An impatient boy plants a coconut and wants a tall tree by tomorrow — and learns that the best things grow slowly.

Ibrahim found a fat brown coconut under the palms. “I’ll grow my very own tree!” he said.

Dhatha helped him dig a cosy hole in the warm sand and tuck the coconut in. “Now we wait,” she said.

“Wait? For how long?” asked Ibrahim. “A little each day,” smiled Dhatha, “and one day, a tree.”

Next morning Ibrahim ran to look. Just sand. “Grow!” he told it. But nothing happened at all.

He sat and waited a whole hour. Still nothing! “This tree is far too slow,” he grumbled.

“Come,” said Dhatha. “While we wait, let’s water it, and play, and let the sun do its work.”

So they watered it each day. They fed the chickens and told stories, and the days rolled by.

The rain fell, the sun shone, the moon rose — again and again and again.

Then one morning — a tiny green shoot poked up through the sand! “Dhatha! Dhatha, LOOK!”

Little by little, leaf by leaf, the shoot grew taller than Ibrahim’s own knee.

“You waited, and you cared,” said Dhatha, “and see what patience grew.”

One day it would be a tall palm full of coconuts — because the best things are worth the wait.