Growing up, I had a very pretty friend named Sumona. We were childhood best friends and loved playing around our neighborhood. A couple of houses down the road, there was an open plot where a neighbor had started building a home. For some reason, the construction stopped, leaving the place mostly empty except for a heap of stones and a pile of sand nearby. Sumona and I were the same age and about the same height. She loved playing “house,” and I happily tagged along, thrilled to have her as a companion.One day, Sumona decided to build a small mud house in the field. I wasn’t sure how she would manage, but she did. I would fetch water from a tube well about a five-minute walk from our play site, carrying it back to her. With the water, she skillfully built a small, adorable mud house. Then, we decided to make a tiny pond beside it. A pond next to a mud house sounded so charming! So, we started digging. I would bring water to fill the pond, but the next morning, the water would be gone. Undeterred, I’d go back to fetch more water and refill it. This went on for at least five or six days. Finally, one afternoon when we reached our play spot, we found the water still there. We were overjoyed!One day, another girl from the neighborhood saw us playing at our site. Her name was Mantu, and she was maybe a year or two younger than us. Short, with striking green eyes, Mantu had a sharp voice and spoke with the confidence of a mature woman. She wanted to join us. Sumona was against the idea, firmly opposed to letting Mantu play with us. But I had a bad habit: I could never say no to anyone, especially not to a younger girl. So, I told Mantu she could play with us.It wasn’t a great idea. Mantu wanted to inspect our carefully built mud house. She peered closely at it and declared, “This is not good. I can make it better.” Before either of us could stop her, she poked a hole through the wall of our house, right into the small pond beside it. It was painful to watch. The water gushed into the playhouse, flooding it and ruining our creation. Then, Mantu proceeded to step on our mud house, declaring it was “very ugly,” and ran away giggling. Sumona looked at me with a fierce expression and said, “See? I told you.”That day, I learned a valuable lesson: don’t let a third person ruin your hard work, and don’t be swayed by others’ judgment. Mantu was a lesson I’ve never forgotten to this day.