Rijuta Gohil
THE MYSTERIOUS KEY
Hi, my name is Alexi A. Alan. I live in America. I have had so many adventures with my best friend Clare. Let me tell you about one of them. Listen carefully because this is the best one.
I was a small girl. At least that is what my parents called me. The truth: I was almost eleven. My dad, an author, told great stories. We used to own a beach that had been a tourist attraction. It had a shipwreck. So here I was, at midnight, staring at the water. Yes, I know it sounds crazy. But I was here because I love water.
An hour later, I was almost asleep. Then…WHOOSH! I jumped up and turned around. There was an old ship approaching shore. It was extremely old. Then I realized it must have been the shipwreck! I let it approach. 50 feet away, 40, 30. Then it stopped. I swam out to meet it. I clambered up the side of the ship and jumped aboard. I started to run in crazy circles, so excited. All of a sudden, I was on my face. I got up and saw something shiny. A rusty key! That’s what I tripped over. At that moment, the key began to glow.
I was completely terrified. I had never seen anything like it before. Then I saw a picture engraved on the key. The picture looked like a snake. Then a sound like helicopter blades reached my ears. I looked around but nothing was there. I jumped off the ship. Owwwwww… that hurt. I managed to swim to shore then raced home. There I shoved the key under my pillow. I looked outside and did not see the ship. Scary.
The next day, I raced home from school. I rushed through my homework. I took the key out and looked at the picture through my microscope. It was a dragon! At night, I grabbed the key and took off toward the beach. When I reached there, there were footprints on the ground. Too big to be mine. Much too big. “Well, well, what do we have here?” said a voice.
My heart pounding, I slowly turned around. WHUMP! A black thing slammed into me. I gasped for breath as I pushed the thing aside. But then, as I realized that it was a burglar, another one jumped out of nowhere. One was fat and had a deep voice. The other one was shorter than me. They were armed with nothing, so my instincts took over. I karate kicked one and flipped the other. I tied them together with a rope.
I said, “What do you want?”
“We want the ship,” replied the fat one. “It is said that it has a secret room. There are jewels and money there. It sank at your beach. There is also a dragon guarding it.” I was sure the key would open that room.
I took the burglars away and called the police. They picked them up. The ship appeared when I went back. As I clambered up the side, I felt something get warm my pocket. I reached inside my pocket and took the key out. It was glowing again!
I realized it would be dawn soon. I quickly started to try the key in the locks. As I moved below deck, I started noticing the locks get smaller. Soon, the locks were too small for the key to fit in. Yet I still tried them in sheer desperation. The helicopter blades reached me again. Again, there was nothing around. All my work was gone for nothing. I jumped off the ship. Owwwwww…that hurt. I raced home to do my chores, disappointed.
That day at school was horrible. I kept thinking about the key.
When the teacher asked, “What is the product of 11 x 5, Alexi?”
I answered, “Glowing key!” Of course, I was in trouble because I did that several times. Though the punishment was only washing the blackboard after school for a week, I felt miserable. “Cheer up, Alexia,” said Clare, my best friend. But I didn’t.
After school, I cleaned the blackboards as fast as I could. Then I dashed home. Clare stopped by that day. I told her all about the key, ship, burglars and how the key would not fit. She said she wanted to help.
I told her “Meet me at 12:00am.” Then she went on her way.
That night I crept out of bed and headed toward the beach. I saw Clare and waved to her. WHOOSH! The ship appeared again, like it had so many times before. Clare and I clambered up the ship. There was the helicopter sound again. Nothing was around us. Clare was silent until I showed her the key. It was glowing, of course.
“Didn’t the burglars say ‘secret room’?” she said. I realized she was right. We both started roaming around looking for cracks and crevices in the walls. I started walking toward a big crack on the wall. Suddenly, I saw a door.
I shouted, “Over here, Clare!” She came running down the hall. We opened the door and…WHACK! Something flew over us and breathed fire. The ship erupted into flames.
“Run!” Clare shouted. But it was too late. The ship started sinking like a rock. Clare fainted. I pulled her along as I tried to walk. But then my knees buckled and everything went black.
‘Sirens,’ I thought as I regained consciousness. I woke up. We were in the hospital. My dad was talking to the police. Then they left. Slowly, my dad walked towards me. He said, “You are in big trouble, young lady!” I gulped. He told me about Clare dragging me back. I told him about the ship. My dad said “The burglars were responsible for the ship. They wanted to hold you for ransom. They had a few other burglars as back-up who used a helicopter to lift the ship. They are in jail now. The dragon was a fake as well as the secret room. There was a trap that activated as soon as you found the supposed door and a blowtorch turned on. You are so lucky to be alive!” I was so stupid. The helicopter blades! I never looked up. “You are grounded for a month,” he said. But I didn’t care. I was safe. Clare was safe. That was all that mattered. All was fine.
Those days of the month went by fast. I was not sad. But I told you my story. Don’t say a word about it. I am eighteen now. I love to work. Sometimes Clare calls me. She moved to Australia. I will be moving there soon. I am happy, I will see her again. Like I said “All is fine.”
THE END
