Trapped

By Briana Byron

“Ooooh let's go to Mr. Plotkin's House! Last year he gave away little bags of candy! There were chocolate lollipops, little artificially flavored candies, caramels, a caramel apple, and little Halloween puzzles! And I know a shortcut there,” said Megan pointing to the graveyard.

The girls began to walk. When they reached the graveyard, Megan gulped and looked back, but Ana put one hand on the gates and bravely pushed them open. Creeeeak and the girls walked inside. “I-I-I'm having s-second thoughts a-about this,” Megan stammered. “Oh don't be such a ‘fraidy cat,” Ana replied. When they came to a tunnel that was only big enough for two girls to crawl into single file, Ana said “So, I guess we go in here?” Squeeeeeeak Clang !! The girls whipped around and saw that something—or someone, had slammed the gates shut. “I-I-I guess so.” So Ana knelt down and crawled into the tunnel, Megan close behind her. When they stopped to rest, they heard a sound like hail pattering the roof of the tunnel. “Must be raining outside,” Ana commented. “Well we better get going if we want to get that candy.” They crawled further and further until they were on wet grass. They looked around and found themselves deep in a wood. “Please can we go back,” Megan whined. “Oh okay,” Ana said, but when the girls turned around, there was no tunnel to be seen. “Ahhhhhh!” screamed Megan. “Shhhhhh I don't know what could be listening,” Ana warned, and the girls crept further into the woods.

When lightning struck, the girls looked at each other and screamed because they had turned into werewolves. But when lightning struck again 30 seconds later, they looked at each other and saw only Megan and Ana. Each knew they were both scared. They continued walking. Growing tired, Ana lay down on a boulder, and Megan lay down beside her. The girls were silent, and each envisioned scary things. But the thing they saw that was most frightening was a dead creature hanging from a branch in front of them. They couldn't describe it—it looked like a man who was in the middle of changing into a werewolf when he died. As soon as they saw it, they both screamed. Then they heard a strange howl, and suddenly from every direction, werewolves appeared. They sat bolt upright. Ana acted faster. She jumped up, grabbed two sharp sticks, and tossed one of them to Megan. Ana jumped off the boulder with the other stick, and when the werewolves got close to her, she fended them off with it. Then she grabbed a rock to use as a shield. On the other hand, Megan jumped up, but she wasn't looking, and a werewolf jumped onto her back. She fell forward and painfully bent her forearm in the middle. But Ana saw her, and to prevent the werewolf from eating Megan, Ana drove the sharp stick into the werewolf's back and killed it. For awhile, the girls just stared at each other, Megan who had foolishly broken her arm, and Ana who had a deep gash in the side of her face where a werewolf sunk his claws in, and cuts and bruises everywhere from fighting. Megan couldn't even save her own life, and Ana had heroically killed a werewolf and badly injured three others.

A werewolf howled at the moon, and the girls were suddenly in a dry whirlpool of yellow and red. Then came a blinding white light, then a leopard appeared in the middle of the light and he said, “You have lifted the curse of the forest. You have killed the werewolf leader and made the others dissolve. Now take this as a token of my gratitude.” The girls found themselves outside of the graveyard gates, unharmed. They thought that their safe return was the leopard's gift. But when the girls were at home and dumped out their bags of candy, they found Mr. Plotkin's candy in there too! They also found a magical crystal in each girl's bag.