The Chair

This is the story 'The Chair' from your book, Poorvi (Unit 2, Friendship). Here it is, told in short.

Mario was a boy who loved having lots of friends. He showed off a lot, always talking about how many friends he had at school and how friendly he was with everyone. One day his grandfather made him a bet, with a fruit chaat (a plate of mixed fruit with chaat masala) as the prize. Grandpa was sure that Mario had fewer friends than he believed, and that many of them were only companions or partners, not real friends. Mario agreed to the bet at once.

But how could he test who his real friends were? He asked Grandpa for help. Grandpa went up to the attic, the storage space just under the roof where old things are kept, and came back as if he was carrying something. But Mario could see nothing in his hand.

Grandpa handed it over and explained: this was a very special chair. It was invisible, impossible to see, so sitting on it was tricky. If Mario carried it to school and managed to sit on it, its magic would show him which of his classmates were his real friends.

Brave Mario took the invisible chair to school. At break time he asked everyone to stand in a circle, and he stood in the middle with his chair. He tried to sit, but he could not see the chair, so he missed and fell on his backside. His classmates had a good laugh. 'Just a slight technical problem,' he said, and tried again, and fell again, and the laughter grew. But Mario would not give up. He kept trying and falling, until suddenly he sat, hanging in mid-air!

He looked around. Guneet, Asma and Deepa, three of his buddies, were holding him up so that he would not fall. Many others he had thought of as friends had only made fun of him and enjoyed every fall.

Here is the secret: there never was a chair. Grandpa's hand was empty all along. The 'magic' was the test itself: anyone who saw Mario falling again and again would show, by laughing or by helping, what kind of friend they were.

Walking home with his three friends, Mario explained Grandpa's clever idea: true friends are those who care for us, and a friend would never take joy in our bad luck. That evening the four children went to see Grandpa. They listened to his stories and ate lots of fruit chaat. After that, they used the magic chair test many times, and whoever passed became a friend for life.