Highly Commended Story - The Mystery Of The Ghost

“The Mystery Of The Ghost” by Radha Saranya Kuchibhotla, Gopalan National School, Bangalore, India, is the Highly Commended story in the sub-junior category of the second biannual Short Story Contest 2020.

Saranya is 8 years old and is studying in third standard at Gopalan National School, Bangalore, India. She stays with her parents and elder sister. Her hobbies are drawing, reading and writing stories. She wants to be a writer or inventor when she grows up and wants to contribute to her country's progress.

The Mystery Of The Ghost

Once upon a time, there was an old bungalow which was very big. There lived two sisters along with their parents who had recently occupied the bungalow. The girl’s name was Rose and she was 10 years old. Her younger sister, Emily, was 6 years old. They both liked their new home very much. However, Emily was very naughty and she liked to scare Rose. Especially in this bungalow she had many more opportunities for scaring her. One day she scared Rose so badly that she almost fell from the stairs. Emily ignored when Rose scolded her.

One day Emily saw a beautiful butterfly in the garden. She followed it into the outhouse. Suddenly the butterfly transformed into a scary ghost. Emily was terrified and screamed very loudly! Rose had just come out of the house looking for Emily when she heard her scream. Emily came running towards her and told her what had just happened. Rose thought that Emily was again playing a prank on her and did not believe her. That night, Emily and Rose went to sleep on the bunk bed. Emily slept on the upper bed while Rose slept on the lower bed, as usual. In the middle of the night, Emily suddenly fell down from her bed. Rose woke up hearing the noise and comforted Emily. Emily then told her that she felt like someone pushed her. Rose didn’t believe her this time too. The next morning, Emily told the same to their parents but they didn’t believe her either.

After that, everything was normal for the next two days but Emily was too scared to go anywhere alone and asked Rose to accompany her. As this was very unusual, Rose got suspicious that something was really wrong. Rose decided to go to the outhouse to find out. She convinced Emily to come with her and they both went inside. But they didn’t find any butterfly or ghost there. They started looking at the things kept there and they found an old photograph of a family with two kids – a girl of about Rose’s age and a younger boy of about Emily’s age. Emily looked at the girl and got very surprised and scared. She told Rose that the girl in the photograph looked like the ghost she saw the other day. Just then the photograph flew and stayed in the air. Rose shouted,” Who are you and why are you troubling my sister?”. No one answered but the photograph was placed back on the table. Then she asked again softly, “You don’t seem to be bad. Please tell us why you are troubling my sister.” Then they saw a girl appear. She was not scary this time and looked as she was in the photograph. The girl said, “My name is Sapna. I used to live in this bungalow many years back along with my parents and younger brother. My brother was very naughty and always used to scare me. One day he scared me very badly and I fell down from the stairs and died. My family later left the bungalow but I remained here as a ghost. I hate all kids who get fun in doing dangerously naughty things. I saw Emily doing the same to you and so wanted to teach her a lesson.”

Rose understood her concern and looked at Emily. Emily too had realized her mistake and said, “I am really sorry. I promise that I will never trouble others for fun.” Hearing this, Rose hugged her. Sapna too was happy to hear this and said, “Good that you learnt your lesson”. Saying this, she disappeared. Rose and Emily lived there happily with their parents for many years. They used to see Sapna sometimes who was now very friendly to them.