THE HAUNTED HOUSE

• Marianna Dissanayake, Grade 4
• Short Story
• 2022

On a hot sunny afternoon, Laura and Ivey were walking back from school, then they saw a haunted house. The house had scary cobwebs all over the front door. Ivey knew who lived in that house, it was an old, crippled man. Last month, kids kicked their soccer ball into the man's garden and got scolded. Laura said, “Tomorrow we will investigate the haunted house.”
When Ivey got home, she told her brother what she had seen. Ivey’s brother wanted to help, Ivey let him into their mysterious investigation. Meanwhile Laura was getting ready to go to sleep. When Laura got into the bed she could not stop thinking about tomorrow’s adventure. Haunted house was stuck in her brain like chewing gum.
Ding, ding, ding went the school bell. The girls ran to the haunted creepy house and started observing, wrote down notes and took pictures. Then Laura came up with an awesome idea “Let's clean up his garden to cheer him up. He needs help from us as he is old and weary like a sloth.” Ivey agreed as it was a kind gesture. Ivey ran past this idea by her brother, he said he will mow the grass.
That afternoon with a freezy cold ice cream, they all sat at Ivey’s dining table to begin their mission. Kids put all their information that they gathered up on the table and started to brainstorm.
Next day was a public holiday which was great as kids could freely set off for work like flying birds. They first had to do the most dangerous, scariest, bravest and strongest thing of all, which was to knock on the old man's house door. That was going to be really hard because no one had actually talked to the old man in ages, and had no clue what his name was. Ivey thought about that for a minute and she said “If we knock on the door we could be famous for knocking on that door and everyone will think we are popular right!!!” Ivey’s brother jumped out in excitement and said “Are we going to be like the Famous Five by Enid Blyton?” Laura shook her head to disagree.
The three of them went to the old man's house, stood on the front porch and knocked on the door as they skipped a heartbeat. Everyone froze. There was silence as footsteps were approaching the door. The door opened!!! And apparently to see it was a beautiful old lady named Esther. She said that the old man had moved out and now she owns the house.
Esther invited the kids for morning tea and the kids were delighted. Laura ran past their idea to give her a helping hand, if she needed to clean the garden. Esther was over the moon with joy and happiness of these little kids' kindness. They all started working together and Esther thanked the kids with some yummy lemonade.
The case of the haunted house is solved.
The End!