one wheel loose, pushed it over the motor
pin and demonstrated the feasibility of the idea. But Rohan pointed
out that the wheels would have to be attached to a base if they
were going to build a moon rover. But how?
    They considerred
using the toy car’s base, but it was designed for four wheels, it
couldn’t take a wheel in the centre. Then Manu said all moon rovers
had four wheels, and they wouldn’t make a ‘moon rickshaw’ either.
So the car’s base was all right, but the problem was, how to attach
the motor to the axle?
    Akshay came back
with the goods and a packet of chips to wriggle back into favour
with Manu. But it was past 3pm, and Neha had a Bharatnatyam class
to attend. So they all called it a day and went home, promising to
come early the next morning and get cracking. Before leaving, they
locked up their material in a cupboard casting a suspicious glance
at the water cycle team.
    ***

6. Many
Disappointments
    When Uma Ma’am
arrived next morning, she was horrified to find the floor littered
with thermocol beads. It was a sunny morning and the breeze coming
in through the open windows swirled the beads around. The moon
rover team had been hard at work since 7am, and on the last desk
there