The Magic Box

• Brooke Gosper, Grade 5
• Short Story
• 2016

Two siblings, Sophie and Tim, were happily playing in their sandpit until Tim said, “Hey I found something hard in here!” Sophie helped Tim pull it out and guess what it was, a big silver and pink sparkly box! Sophie thought it was just a random old box and that they should throw it out, but Tim thought it had something special to it. “I think I’ll go and put it in my room,” said Tim. “Where?” asked Sophie. “Somewhere special!” Tim replied.
Sophie knew where Tim’s special spot was and she was determined to get rid of that box. She tiptoed into Tim’s room, took the box from his top shelf, and threw it in the bin. “There, that’s the end of it,” she thought.
The next morning, Tim really needed to go to the toilet so he went into the bathroom, opened the toilet lid and then WHOOSH, a big gush of water spouted out of the toilet bowl, all over the bathroom floor and all over Tim! “Ughh! How did this happen?” cried Tim. He went down to the kitchen to tell his Mum. “Mum, the toilet water just sprayed like a fountain all over me!” he said. “That’s strange honey, maybe we have a problem with our water system?” said his Mum.
“Wow I’m really hungry this morning,” said Sophie. She opened the fridge and guess what, every single piece of food was green and mouldy! “Yuck!” said Sophie. “That’s weird. I only bought that food three days ago,” said Mum. “I’ll go throw it out Mum,” offered Tim.
Tim grabbed the food and walked to the bin but when he lifted off the lid, the bin started swaying around and then got faster and faster until BANG! It fell over and all of the dirty, revolting rubbish fell out! “Oh no!” he cried. And guess what was lying on top of the mountain of rubbish? The sparkly box they had found in the sandpit!
Sophie heard the commotion and ran up behind Tim. “What…ohhh…how did that box get there?” she asked guiltily.
That night, Sophie was lying in her bed thinking about all of the bad luck that had happened that day. Maybe, just maybe, it had something to do with that box. Nothing bad happened when the box was just lying on Tim’s shelf but after she threw it out, all of the bad luck had started. It was too weird to imagine but the box must be magic!
The next morning, while Tim was watching TV, Sophie walked into the room. Tim looked at Sophie. This box thing was bugging him. “Sophie did you throw the box out?” he asked. Sophie hated to lie, so she had to say yes. “You know what Tim?” she added, “I actually think that the box may be magic.” “Yeah right,” said Tim. Sophie was annoyed Tim didn’t believe her. But they both knew something for sure...neither of them was throwing the box out again!