“Huh! It’s too boring nowadays. There are no mysteries for us. I am just fed up with this pretend play. God knows how badly I want a new mystery,” said Thomas.

“Yeah, even Tommy, the bully, is leaving the town for the holidays!” agreed Peter.

Well, this was how we were spending our holidays while others were sunbathing at the beach. We, a detective squad of five, Thomas, Peter, John, Lucy and I, were rotting with boredom in our wooden cabin, until…

“Knock, knock,” there was a knock at the door.

“Who’s there?” John’s question was answered by nothing but silence.

We shared our confused expressions before Emily stood up, with her brave spirit, but found nobody except a torn box placed low on our cabin’s doorstep. Emily peeked outside, first right then left, to see if there was a postman but to no avail. Finally, she ducked down to pick up the box when Peter interrupted.

“No, Emily, we may need fingerprints if it is a lost one.”

We all gathered around the box to find a name or address, so we could return it to its owner, but to no avail.

“Well, any ideas?” asked John.

“Just throw it in garbage. It must be a cursed one. Haven’t you people heard about the Phantom Postman who used to place a random box on someone’s doorstep and would vanish into thin air. Sadly, whoever opened it would die right away.”

Peter scared all of us with his spooky observation. On hearing him, terror seized all of us and frightening thoughts began racing through our minds.

“Oh, please Agent Peter, ghosts don’t exist!” exclaimed John.

“Well, I think, we should throw it far away from the town. It may contain a bomb or a toxic chemical which may kill all of us,” said Thomas.

“Or may be, someone is kind to us and they sent us a cute, little, adorable, soft, scruffy teddy. Oh, God knows how much I wanted a new teddy,” pleaded Emily.

“Come on Emily, you already have a whole lot of teddy bears!” said John.

“No, no, no! This must be the adorable purse my aunt was about to send me all the way from Canada. Give it to me!” I remembered.

We all had different ideas about what to do with the parcel, but finally John opened the box slowly. The box was taped so tightly that it took time to scrape the tape off which increased our suspense.

“POP!”

A clown toy suddenly sprang out of the box as it opened which had almost gave us goosebumps.

“Wait, what? Another prank by Tommy? What does he think, he will trick us every time and we will let him go so easily? Just wait and see, what I do with you,” words blurted out of John’s mouth with anger as he punched his fist to his another hand.

Published in Dawn, Young World, April 23rd, 2022