Highly Commended Story - The Cherry Tree

“The Cherry Tree” by Inaaya Shirazi, Rustomjee Cambridge International School, Dahisar, India, is the Highly Commended story in the sub-junior category of the second biannual Short Story Contest 2019.

Inaaya is a happy go lucky child who loves going to school, making friends and interacting with everyone she meets. She is an active learner. She is an avid reader, especially of short stories with morals and is currently fascinated by the work of Enid Blyton. Her hobbies include reading, singing, dancing, dramatics and using her vivid imagination to spin tales with her toys during playtime. She aspires to be a Singer one day.

The Cherry Tree

There was once a little six-year-old boy named Tim. He had just moved to a new home near the countryside with his family. He used to always be sad as he had just lost his grandpa who was his best friend. It was grandpa who used to tell him stories, take him to the park, and do so many fun activities. When grandpa was ill and in the hospital, he had asked Tim for a promise.

Grandpa gave Tim cherry seeds and asked him to plant it. He told Tim to water it whenever he felt happy, whenever he achieved something, whenever he got really good marks or whenever he made someone smile.

Tim loved his grandpa and made sure to fulfil the promise he made to his grandpa. There were many days when Tim would water the sapling as he would either be happy or had got good marks or had made someone smile. As Tim had no sibling, he started sharing his happiness with the sapling while watering it.

On his thirteenth birthday, when Tim became a teenager, his ma gave him a letter written by his grandpa. In the letter, grandpa had written, “Dear Timmy, I’m sure our cherry tree is growing well. I love your company as you share your joy with the tree. Have you noticed that when you are happy and take care of the tree, it helps birds to live there; it helps the tree to bear sweet cherries and it gives you shade too. But when you don’t take care of it, when you don’t visit the tree, it gets no water, the birds don’t chirp happily, and the cherries just rot away. This is what you should remember from this, good emotions such as happiness help to grow and spread joy. But sad emotions don’t bring any good things back to you. So spread joy, happiness and laughter, good things come back to you!”