That Unfortunate Event

• Sarah Chapman, Grade 6
• Short Story
• 2016

I was up in the cold, brown, wooden attic with no one but myself. The floor was creaking every step I took and the wind was soaring around the room. I was walking around with a flashlight trying not to fall as the old wooden floors were about to break. Every light bulb was busted so the stars in the night sky helped me find my way. Slowly and carefully as I left the attic, I heard a strange noise coming from the back of the attic. I nervously walked up to it and noticed it was a worn out, broken wind-up puppet. I winded it up, not knowing why, and then it started walking towards me, it kept moving forward and I kept walking back, until I screamed, AHHHH! I quickly hurried downstairs, but the puppet just kept following. Soon it started chanting these words to me, “You’ll return the things you stole from your friends before the night ends. You’ll return the things you stole from your friends before the night ends. You’ll return the things you stole from your friends before the night ends.”
Her chanting just kept getting louder and louder until I remembered the things that I stole from my friends. I ran home as fast as I possibly could, grabbed the things and ran to my friend’s houses. I dropped off the things and noticed the time, I WAS TOO LATE. I turned around and saw the wind-up puppet standing right in front of me, but then at that very moment, I noticed that it was just my friends tricking me the whole time but I just played along until they were going to admit it was them.