Ghostly Experience

"Did you see that man’s face when the mango hit him on top of his head?” said Jassi laughing, as he licked the sweet, yellow juice trickling on his arm, from the half eaten mango.

"He couldn’t figure out why the mangoes kept falling down. He didn’t know we were up there,” said Kavi laughing so hard, that he fell off the branch of the tree.

"What a day we’ve had scaring people. First we kept ringing door bells and running away and now hiding in the tree and throwing mangoes at passers-by.” said Jassi.

"What should we do now?” Kavi asked.

"Let’s go to your place and watch TV or something,” suggested Jassi.

"Sure,” replied Kavi.

Walking down the street, with nut brown skins, dirt smeared faces, scraped knees, shirts tucked half in their shorts and half hanging out, they looked like a couple of eleven-years-old, who were working hard at having fun. They did not want to waste a single minute of their vacation.

"What have you two been up to? You boys look scary,” said Leena, Kavi’s fourteen-year-old sister.

"Oh, the usual, scaring people,” replied the boys.

"I learnt how to call spirits of dead people,” said Leena in a low voice, “ Do you want to do it?”

Wow, thought the two boys, this would be better than ringing doorbells and throwing mangoes from a tree.

Yes, nodded the two heads in unison.

"Come sit here in a circle,” said Leena, as she led them to the cemented courtyard. “Close your eyes and repeat after me. Friendly spirits passing by come to us.”

"Why are we whispering?” asked Jassi.

"Silly, we don’t want to offend them by talking in a loud voice,” replied Leena.

The two boys kept muttering the words Leena had told them.

Jassi felt something whisk past him. His heart started to pound. Something was going to happen. There seemed to be some kind of presence around him.

"Now, rub your hands on the floor five times and then on your face three times,” instructed Leena. “ Do not open your eyes or the spell will be broken.”

The boys did as they were told.

"Hold my hands now and I’m going to lead you somewhere. When we stop, open your eyes and look straight ahead, don’t look around,” said Leena. “ There you’ll see him. He looks quite scary but don’t be afraid he’s friendly.”

There they saw two of the scariest faces they had ever seen. Sketched by Parmeet Kaur

With hearts beating fast with excitement and a little fear of the unknown, they walked along. It seemed a while before they stopped.

Jassi and Kavi opened their eyes and looked straight ahead and found themselves looking in a mirror. There they saw two of the scariest faces they had ever seen. Their own faces covered in black soot.

"Looks like Leena made a fool of us and the only scary spirits around here are us,” said Jassi, as the two boys rushed to clean up their faces.