The Tap That Dripped

Drip. Drip. Drip.

The tap in the school courtyard had been dripping for so long that nobody heard it any more. Nobody except Zoya.

Zoya's village was two hours away, and there the women walked to a well before sunrise. She knew what one pot of water weighed. Every drip made her wince.

"It is only a drop," said her friend Imran.

The next morning Zoya put an empty bucket under the tap before the first bell. When the last bell rang, the whole class crowded around. The bucket was full to the brim.

"From drops?" said Imran.

"From one day of drops," said Zoya. They did the sum on the ground with a stick. One bucket a day. Seven a week. More than three hundred and sixty buckets a year, from a tap that "only dripped".

The class carried the bucket to the neem saplings behind the playground and gave each a drink.

Then Zoya went to the office. She was a little afraid, but she knocked. "Sir, the courtyard tap needs a new washer. It costs ten rupees. We measured."

The headmaster looked at the bucket chart she had drawn. He came out, looked at the tap and scratched his head. "I walk past this every day," he said.

The plumber came that afternoon. It took him four minutes.

The courtyard was strangely quiet afterwards. No drip. No drip. No drip.

On the wall above the tap there is now a small notice in Zoya's handwriting: "One drop is a bucket. Please close me tight." Under it, somebody has drawn a smiling tap.