Karim was very eager to start the vacation, and his mother kept repeating that there would be a surprise during the vacation. Karim was very enthusiastic to know what this surprise was.
After the exams ended and the summer season began, Karim felt that he was free like a small bird. He took his drawing book and got ready to draw and color in it. He was planning to play ball and watch television. Karim decided to do whatever he pleased during the vacation days.
The doorbell suddenly rang, and Karim felt frightened. Karim hastened to open the door and found his annoying cousin Walid. As soon as Walid saw Karim, he shouted at him joyfully. When he entered Karim’s room, he jumped on the bed and broke the coloring pencils. Walid told Karim that he had come to spend the summer vacation with him.
Karim felt astonished, for he had never thought that Walid was the surprise his mother had spoken about. For Karim, the surprise was very bad. Karim thought that if this was the beginning of the summer vacation, then the coming days would be much worse than school days.
Karim was right, and the days after that were very bad. One day, after breakfast, Karim decided to color some drawings. Fortunately, Walid was not present. Karim began to arrange all his drawing tools in front of him and started coloring in a beautiful way. When he began to apply his final touches, Walid entered the room with a juice bottle. With extreme carelessness, Walid spilled some juice on Karim’s drawings, ruining them.
The next day was much worse for Karim. Everything was quiet until evening, then the matter completely changed. Walid put his dirty clothes in the washing machine and left it running. After a short while, Karim heard a strange sound coming from the washing machine. Karim went to see the cause of the noise. Karim was shocked when he found that Walid had mistakenly put his favorite shoe with his dirty clothes inside the washing machine.
During those days, Karim was reading newspapers when he found an interesting piece of news. Karim deliberately read the news aloud: “The world’s most famous stamp collector was robbed last week while he was in his hometown.”
“Many other robberies also occurred at the same time. The police believe that all the robberies are connected to each other. The news also included a warning to all stamp collectors to be careful and keep their stamps in safe places.”
Karim owned a beautiful collection of stamps that he had previously given to his friend Ahmed to see. Karim immediately decided to retrieve his collection again, because he believed it was better for the stamps to be with him at his home. Unfortunately, Karim could not go because one of his mother’s friends was present, and his mother wanted him to stay at home during her friend’s visit.
Karim decided to let Walid go to Ahmed’s house to get the stamps. Karim gave Walid the address in detail, and Walid set off. Walid returned quickly with the stamps, but when Karim looked at the stamp collection, he did not recognize it. It was not his collection.
It contained many, varied, and very valuable stamps. When Karim asked Walid and described the house to him, Karim discovered that Walid had entered the wrong house. When Walid arrived and knocked on the door, no one responded, so he entered the house and found the stamp collection, took it, and returned to Karim.
Karim doubted the matter for a second and thought that this stamp collection might be stolen and most likely belonged to the world stamp collector he had read about in the newspaper. Karim called the police and told them the whole story, describing the stamp collection to them. A week passed after Karim’s conversation with the police, and Karim and Walid were rewarded because they found the stolen stamp collection.
In the evening, Karim thought that he should never get angry at Walid and should forgive him for his mistakes. At the same moment, Walid entered the room, looking confused. He said to him: “I broke your glasses. Please forgive me. All people make mistakes.” Walid ran away before Karim could attack him.
Translated from the story: The Holiday