(Written by Grace Cheng, an elementary school student)
I live on the third to the last house on Elmer Street. There are rumors floating around that the last house on the block is haunted. People say they can see shadows of someone moving around inside. No one wants to go near it.
On a cold and blustery day, my friends Enna and Megan and I were walking home from school and didn’t realize we had gone past my house and were in front of the haunted house. It made us all freeze as if we’d seen a monster.
I was the first to speak, but I could barely get the question out, “What are we going to do?”
“I-I-I don’t know,” whispered Enna.
The house was dark and had a huge black pointy gate. It was scary, and we didn’t dare touch it. The shutters of the house knocked against it as the wind howled. The trees around it were bare and looked like men trying to keep their heads up. The purple paint on the house was peeling away like a wrinkled skin. The grass was brown and looked to be dead. Some of the windows were broken. A shed by the house had been white a long time ago but was now almost black. Moss was growing along the lower edges of it.
We looked around us, and there was no one else nearby. The only other living thing was a stray cat that was looming around. It was frightening to be there, but we stood there and stared.
It was Megan who couldn’t stand it anymore and blurted, “Sh-should we run?”
We all agreed and ran until we got to Enna’s house. Out of breath, Enna said, “Wh-what are we going to do?”
“I don’t really care. I want to go home”, wailed Megan
“How about this”, I ventured. “We could all go to my house and have hot chocolate!” And everyone agreed.
That same night, I had a terrible dream. In it, we were at the haunted house again, and I heard voices saying “G-G-Go H-Home a-and N-N-N-N-N-Never C-C-C-Come B-Back A-A-A-Again!”
I woke up with my heart pounding and tried to decide if what had just seemed to happen was true or my imagination.
For the rest of the night, I couldn’t sleep.
The next day at school, I was so tired that I waited endlessly for the bell to ring.
After school, Megan, Enna, and I walked home together again, and I told them my dream. It seems unbelievable, but they both had the same dream.
I felt that we should visit the house again, but Megan refused to. She went home so that left only Enna and me.
As we were walking past my house, I heard mother call out with “Grace, would you mind taking this cake I made to Ms. Alexandra?”
“Where does she live?” I asked.
“The last house on the block”, mom replied.
“The last house?” All the color drained from my face.
Mom looked worried and said, “Is something the matter?”
I quickly replied, “N-No, I’m okay.” She didn’t really believe me, but she gave me the cake.
We walked slowly to the house on the corner when Enna piped up saying, “Grace, we don’t have to knock on the front door if we don’t want to.”
I looked at her as I was unsure what she had just said and she repeated the thought – “You know, we could just sneak around to the back door and put the cake on the porch.” She added, “Isn’t that a good way to handle it?”
I thought about it for a few seconds and then agreed.
We kept walking until we reached the scary, big black pointy-looking gate, and when it was opened, it squeaked noisily.
We were afraid that someone would see us, so we ducked under some bushes and crept slowly and quietly toward the back of the house where we saw a red car.
“Someone is home!” whispered Enna, as we crept slowly toward the back porch.
There were five steps we needed to climb, and each one of them creaked and groaned as we stepped on them. We were scared to death that someone would hear us.
We set the cake just outside the back door and it was then that Enna suddenly slipped and fell while yelling “O-U-C-H!”
Suddenly the door swung open……
