AP and Telangana typewriting test, Lower grade

I should have foreseen that such auspicious weather might turn suddenly into a terrible storm, for after all, boy though I was, I knew something about the freaks of the monsoon in June. Hardly had we gone twenty miles before the first rain-clouds of the season raced across the sky. The velocity of the wind was so great that it ripped off one of the sails of our boat. Seeing that there was no time to be lost, I opened the cage and released the three pigeons. As they struck the wind they vaulted right over and flew very low, almost falling into the water. They flew thus close to the surface of the river for a quarter of an hour, making very little headway against the hard wind. But they persisted and another ten minutes saw them safely tacking and flying landward. Just about the time they had reached the string of villages on our left, the sky grew pitch black, a torrential cloudburst blotted everything out, and we saw nothing but inky sheets of water through which the lightning zig-zagged and danced the dance of death. I gave up all hope of finding my pigeons again. We were almost ship-wrecked ourselves, but fortunately our boat was beached on the shore of a village. Next morning when I came home by train I found two wet pigeons instead of three. Gay-Neck's father had perished in the storm. No doubt it was all my fault, and for the few days that followed our house was given up to mourning. The two pigeons and I used to go up on the roof whenever the rain left off a bit in order to scan the sky for a glimpse of the father.