This story is selected as Editor’s Choice and won INR 500
Children Short Story – The Magical Gift
Photo credit: Maena from morguefile.com
The dusk was falling and the night had prepared its starry suit for the duty. Anayah’s house was decorated with lights, balloons and other fancy things. Guests started coming there. Today was Anayah’s seventh birthday. She was very much excited to cut the birthday cake which her father had brought just a moment ago. Every year she waits for her birthday eagerly.
She often asked her father some silly questions like, ‘ Why can’t we have our birthday twice or thrice in a year? Or Why don’t we have lesser days in a year so that we won’t have to wait long for our birthday? ’
The best part of her birthday’s celebration she liked was she got lots of gifts from her friends and relatives. This year she already told her father to invite as many people as he can so that she could get more gifts. Her eyes were always scrawling around the person’s hand, who entered the house one by one. She got happy when someone holding big package of gift entered the house but got angry on whom who brought small packages. She said to herself, “Such people should never be invited to a party”.
Mr. Time had arrived soon and she cut the cake. Everyone clapped and sang the birthday song for her. Then came Mrs. Dinner and everyone joined her. Children said sayonara to Mrs. Dinner soon and they gathered in Anayah’s room where her mother had put all the gifts. She started opening all the gifts, her friends gave to her, in front of them to check how much they liked her.
Suddenly her mother entered the room. On seeing her doing mischief she scolded her and told her not to open the gifts until all the guests were gone. Anayah got furious over it and started crying.
After some time when all the guests left the house, Anayah’s mother came to her and coaxed her to stop crying and told her to check the gifts. She was waiting for that moment. She unwrapped the gift which was biggest in size first. It was a computer from her father. She exclaimed in joy on seeing it. She had got a teddy bear, clothes, color pencil and many more things in the gifts from her friends and family. One by one she unwrapped all packages but one, which had no name plate on it. She opened it and found a diary in it. She said to herself what a rubbish gift it is. How could anyone gift me such a filthy diary? Whoever gifted it didn’t put own name intentionally, must have shamed for this.
She threw it on her table and started playing with the toys she had got. After playing half an hour she went to her bed for sleeping. She got attention of the diary again while lying on the bed. She thought may be the name would be given inside of it. She turned the light on and brought it to her bed. She opened it and found something was written on the first page of it. It said,
“Dear Anayah,
I am wishing you a very happy birthday. You would be wondering who has written it to you. Actually it is me the diary itself who is writing it to you. I am not a normal diary. I am a magical one. You can call me Mr. Dodo. I came here by myself.
Remember last year you wished to God if he can fulfill all your wishes. So here I am. From now on I will be with you for the next one year. I will fulfill your wishes for that period of time. Each day before you go to sleep, you have to put one wish on me. I will fulfill it but in return you have to do my one task for each wish.
One thing you must have to remember that you can’t be greedy in making wishes. You wish will only be get done if it is morally right. Now if you agree with my terms and conditions, write you first wish tonight.”
Anayah exclaimed in joy,” wow! This is wonderful. Now I can get all of my work done easily.”
She took her pen and without thinking much, she wrote down in it,” Do all of my homework which I got today.” Then she put the diary on the table and went for sleeping in very happy mood. She was curious to know what would happen tomorrow.
Hours passed, midnight arrived. Suddenly the window of Anayah’s room opened with the entry of cold breeze. The room was filled by a mysterious blue light. A flying chariot stopped nearby the window and an old beard man stepped in into the room. His appearance looked like Santa Claus but it was not him. He would be Mr. Dodo. His presence made the room like a magical place. First he read out Anayah’s wish from the diary then he took a mysterious flower from his pocket and stroked it on all over her notebooks slowly. The stroking of the flower made all the homework done in her notebooks. After that Mr. Dodo returned to his chariot and flew away. The blue light disappeared and with a tuck sound, the window closed.
Anayah woke up from her dream hurriedly. Her curiosity made her rush to check the notebook. But soon her excitement went in rest when she found that nothing did happen with her homework. She thought someone had played a joke with her. She opened the diary again. But what she found in that was amazing.
Mr. Dodo left a message to her, “My dear girl, like I said before you can’t be greedy in making your wishes. You have to do all of your routine work by yourself. Take care of it while making your next wishes. You have made your wish, now it’s my turn to assign you a task. The task is, “be polite while telling someone to do some work, don’t order but request.” ”.
Anayah wondered, “This really might be a magical diary that is why the texts appeared in it automatically in the night. Now I will take care of its instructions.” She hid Mr. Dodo in her bookshelf to make sure no one would know about it.
That night she took the diary again, before going to sleep and made another wish in polite manner, “Dear Mr. Dodo, It has been months since I met my grandmother, I wish if I could meet her soon, please.” This time she kept his instruction in her mind.
Next day Anayah’s mother woke her up early in the morning. She told her that her that grandmother was coming there in half an hour. She called her father last night about it, when she had slept.
Anayah got amazed by the news. Her wish was about to fulfilled. Mr. Dodo was right. It was a magical diary. She referred to him in rush. He had assigned her another task. He told her that she would take care of her grandmother.
That day was her holiday. She spent whole day with her grandmother. Her grandmother was in surprise to see her obey all her saying. She seemed to be a good girl.
Since that day Anayah made one wish daily and it was duly fulfilled by Mr. Dodo. She did his task too in return. She had wished for her favorite chocolate, one day leave of his father from his office, a new school bag, a visit to park, cinemas and museum, so far. Initially these wishes were rejected by her parents, but thanks to Mr. Dodo, the wishes got fulfilled. With the fulfillment of her wishes, Anayah changed a lot too. She was becoming a good girl from a naughty one.
One thing that her parents worried about was of her academic performance. She was not good at studies. She didn’t look at her books at home. She touched the books only when the exam had arrived.
Only one month was left before commencement of her final exams. Her father advised her to begin preparation for the examination. But she didn’t want to begin it so early. That night she told Mr. Dodo about it and made a wish that if he could sharp her memory more so that she could remember all her syllabus in one night. In reply Mr. Dodo told her, “Again it is a greedy thing you have asked for. I can’t help you in that. Anyway you have to do my task. I have been bore so long and want to learn something. You will teach me your lessons from your books daily. If I feel difficulty in understanding the lessons, you will have to teach me again and again. Now start your teaching today, right now.”
Anayah got tensed after reading it. It was one of the most difficult tasked assigned to her ever. But she didn’t want to hurt Mr. Dodo’s feelings by rejecting his task. She started reciting the lesson to him daily.
Ah! Mr. Dodo was not a good learner. Anayah had to teach him same lesson for three to four consecutive times. Sometimes he asked her to write the lesson on to him so that he could read it to own self at free times.
Month ended and exam started. The question papers seemed very easy to her. It had not happened to her ever before. All thanks to Mr. Dodo, she could remember all the lessons she taught him. Everyone got amazed when the result declared. She got third rank in the class. Even she found it hard to believe on.
Mr. Dodo had become a good friend of her. Anayah wrote him, all her secret. Generally she talked about her family and friends. Now she did his tasks very eagerly and Mr. Dodo did the same with her wishes.
Time flew like an arrow, Anayah’s next birthday was coming soon. Mr. Dodo was the guest for a few days only. This was the first time when Anayah didn’t want her birthday to come early. She didn’t want Mr. Dodo to leave her. But he told her that he had to leave her because he had to follow his duty strictly. Soon the last night arrived, a day before Anayah’s birthday. She wasn’t happy at all. She made her last wish that Mr. Dodo would stay with her, making her wish come true forever. She then went for sleeping while sobbing.
Hours later, when the clock showed its maximum time, the door of Anayah’s room opened in silence. Her father stepped into the room, turned the light on. Then he picked up Anayah’s magical diary, placed it on the table, read her last wish and started writing in it.
“Dear Anayah, Happy birthday once again. I am sorry but I can only fulfill your last wish partially. I will be with you forever but not like that I have been so far. I will be at inactive state, not even able to reply you back. But trust me you won’t need me anymore. You can fulfill your own wish by yourself. Actually you have been doing it already. Every task I gave you, had a lesson hidden within it. Your successful accomplishment of the tasks led you to learn the lessons which made your wish fulfilled easily.
From today I will not assign you any task. Hope you will understand the meaning of the lesson I gave you through the tasks. These will help you to solve every problem you will face. Now it’s my time to leave. I wish you a happy life ahead. Goodbye.”
–END–
