Plan it with the five words first. Fill this in before you write, and your paragraph will have everything the question asks for.
| Question word | What I will say |
|---|---|
| when | Last night, just as we were about to fall asleep |
| where | In our house — the thief came through the back wall of the room |
| what | A thief dug a hole through the wall and got inside |
| how | We pretended to talk about naming our future child ‘Rama’, and then called out the name loudly |
| why | Because ‘Rama’ is the name of our village kotwal, so shouting it brought him running without warning the thief |
My wife and I were about to go to sleep last night when we heard someone scraping at the back wall of our room. At first I thought it was a stray dog. Then my wife sat up, put a finger on her lips and whispered, “Ssssh! Listen!” The scraping went on for a while and then suddenly stopped — and we knew that a thief had dug his way into the house and was standing somewhere in the dark, waiting for us to fall asleep.
We could not run out, and if we had shouted for help he would have attacked us at once. So I thought of a plan and whispered it to my wife. Then, in a normal voice, as if nothing were wrong, she asked me, “What should we name our child?” I said, “If he is a boy we'll call him Rama.” She said it was a good name, and then asked how she would call him. I said, “When he's in the house, call out softly — Rama! Rama!” She asked what she should do if he were in the yard, and I told her to call a little louder. At last she asked what if the boy were out in the street — and she shouted at the top of her voice, “RAMA! RAMA!”
You see, brother, Rama is the name of our village kotwal, and he was on his night round in the street. He heard his name, came running, saw the hole in our wall and crawled straight in. The thief was still standing behind the door thinking we had finally gone quiet, when the kotwal caught him by the arm and said, “You're under arrest.” We did not lose a single rupee. We simply used our heads instead of our hands.