Read the passage and answer the questions that follow:
He was an old, man. So old that the skin of his hands looked like wrinkled parchment and he smelt peculiar. I could not see much more of him than his hands, because even in the high summer heat, he was completely covered in the folds of what looked like an ancient robe. My mother would have told me to stay clear of him. 'One never knows', she would have said 'one hears so many strange things'. My mother always hears vague, strange things that other people never seem to. But she was three thousand miles away, looking after my youngest aunt, who was about to have a baby, while I was spending my summer holidays here, at my grandmother's place. And I was angry and bored. What sort of holiday was this? My cousins were all busy with exams, or had some reason or the other for not coming. There was nobody to play with, no school tales to tell, no jokes to exchange. Instead, my grandmother was trying to teach me to cook and to stick to her rules because, according to her, I was no longer a child. I was now a regular young lady. How I hated it! I hated learning to cook, I hated the rules. Most of all, I hated the waste of a whole summer holiday in that dismal dusty town with no friends and nowhere to go, not even a library.
The old man was sitting under a huge tree whose branches spread out like the spokes of an umbrella. He was staring ahead, as if he was looking out at sea, at sparkling white sailboats which were tracing disappearing patterns in the water, dipping and skimming, like dancers on ice skates. All I saw was a deserted roadside with the heat shimmering like broken bits of glass.
'Sit!' his voice rang out suddenly. My skin jumped. How had he seen me when I had come up from behind? 'Sit', he said again. 'Sit on the stone.' What stone? I looked around and saw a grey, flat stone, under the tree. I touched it. It was dry, and curiously enough, it felt cool. I sat on it. 'Close your eyes and listen,' he said I closed my eyes. I waited. What was I supposed to hear?
'A story,' his voice said. A story that will serve you.
