Read the following passage carefully and answer the questions that follow:
“Just a chit of a girl, she is,” said her aunt, “and yet look how she pokes her nose into our conversation, just as though she were a grown lady.”
Valli smiled to herself. She didn’t want them to understand her smile.

1. How did Valli’s aunt find her manner of talking?
2. Why did Valli smile?
3. What does ‘poking her nose’ mean?

Read the following passages carefully and answer the questions that follow:
Her first journey - what careful, painstaking, elaborate plans she had had to make for it! She had thriftily saved whatever stray coins came her way, resisting every temptation to buy peppermints, toys, balloons, and the like, and finally she had saved a total of sixty paise.

1. What did she have to make careful plans for?
2. How did she save the money?
3. The word in the passage that means ‘miserly’ is?

Read the following passages carefully and answer the questions that follow:
Valli always used these hours for her ‘excursions’ as she stood looking from the doorway of her house or sometimes even ventured out into the village; today, these same hours could be used for her first excursion outside the village.

1. What does ‘these hours’ mean in the given context?
2. What is meant by ‘excursions’ in this context?
3. The phrase ‘ventured out’ here conveys the sense of?

Read the following passage carefully and answer the questions that follow:
Struck dumb with wonder, Valli gaped at everything. Then the bus stopped and everyone got off except Valli.

1. What did Valli gape at?
2. Why didn’t Valli get off the bus?
3. What does ‘struck dumb’ here mean?

Read the following passages carefully and answer the questions that follow:
She no longer wanted to look out the window.
She sat thus, glued to her seat, until the bus reached her village at three forty.

1. Who does ‘she’ here refer to?
2. Why did she not want to look out of the window?
3. What does the statement ‘She sat thus’ mean?

Read the following passage carefully and answer the questions that follow:
“Just a chit of a girl, she is,” said her aunt, “and yet look how she pokes her nose into our conversation, just as though she were a grown lady.”
Valli smiled to herself. She didn’t want them to understand her smile.

1. How did Valli’s aunt find her manner of talking?
2. Why did Valli smile?
3. What does ‘poking her nose’ mean?

What kind of a person was Valli?

What was Valli’s favourite pastime?

What was a source of unending joy for Valli? What was her strongest desire?

When would Valli get on with her excursion? Why?

Why did Valli want to ride on the bus?