Bad Wish For A House

• Bethwyn Rechichi, Grade 4
• Short Story
• 2012

It started in the main street in a city called Nog. There was a house, a wooden, dull, plain and boring old house. A family lived in it; a family of ten. The eight children had just come home from school. They were sitting down at the living room table playing UNO while their Mum went and got afternoon tea ready.

The youngest of them, whose name was Billi, as you will find out further on in the story, was very silly. He found UNO very boring because he was only five years old. So he went to his room and said,
“There’s nothing to do in this boring old house. Every day is the same. We can’t play my favourite game, ‘hide and seek’, because there are no hiding places”.

So he sat next to his window and he watched the moon and the stars come up and the sun go down.
Billi had often heard his older sisters and brothers talking about star-wishing, so he tried to think of a wish. At first he thought of a secret passage underground, but he thought, “No, the ground might close in on me”. So he thought and thought, until his mother came to give him a hug goodnight.

That night Billi had a dream of a storm, a storm that made his house turn upside-down! He woke up. His heart was beating fast. He had just thought of his wish. He jumped out of his bed, ran over to his window and made his wish.
He wished this: “I wish that our house turned upside-down!” As he was walking back to his bed he heard a snapping of roots and all the things in his room slid to one side, where his bed was.
“It must be happening!” he said.

All the other brothers and sisters came to his room and said,
“What’s happening?”
They all sat on his bed, which wasn’t a very good idea because the bed could have tipped over any second, and listened to Billi’s story.
“Bad luck for us,” said the eldest girl, “There’s nothing to do but live in an upside-down house.”
“Well,” said the twelve-year-old brother, “I learnt about stars at school, and you get three wishes!”

Suddenly the whole earth shook and everyone who was standing was now either on their backs or on their hands and knees looking out their windows. It was worse than before! All the trees, houses and animals were upside-down.
“Quick! To the window!” said Billi. But they were too late. There were no stars left to wish on. So they waited all day, playing UNO, until night came. When they saw the moon through the kitchen window they knew it was time.

They rushed back to BIlli’s window to wish on the star and said altogether, “We wish everything was back to normal.”
And that was that. The world was back how it had started, except that Billi had wished that every kid could fly!
Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!
500