The Story of Helly
The Story of Helly part 1/7
It wasn’t a thousand years ago, nor a hundred years either. It was just two years ago or maybe last year. In our neighborhood, in our lane,
there lived a girl whose name was
Helly, and she was eight years old. As a matter of fact, in our neighborhood, in our lane, many boys and girls were living.
There was a girl named Zari. Zai did embroidery
and a little housework. She also washed dishes, brought
tea, and washed the cups and saucers
occasionally, but she could not clean greasy plates very well.
Another girl was called Lilly. She sang songs. She had memorized
several long songs. Whenever anyone asked her, she would sing one of these songs.
But she never sang when she was by
herself, nor did she sing when her brother was studying or doing his homework.
Another girl was called Mehri. She liked to play withflowers and arrange them in vases. Often she would get herself wet by spilling water from the vases, but she never got other people wet.
And there was the boy Taghi. He used to build tiny houses out of boards and nails
and paint them with watercolors, He
never bothered anyone. And he never played with his houses until he had finished his homework.
And there were many,
many others. There was Mahvash and
Mahshid, Khosrow and Jamshi, Maryam and Mitra, Houshang and Reza, Manijeh and. .
. . They all lived in our neighborhood
and were always busy doing something.
Now let me tell you
about Helly. Everyone in the neighborhood called her Naughty Helly. It seemed as though there was nothing in the world
she could do except bother
people-bother her mother and father, bother her sister and brother, bother, bother. No sooner would she get home from school than her mother would be
yelling: “Helly, don’t touch the dishes.
Helly, don’t put on my shoes. Helly, don’t tease Hormoz. Helly, don’t make
faces. Helly, don’t come in the room
wearing Goli’s shoes. Helly, don’t play with
the kerosene lamp. Helly, don’t
act so spoiled. . . .”
But Helly never listened
to her mother or anyone else. She was always doing things at the wrong time. When it was time
for sleeping she would start
singing. When it was time for lunch she would go out into the lane. She always
made noise in the classroom, and in winter
she was always throwing snowballs at people.
Sometimes she ran out
into the lane and bothered the grocer or
the carpenter-- or the street sweeper.
The sweeper was such a kind, good-hearted man
that Helly bothered him a lot.
The man who sold lottery tickets
in the lane was always angry with Helly. Even the kind dog Hoffy, who
lived in our lane, had to stay awake all the long hot summer afternoons on the
lookout for Helly, who was sure to hurt him if she
found him asleep.
So, as I was going to say,
there was nobody in our neighborhood,
in our lane, who liked Helly. Not the
ticket seller, not the street sweeper, nor the butcher, nor the carpenter, nor the other children-nobody liked her, and they all complained about her to her mother.
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