“...and the next pairs will be Mahnoor and Maheen.”

“Oh no!” Mahnoor thought. “She’s an average student. I have to talk to the teacher about this or else my grades will drop because of her.”

But, unfortunately, her teacher refused to change her partners.

“Don’t worry Mahnoor,” she said, “who knows maybe both of you will learn something from each other. All you have to do is give her a chance.”

“What I could possibly learn from her. I’m already good at everything,” Mahnoor thought.

Now everyone knew that Mahnoor was excellent at everything. She was the top student. She was always studying and, because of that, she made no friends. No matter how much she disliked being paired with Maheen for the school project, Mahnoor decided to listen to her teacher and give it a try.

After school, Mahnoor and Maheen decided that they would go to Maheen’s house to do their project.

So after the project was almost finished, Maheen suggested taking a little break, but Mahnoor disagreed, saying, “We don’t have time to relax.”

Maheen sighed and said, “Mahnoor, you’re great in studies, but when was the last time you had fun?”

Mahnoor said, “I don’t have time for fun, I need good grades.”

“You can do both,” Maheen said as she smiled. “Study and have fun. You just need to learn how to create balance between both.”

Mahnoor thought about Maheen’s words carefully and realised that she was right. She apologised and became friends with her. They helped each other and very soon, Maheen started getting better grades and became the second-best student in the class and Mahnoor started creating balance between studies and fun. As a result, the teacher was also very impressed with their project and happy to know she had indeed made a right choice.

Published in Dawn, Young World, December 12th, 2020