Summer holidays were just a week away from the finish line for all the grades except Grade 6. They had to report to school today as this week was assigned to their preparatory sessions for the scholarship exam. The fifteen girls and the fifteen boys had reached the school’s hostel where they stayed as it was safe to be inside the campus of St. Anne’s Convent School which was surrounded by a forest, mountains and a river. They settled in their Holy Cross hotel’s ‘E’wing’s rooms on the second floor. There were four rooms out of which two were the size of a huge dormitory, one on the right for girls and the other on the left for boys.
The boys’ supervisor was Sir Thomas and the girls[1] supervisor was Miss Tara. St. Anne’s school was a cosmopolitan educational temple and the admissions were based on merit. Hence, the children had learnt equality and empathy from a young age. The other two small rooms on both sides on the second floor of the ‘E’ wing were the medical rooms where the sick children were treated. The hostel had six wings with three floors in each of them. All the floors of all the wings had the same type of rooms except the E and F wings where the management and staff lived. The wings were labelled as A, B, C, D, E and F. Grade six students too lived in the fifth wing and their floor was similar to the floors of the other grades in the wings ‘A to D’. Each grade had a male and female supervisor who lived with them in their room. As the raindrops were quenching the thirst of the land and nature, the dark clouds started hovering above the campus and the thunder and lightning graced the place in such a way that it looked scary. The children were so tired that they fell asleep soon after their dinner.
The next morning, their class began and they had a lot of educational fun time after many weeks. During dinner, they had fun gossiping and cracking jokes but as they were about to finish, everything went dark. The Matron, Mrs. Smith announced that there was a power failure in the hostel and in the school. All they could see from the huge glass windows was the light of the full moon. The howling of the wolves in the forest painted a petrified look on their faces. The Matron told them not to worry as this was normal during the rainy days and the supervisors were asked to escort the children to their rooms. The counsellor accompanied the girls and decided to stay with them for the night as they were very scared.
There was another reason for the children to be afraid which was that it was a full moon night and the talk of the town was that the hostel was haunted by the ghost of the previous Matron, Miss Burkin, who had died 20 years ago. She was very nice to the children and used to bake special ginger cookies once a week for all the students and staff. Soon, things started getting stolen every full moon night, and after investigation, the police found her guilty. She pleaded that she was innocent but they wouldn’t listen. She couldn’t take the humiliation after serving the school from her heart for fifteen years and cut her neck and bled to death on a full moon night before the police could arrest her. Since then, every full moon night, her ghost would roam about in the ‘E’ wing of the hostel. She had a limp and so her footsteps were different from others as her shoes made the sound, ‘tap-ta-dap’ when she walked. No one had baked ginger cookies since then. Every full moon night the children would go bed by 8pm and the lights would be on all night. Tonight, it was different. The children were preparing for the farewell ceremony of their current Matron and their counsellor was supposed to take her place as she had been serving the school since 35 years. The ceremony was supposed to take place after two weeks when all the students were back in school but Mrs. Shaw was supposed to become the Matron, officially, the next day. All the excitement was now replaced with fear. The children were in their beds and Mrs. Shaw was with the girls, trying to calm them down.
Suddenly, they heard footsteps outside their closed door. It sounded exactly like the long gone hostel Matron’s footsteps. Accompanied by the sound of the howling wolves in the forest, the place had become very spooky. They had lit up a lot of candles but the power failure in the hostel made sure that fear danced on the petrified faces of the children. The supervisors checked outside and told the kids that the sounds might be because of the old doors and windows. The children calmed down and were about to enter dreamland, when, out of the blue, the aroma of freshly baked ginger cookies enveloped the hostel. This sent a chill down the spine of everyone including the adults. The kitchen was closed and the cooks were in their rooms, perplexed and terrified. All of them were somehow trying to dig out the tiny bits of courage left in them, when they heard an invisible entity banging on the windows. Everyone ran out of their rooms with candles into the dining hall. Mrs. Shaw tried to stop them but she couldn’t and had to follow them.
In the dining hall, they saw a white ghostly figure which was calm until the last person, Mrs. Shaw entered. The doors and windows were shut and the ghost moaned and groaned in anger. It held a knife at Mrs. Shaw’s neck and roared in a very scary voice. It kept repeating the same sentence which was ‘Tell the truth or else I will torture you to death every day.’ Everyone was confused. They couldn’t believe as they saw cuts appearing on Mrs. Shaw’s body, who was bleeding and crying in pain. After half an hour of torture, she succumbed to the ghost’s demand and said, ” I joined this school 35 years ago. It was a big deal for me as I come from a poor family. The Matron, Mrs. Burkin was very nice to me and helped me learn everything. She also fulfilled all my needs but when I saw the special things that the children had, greed and jealousy took over my mind. I started stealing small things every full moon night. Later, expensive things became my target. I hid them under my bed but some things wouldn’t fit in my small room and hence I hid them in Mrs. Burkin’s room. When the police came to investigate, they couldn’t find anything in my room as I had stitched them into my bed but they found the stuff that I had hidden in the Matron’s room. She was dragged from her room and humiliated by everyone. She cried and tried to tell everyone that she was innocent but no one believed her. I was the one who had told the police that she was the thief. Before the police could arrest her the next morning, she committed suicide. I am sorry. Please forgive me. Let me go.” Mrs. Shaw cried while everyone was in shock. The ghost said, “You have been stealing till date in my name on every full moon night and have spread many rumours about me. I will never let you become the Matron as that was always your greatest wish. You have been brainwashing the children too. You don’t deserve to live.” Before anyone could say anything, the ghost dragged her to the third floor and threw her down. She died on the spot. No one could believe their eyes or ears. The ghost said, ” Now onwards, you all don’t need to worry. I have finally given Mrs. Shaw, the taste of the cookies of her karma. Sir Thomas, you have recorded Mrs. Shaw’s statement on your phone. Please give it to the police and wipe my slate clean.” Sir Thomas, the Matron and others agreed and the ghost vanished into thin air.
It has been five years since the incident and neither has anything been stolen nor have any haunting experiences been reported. The police found the stolen items in Mrs. Shaw’s room and the Late Mrs. Burkin was declared innocent. Mrs. Smith was asked to continue as the Matron for another ten years and she agreed happily. The children of St. Anne’s Convent School and the Holy Cross hostel were no longer afraid, even in the dark on a full moon night and the howling of the wolves was music to their ears now. Mrs. Burkin was considered as a fairy Godmother from that day and forever.
Vizzmaya is a wanderer in the land of stories and an explorer in the sea of poetry. She is 10 years old but her life’s experiences make her writing age faster but gracefully. She is awaiting for the release of not just her first book but all her 7 e-books via Amazon by the end of November, titled- Vizzmaya’s wonderland (parts 1 to 7) which contain poems, stories, write-ups and jingles. She hopes they add positive energy to the lives of everyone who reads them and is passed on to others for their betterment.
Vizzmaya Jalal, a Class 5 student of St. Francis ICSE school, Mumbai, is a poetess, a writer, an aromatherapist, a herbalist, a classical singer, a classical dancer, a keyboard player, a basketball and chess player and a linguist who speaks 9 languages. She is an iron girl who sees her bedridden mother medically suffer like hell each day and yet inspires and motivates her to fly higher with the help of my maternal grandfather’s positive energy and take others along with her beyond the clouds of earthly problems and pain to a peaceful place where spirituality and science live together in harmony; thus staying true to her name, Vizzmaya which means wonderment.