Tania Is A Spy
Tania's 5th birthday was on 2nd March 2015. Her family and friends knew about the reading club called "Bookworm Babies", that she had started. So, she obviously got a lot of books as birthday gifts. A few people gave her art supplies and board games. Tania was very happy with the gifts but she wondered what aunt Poonam would send her.
A couple of days later, a package arrived for Tania by courier. She was intrigued. It was the first time she received anything by courier. She inspected the package carefully and saw
it was from aunt Poonam. She opened it up. Inside was a note:
Happy birthday my darling little Tania. I think you are now old enough to receive packages in your own name. Hope you have lots of adventures with this gift.
Lots of love,
Aunt Poonam.
The gift was a lovely pair of pink binoculars. They looked really cute and sophisticated at the same time.
Tania asked "Mama what is this?"
Mama said, "These are binoculars sweetie. You use them to look at far away objects. Here, come to the window. Now look. Can you see that lady walking there?"
"Yes I do."
"Now look at her through the binoculars, like this. Does it look different?"
"Yes, mama. I can see her much more
clearly now. I can even count the number of bangles she is wearing. But what do people use this for?"
"People take it to soccer matches so they can see the game clearly from the far away seats in the stadium."
"Ah, okay. But what do I do with it?"
"You'll think of something."
Tania could not think of anything right away so she put away the binoculars. A month and a half went by and Tania'a summer vacation started. With school closed Tania was reading the books she got as birthday gifts at a great rate. She loved reading the Enid Blyton books in particular. She read about little kids solving mysteries and shadowing people and the whole thing sounded too exciting for words.
Tania wanted to shadow people too and make notes about their suspicious behaviour in a notebook. But she knew mama would never allow that. Then she had an idea. She would climb up the very tall, leafy tree in the housing society and spy on people walking around with her binoculars. Excited, she ran to ask mama if that was okay.
It seemed like harmless fun and Tania looked so eager, so mama approved. She said, "You can do that Tania. But don't look into people's houses through their windows, because that is not nice."
Tania talked to Tanisha about it and they planned their spying expedition for the next day. They decided to start after lunch at 1:30 p.m. Afternoon seemed like the perfect time to catch people partaking in suspicious activity. They also decided to carry some snacks.
Kids in the Enid Blyton books always had tasty stuff to eat.
The next day Tania packed her binoculars, notebook, pencil a sandwich and some cookies in her backpack.
Just as she was leaving mama put her cell phone in Tania's backpack. She said, "I want you to have my cell phone just in case I need to talk to you or need you back home. It is hard to contact you when you are up a tree."
Tania arrived at the tree to find Tanisha already waiting there with her purse full of snacks, notebook and pencil. The girls climbed the tree. They made themselves comfortable on one of the sturdy upper branches where they were well hidden by the leaves. There was no point spying on people if they could see you doing it.
Tania and Tanisha took turns at scanning the place with the binoculars, but no one suspicious seemed to be around. Tania complained, "This is the problem with living in a respectable neighbourhood. Nothing interesting happens here." How wrong Tania was! Just minutes after she said this things began to heat up.
Tanisha was admiring Karishma's dad's new Bentley parked down below. It was a lovely sleek black car.
Soon somebody came by the car. Tania assumed it was the driver. Tanisha was looking through the binoculars and she saw that it wasn't. The man was acting rather suspicious. Tania and Tanisha made notes of his appearance in their notebooks. Bald, goatee, medium height and weight and crooked eye brows. He looked around to see if anyone was there. Of course he did not notice the girls up on the tree, well hidden by the leaves. Then he started fiddling with
the door. Tania and Tanisha were wondering what he was doing. Tania said "I have my mother's cell phone. Let's pretend he is stealing the car and make a video to give the police."
"Yes" said Tanisha. "That is a great idea."
Tania had learned quite well how to make videos at a time when she was obsessed with watching videos of herself. So
together the girls made a clear video recording of the man's activities and they even zoomed in to get a clear picture of him.
As they were filming they saw the man
get in to the car and drive off. "Do you think he really did steal the car?" asked Tanisha excited.
"I doubt it. He is probably a substitute driver" said Tania. "I have never heard of cars being stolen here. Have you?"
"I suppose not" said Tanisha disappointed.
The girls spent some more time looking around while they chatted and ate their snacks. But nothing else remotely interesting happened and they went home.
That evening when Tania and Tanisha were playing outside they heard a few people talking about a stolen black Bentley. The police had no idea who stole it. The security guard had assumed the driver was taking it out to fill petrol or something.
The girls looked at each other in excitement. They ran up to Tania's house. Mama was home. They told her about the video and about people discussing the stolen Bentley.
Mama promptly called Karishma's house
and told her father everything the girls had told her. He was relieved. He took the video to the police station.
It turned out that the thief had been recently employed as a driver by someone in the housing society. He was a member of a gang of successful car thieves operating in the city. They posed as drivers in respectable neighbourhoods. They stole cars belonging to someone other than the person who employed them, so they were usually not suspected. And to think the thief would have got away with the stolen car if it had not been for the video.
The girls were ecstatic with the outcome of their spying expedition. Tania told aunt Poonam all about her amazing adventure during their next video chat and thanked her for the binoculars.
Whatever will Tania do next? I can't wait to find out. Can you?
