It was exciting to shift to a new house. New things always excite me, so I was looking forward to exploring the new neighbourhood and making new friends. I live with my parents and younger brother.

The very next day after we moved, our neighbour, Rob, came to meet us. He brought flowers and gave us kids a box of biscuits. It was a nice gesture from him. Rob dropped in often to check how we were doing and soon became quite a good friend of my parents, so they started trusting him. Rob lived alone in his house next to ours.

Almost a month after we shifted, my parents were invited to their friend’s house for dinner. They knew they would be late, so they told our neighbour to babysit us till that time and Rob happily agreed.

We also liked him, so we also happily went to his house to spend the evening there. The house had two bedrooms, a lounge and a kitchen. After chatting for a while, Rob gave us sweets and told us amazing stories. Then he asked us to sleep as it was quite late for us.

He asked us to stay in his bedroom, while warning us to stay out of the other room as it had his personal stuff that he didn’t want to be disturbed.

We were accustomed to sleep early, so after having dinner, we slept in his room. But suddenly, my brother Jim woke up and shook me awake.

“Ava, wake up! What’s that strange noise?” he asked anxiously.

The sound was as if a person was humming and there was also another sound, the sound of something sizzling on a stove. We thought maybe Rob was cooking. But as it was pretty late in the night, so I thought I should go out and see for myself. I told Jim to stay in the room while I went out.

The noise was coming from the other room — the room we were asked not to go into. I was standing in the corridor when I saw green smoke coming out from under the door. It was really strange.

I slipped out from the house, trying not to make any noise, went out to the backyard and peaked through the window into the room.

I was taken aback by what I saw. Rob, who looked more like an old wizard humming creepily, was mixing some chemicals and putting it in a big black cauldron. The cauldron was hanging on iron rods that were installed inside the fireplace on one wall of the room.

There were so many different jars and bottles filled with weird things that were placed on the shelves beside the fireplace.

The sight that gave me nearly a heart attack was when I saw a little girl sleeping on the floor. It looked like she was unconscious. Then I saw Rob taking out some liquid from the cauldron, filling it in a dropper, then walking slowly towards the girl. Then he put a few drops of green liquid in her mouth. Within moments, she turned into a kitten!

At that moment, Rob laughed out so loud that I was horrified and shaken to my bones. I was absolutely terrified seeing this all.

I hurried to the room where my brother was, asked him to come with me immediately without making any noise. Thankfully, without getting into trouble, both of us quietly left the ‘wizard’s’ house.

Luckily, I had a key to my house so we went home, where I called the police and told them everything. First, they didn’t believe me. Then they came and checked on his house. Our parents were also home by then and they were horrified to learn what could have happened to us.

The police, after thoroughly going through Rob’s house, found potions, chemicals and various other weird stuffs. They saw that kitten as well.

Rob knew he was caught so he accepted all his crimes and also accepted that he had changed the little girl into a kitten as he was testing his newly-created magic potion. The police arrested him immediately and also asked him to turn the kitten into girl again.

Thankfully, he was able to change the girl back, who was then returned to her parents. Rob was sentenced to serve in the prison for the rest of his life.

The police thanked me and my parents felt proud of us for showing courage and cleverly escaping from the house.

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