About the story

Della has a plan, and the plan is working. For three months she has been the calmest, deepest, most nature-loving student at St. Jude's Senior Secondary, because Mrs. Vance, the biology teacher, writes the recommendation Della needs for university, and Mrs. Vance wants one student who truly loves the living world. The only problem is that Della is terrified of it. Mud, weather, anything without a floor under it. Now the act has worked too well. Mrs. Vance has made her Student Tour Lead for the Class 12 trip to Greenwood Municipal Zoo: six hours, thirty-one classmates, a map where every arrow points at a wall, and a crisp white uniform on which everything shows. Siddharth, her rival for the top of the class, walks at her shoulder all day with his phone half-raised, waiting for her to crack. She will not crack. She will stand perfectly still while a swan climbs her sleeve. She will explain, from inside a hippo wallow, that mud is natural skin insulation. She will negotiate with a capuchin, using half a banana, for the one document a Class 12 student must never lose. Every disaster gets a calmer sentence, and every sentence makes it worse. It's a deadpan school comedy in five episodes, set over a single day. Nobody is a villain: the teacher is sincere, the rival is only competitive, and the animals are only animals. Della's Nature Cruising is a free school comedy set in Chandigarh, India, by Ishan Sharma on Scroll by Sky Scrawl. A student who has faked loving nature for a recommendation letter has to lead her whole class through the zoo. All five episodes are free to read online with no account and no paywall.