The Crocodile Who Needed a Teacher
Good morning, Willow Bend!
That's right, I'm talking to you — yes, you, the one turning this page with sleepy eyes and a curious heart. My name is Abrar, and if you'll scoot a little closer, I'll show you a village unlike any you've visited before. Wipe your feet on the doormat of your imagination, because we're stepping into a place where the river runs wide and brown and lazy, where fig trees droop under the weight of their own sweetness, and where absolutely nobody — not one single creature — can seem to mind their own business for very long.
Willow Bend sat tucked into the curve of a great slow river, the kind of river that didn't hurry anywhere because it already knew it would get there eventually. Along its banks grew willows, of course — hence the name, though nobody could quite recall who'd thought of it first — their branches trailing in the water like green fingers testing the temperature. Fig trees stood scattered about like generous aunties, offering fruit to anyone who bothered to look up. Birds chattered from dawn onward, gossiping about who had built the tidiest nest and whose eggs were late in hatching, and if you listened closely you could hear the whole village…
