Shamal sat on the bed next to his little brother and watched him sleep. His brother was back at home after spending more than a week in the hospital suffering from that dreadful sickness called dengue. First he had contracted fever and he was hospitalized a few days later, after it took a bad turn. Everyone was very worried as his condition turned bad. But a few days later, after proper medication and a lot of rest, his condition started to improve. Shamal was so relieved just like the rest of his family.

Lots of people came to visit his brother and Shamal’s father had the same thing to say to them all, “We always clean our garden and house. We don’t even leave an empty coconut-shell out. We pack all empty containers in which mosquitoes can breed and send those off in the  garbage truck. But we have to suffer because of careless neighbours. They don’t bother cleaning their premises and their mosquitoes come and sting us!” Finally Shamal’s brother was brought home and he was advised to rest a lot. So he spent the whole day sleeping. “I am so glad that is all over!” thought Shamal, slowly  walking out of the room to the garden.

Shamal leaned against the mango tree and thought about what his father has been saying. “If only our neighbours were more careful!” he thought. Just then his friend from next door Ashan came near him. “How is Malli now?” he asked. Shamal was annoyed. He felt angry with all his neighbours. “If you and the other neighbours kept your
houses clean this wouldn’t have  happened to Malli!” he snapped.

“That’s a very unfair thing to say!” said Ashan, sounding very annoyed, “So are you saying that it’s our mosquitoes that bit him?” “Well, we keep our house and garden clean!” Shamal replied clenching his fist. “Mosquitoes don’t come with a label, Shamal! It could very well be  mosquitoes from your own house that bit your brother,” Ashan shouted taking a step closer. “No they were mosquitoes from your house and the other houses. Our place is too clean to breed them!” Shamal yelled back. “That’s a very stupid thing to say. There must be enough and more  mosquitoes breeding in your fish tanks!” shouted Ashan, walking off angrily. “How can that be when I have fish in my tanks? Don’t you know they eat the larvae?” Shamal shouted back at Ashan and continued, “They are your  mosquitoes! Do you hear me?

They are yours!”
“Silly boy!” muttered Shamal walking towards his cement fish tanks at the back of his house. “How can we breed mosquitoes when we clean our house and garden every single day?” he thought angrily. Shamal bred fish as a hobby and he even earned some pocket money selling them to his friends. Four of his tanks had fish in them. The fifth one had a cracked glass on the side, so it was empty and had no water in it. He moved the water-plants and watched the fish swim. There wasn’t a single mosquito larva to be seen. He then looked at the one with a cracked glass. It was very obvious there couldn’t be mosquito larvae without any water. There were some dried leaves at the bottom of it, fallen from the trees around. Shamal poked them with a small stick, without any thought. He was surprised to notice small pools of water held by the curved leaves. When he looked close he was shocked. There were tiny worm-like creatures wriggling in the water. He knew what they were at once!

Shamal wanted to turn the tank upside-down. But the cement tank was too heavy for him to topple, so he threw out the leaves and put some sand at the base. “I’ll have to get Thaththa’s help to get rid of this tank. He will be so surprised to hear about all this. Who would have thought there’d be mosquitoes breeding in an empty tank and that such a
little bit of water would be enough for them to breed in,” he thought.

Shamal felt ashamed for fighting with Ashan and for blaming all his neighbours. He walked around the garden carefully inspecting. There was a small garbage-pit at the  corner of the garden where they threw only degradable things like stale food. Shamal was surprised to see fruit peel like rambutan and mangosteen holding water after the previous night’s rain. A little distance away there were some plants. A very close look showed him the water in-between the thick stems and leaves. There were even some

mosquitoes hovering around. He quickly put some sand into the tiny water pools. “How did these places go unnoticed by us?” thought Shamal. “Maybe it’s because we often pay attention only to the obvious spots!”  Shamal sighed. His garden was full of dengue traps and that’s  probably how Malli fell sick. There seem to be so many odd, hidden places his family had missed. Only obvious things like food containers, yogurt cups, coconut-shells were disposed by them. But yet there seem to be so many tiny places which could be identified only by careful  observation. He knew he would have to double-check inside the house as well.

“I know what I’ll do!” thought Shamal. “After apologizing to Ashan, I should form a group with him and my other friends from around here and inform them about the things I discovered. We could even visit all the houses in the neighbourhood and help clean up small traps like these. That will prevent others from falling sick the way Malli did!”