The Haunted House

THE HAUNTED HOUSE

Mary, Rhia, Christy, Angelina, Tina, Dona and Tania were walking around the school compound when a senior student walked up to them and said “Stevenson sir wants to see all of you in the principal’s office.” Stevenson sir, who was their class teacher, was very fond of the girls and would never want them in trouble. To have him call them to the principal's office said trouble with a capital 'T'.

On entering the office the seven friends found themselves facing all the teachers in the school. Stevenson sir explained “All the boys have been saying that the old house behind the school is haunted. They say that they can hear voices from the attic. They are disturbed and won’t concentrate on their studies.” The seven friends understood that their sir wanted them to find out whether the rumour was true. “So? Do you agree?” the principal asked them. Everyone agreed except Christy who was to be their communication- link.

The principle decided that they would go the very next day. He divided them into pairs. One pair was to explore the first floor, the second- the attic, while the third explored the ground floor and the main hall. Mary and Rhia agreed to explore the attic as the voice was said to be coming from there. Their pair was called ‘MR- group’, while the Dona’s and Tania’s group was called ‘DT- group’ and was to explore the ground floor, while the third group was called ‘AT- group’ and to check the first floor. Each group was given a walkie –talkie. Christy would have the second one of all the pairs and would keep in contact with them from the principal’s office.

Then the six friends prepared to leave. They entered the house to find it full of dust {as all old houses}. But after walking further into the house they discovered the staircase room was clean. After making sure the walkie –talkies were off; Dona said “What sort of ghosts do you think live in a clean house? If you ask me we are just wasting our time. Who believes in ghosts any way?” After which group DT parted “But there is something more to this house. I don’t think any of the boys would bother cleaning the house just to play in it” Mary said as she walked up the stairs with Angelina, Tina and Rhia.

Group DT walked through the ground floor to find a lot of food and other things which proved that there was someone living here. But they told the principal- who had the second walkie-talkie that they could not find anything except dust and spider webs. After a while they returned to the school.

AT Group had little more luck in finding things. After group MR left them to go to the attic they entered a room to find it full of what looked like powdered sugar crystals. Angelina took a packet and looked at it. “Well? What does it look like?” Tina asked “I don’t know” Angelina replied handing the packet to her, “What ever it is, it doesn’t look like powdered sugar crystals anymore. But it could be drugs.” Tina looked at it and said “Let’s take a packet with us. We can find out what it is in the lab, but don’t tell anyone until we are sure of what it is; it could be some chalk powder that the boys just left behind after a game” and then the two of them returned to the school.

Meanwhile Mary and Rhia were in the attic and walked around. Just then a voice said “Well MR how are you doing?” “Very well sir. We…” The Principal heard Rhia say. But just then Mary and Rhia screamed and the walkie- talkie went silent.

Mary and Rhia screamed as a pair of sheets flew down towards them, one of them flew towards the walkie talkie in Rhia’s hand and the next moment the walkie-talkie flew out of her hand and landing in two pieces. If that was not enough the two sheets continued attacking the walkie-talkie and leaving it far from repair. The two of them grabbed hold of the sheets and pulled. Out flew…2 parrots. The two of them somehow managed to draw the birds outside the house and explain to the whole school that they were all fooled by a pair of parrots.

After every one left, Mary and Rhia were told about the packets. Rhia said, “That means the parrots were trained to attack electronic goods?” “How do we know that this white stuff is drugs?” Angelina asked. “We could try the chemistry lab. Does any one of you know anything about drugs?” Christy asked. Mary and Rhia smiled. “We could always try the library.” they said together. They were the book-worms of the class.

They all ran for the library. Just then a voice said; “Running in the hall?” It was the school safety officer- a pest who always wanted to catch them doing some thing against the school rules. “What are you going to do about that?” Mary and Rhia asked together. On seeing the look of their faces he said “Now I’ll tell you this. You can go on to wherever you are going, with a warning that if I catch you running in the halls again- I’ll have to report you to the principle.” Then he turned and ran away. “What a nice officer we have. He tells us not to run and he himself is running around the school” Dona said with a smile. Then Tania added “The moment he sees Rhia or Mary he will run as fast as possible in the opposite direction”. That was true as the safety officer was afraid of Mary and Rhia.

On reaching the library they asked the librarian, Miss Books {as the librarian was called by the students} where they could find the chemistry books. “Chemistry books?” she asked, as she knew them well, “I thought you hated Chemistry?!” “Well we want science books. We…” Rhia started. Seeing their faces she laughed “The books are somewhere in the library. I forgot where they are.” “Now how do we find the book?” Dona asked. “Maybe I can help you.” A voice said from behind them. All of them turned round to find a small fairy in front of them. “Somebody tell me I am dreaming.” Mary said amazed, “Do I see a Pixie in front of us?” “But pixies are usually blue and they always fly around doing mischief.” Christy said. “Oh those are some other creatures. My name is Celestia” the pixie said, “I can help you. I have been watching you all the time. The ‘packets of powdered sugar crystals’ are actually pixie dust. They are very powerful and dangerous”

“So…?” Dona asked. “I need help.” Celestia said, “Three people were spying on our council and uncovered our race of pixies. They are planning to use the pixie dust to make a weapon to destroy.” “Can we help?” they asked. Celestia smiled, “Just do as I say.”

“Among these three people, only the leader has any brains. The other two are easy to fool.” “Why don’t we do this at night,” Rhia replied, “when all the teachers are asleep.” All of them agreed and they began preparing for their mid night raid.

That night, when the rest of the school was asleep they crept out of bed and walked to the entrance hall where Celestia was waiting. “Don’t you have any night monitors, to see if anybody is out of bed?” she asked. Angelina replied, “The students are too lazy and the teachers too tired. So…” Suddenly Rhia cried “I just remembered that we forgot something.” Tina replied, “We brought the ropes, the torches, the radio for Mary and you, sticks, and a hand bell for each of us. What else is there?” “You all forgot a pizza for me.” Rhia said with a smile. “Rhia,” Christy said, “this is no time to think about food.” But Mary guessed what was in Rhia’s mind. “Go on Rhia, go get your pizza” she told Rhia. Christy, looking highly amused, said “Both of you are crazy.” Mary said “Well we can always use a pizza for bait, can’t we?”

When Rhia returned, Christy noticed something else- both Mary and Rhia had left their hair open. When she pointed it out to them, they both smiled. “With your hair left open, you look so creepy, that to in the middle of the night and with white dresses.”- Dona told them. “That is the whole idea” Rhia replied. Celestia having guessed their plan. She flew up to them and emptied a bag of pixie dust on their heads. “Use these powers well. They last for a day. You don’t have to say anything to do magic, just think” She said and flew of with a smile.

They walked out into the garden behind their school. When they reached the house Celestia told them “After you get the three men just forget the incident completely. I will take the men back to the pixies council for mind modifications and be careful, the two men may be stupid but all three of them are very strong.” “Maybe we should divide into pairs.” Dona said. Then Christy said that she would go with Celestia so that they could divide in pairs. Each group had ropes, sticks and a hand bell each. Mary and Rhia took the radio and the pizza as well. They would enter the house through the back door, while Dona and Tania took the front door, Christy and Celestia the side door and Angelina and Tina took the secret passage which Tina’s cousin had shown her. Mary and Rhia entered the house through the back door and walked to the dining room, where they could see a faint light.

They were just wondering what they had to do when they heard the door behind them open and a man walk into the house with…Angelina and Tina. “Leave us alone. Don’t take us into this haunted house, please.” They were dragged into the hall and luckily the man left the door open. Rhia left the pizza outside the house and crept into the room with Mary and the two of them settled themselves in the shadow of the room. They waited till the leader left the room and then, with the help of the powers Celestia gave them, made themselves and the radio invisible. Mary turned the radio and left it in the corner.

The tape started playing… wind and wolfs were howling and then Mary and Rhia came out of the shadows, invisible.

When they heard the howling of the winds and wolf howling, Angelina and Tina realized that the radio was playing as they had heard Rhia record this in the afternoon. They played along and pretended to be scared. “The ghosts are coming.” screamed Angelina, as she struggled against the man who had her hands pinned behind her back. At first the two men laughed it off saying, “there isn’t a ghost in this house. It was just a story we made up to keep you children away from the pixie dust.” Just then they heard a voice say “Oh really”

Mary appeared standing beside him and smiled. Her white dress, open hair and strange eyes scared the living day lights out of them. Mary laughed, “It is true that you trained that parrot to scare the children but that is now, what about before you came here, didn’t you ask how it was haunted before that.” Then one of the men said, “you can’t fool us you are just one of these children’s friend who are trying to fool us.” Mary smiled. “Yes I might have been there friend, but do you think one of their friends can do this.” She said, as she rose in the air laughing.

Just then another voice laughed. “Who…whose there?” the men stuttered. “Oh. That is my sister. She is the hungry type. She loves human meat. So I promised to feed her anyone who walks into our house at night” Mary said smiling. Then Rhia appeared beside Mary out of thin air and looked at the men licking her lips. One of the men smiled nervously. “Why don’t you eat these two plump, tasty young children instead of two though, tasteless old men” he said. “I eat plump children?! I hate plump CHILDREN,” Rhia said, “I like my dinner to be nice and tough.” The two of them laughed hovering in the air out of reach of the men.

This was too much for the men; they led go of Angelina and Tina and screamed. Angelina and Tina took this opportunity to hit the men with the first thing they could get- with a hand bell. The two men fell to the ground unconscious. Mary and Rhia smiled. All four of them took out their ropes and tied the two men up. “Now let’s go handle that leader of theirs.” Angelina said walking to the door. “No need to hurry, Angelina dear. The leader has already been handled.” A voice said from behind the door.” In came Christy, Dona, Tania and Celestia with the leader among the three men hovering unconscious in the air above them. “How did you do that?” Sera, Angelina, Tina and Mary asked together. Christy smiled and said, “Well it was like this.”

“While you all were busy with these two men. The leader had caught Dona and Tania as well. He seemed very hungry. Then I remembered Sera’s pizza. So I went out of the house and took Sera’s pizza. I left it in the hall and while the leader was busy eating it, I untied Dona and Tania. But before we could do anything the leader came in. We tried hitting him with those sticks but he must be really strong; the sticks just broke in half. When we had no other choice we had to hit him with our bells.”

“But wasn’t Celestia with you?” Tina asked. “While we were busy with the leader, Celestia went to the room and collected all the pixie dust from the room. She came back in time to help us tie this person up” Tania replied with a smile.

“I really want to thank you for helping me with these three men. Now I will take your leave. You will always be remembered by all pixies. Good Bye. It was nice to meet you all.” Celestia said and flew off with the three men tailing unconscious behind her.

The seven friends watched as their pixie friend flew off, then turned and walked to the school garden in front of the school dormitory. “Mary?” Rhia asked, stopping suddenly and looking at her, “I was just wondering- what would have happened if we had told the school about this.” “Well.” Mary replied, “The entire school would be worrying about it and we wouldn’t have met a nice friend. But who cares we did our duty, didn’t we?”

“Well… well. Is this how you do your duty? By sneaking out of school and being out- of- bed?” a sneering voice said. They all turned round to see the School’s Safety Officer.
They all looked shocked to see him, except Mary and Sera. Mary said, “Oh you are mistaken. You are out of bed and out of school.” The next minute the seven friends found themselves in their beds. “What just happened?” Tania asked. Rhia smiled and said, “Well Celestia did give us some powers for the day. Right now, our safety officer is standing outside the school all by himself and if I am not mistaken this is the time Stevenson sir gets up to do his gardening. Our Safety officer is in deep trouble.” Sure enough, their Safety officer was scolded for being out-of-bed by Stevenson sir.

Back in their room the seven friends were watching the scene from their window; they all laughed at the Safety officer’s stuttering reply of girls disappearing into thin air, but luck was against him when Stevenson sir discovered the seven girls fast asleep when he decided to check on them. Then Stevenson sir left to take the safety officer to the principal for his misbehaviour.

The End