The Perfect Family

The parkers are the perfect family you will find in town, unlike us. Our family is very boring and grumpy. Everyone knows what a good family would look like, but if you knew mine, you would be shocked. I wanted a perfect family, until that night. 

 It all started in a lazy, boring Sunday evening. My mom was doing her yoga course online. My mom attends all the fitness classes in town, whether it is online or offline. My dad as usual, was doing office work. My dad is working as a business analyst, who even works on Sundays. My little brother, the troublemaker was playing in my phone until it was dead. My brother always gets me into trouble, and I have to save him all the time. He has been playing with my phone for a long time and me I couldn’t stop wondering how perfect the Parker family was. The parkers were our Neighbors and they were perfect. Jane a loving mom, Carlos a dad who would do anything for his children, Denis a sweet little brother, Dash a lovely dog and Mary the perfect girl. I have never talked to Mary as she is never seen in school. There was one incident in the school, where she had pushed me into water. She acts strange at times, but me and her are almost the same. Well we have one difference between us, she has a great family, and I don’t have. Mary has always been alone in school. Not once I have thought about talking to her. She never answers questions at school and sometimes no one even notices her. 

Earlier that day, I was really bored and had nothing to do. I saw a girl down the window staring at me. I was disturbed by the way she looked at me. I tried things to chase her away, but she does not budge. So, I finally decided to go down and meet her. She was the girl who lived with the parkers. There were rumors around the street that they adopted a girl from Europe. She was wearing a black sweater with a hood, and a white skirt, her face was so plain and pale. She looked very strange. So, I slowly went down and asked her what she wanted, she replied in a very ghostly manner “do you have any problem in your life?” I had never seen her in my school even though she was at my age. So, I replied “yeah, why should I tell you? I don’t trust you as you are living with Mary.” She smiled in the weirdest way and said “oh, she is like my sister. I grant wishes for the troubled.” I was totally creeped out by her accent. To show I was brave, I replied “ok, I want a perfect family like yours. No one can give me that.” She replied calmly “your wish shall be granted.” I had turned for a second, but she was gone. I was creeped out for the rest of the day.

It was half past 7, the slow clock slowly ticked, and the lights were flickering. My mom and dad were fighting downstairs, my brother and I decided to pitch in a little bit to see what was going on. We tried consoling both of them to stop but, we couldn’t figure out what was going on and me and my brother decided to go to my room and talk and just then the lights started flickering so bad that my room went dark.  My brother started screaming for help as I could not figure where was the doorknob in the dark and my phone was dead. I hugged him and told him not to worry. But somehow, we got locked from the outside! 

My parents knew that something was wrong, and they had to protect us, so they came upstairs with a torchlight and grabbed us by our waists and ran down. My dad got an emergency lamp and kept it in the middle of the living room. My brother was crying, and my mom consoled him. We all hugged for a moment. Then, I just saw the parkers that they were camping. I got an idea, so I said, “I was wondering if we could camp today in our backyard”. The power won’t be back until tomorrow. My dad and mom glanced at each other and thought for a second. After a minute, my mom said “ok, we will give it a try.” My brother and me jumped in excitement. We took all our camping supplies and arranged it outside in the dark. 

We played a lot of games. We each made our versions of tents. My parents had forgotten their fight. We had a lot of fun. The thing I learned that day was that we don’t need to be a perfect family, we are unique in our own ways. I will always love my family, even though we are not like the parkers. The next day, I wanted to tell the parkers what a fun night we had and make friends with Mary, so we can a good team in the school. I walked down to their block and as a surprise it had said SOLD. I was shocked, they never told that they were moving. I went to the next block, the Leighs. Mrs. Leigh is a nice woman who lives alone, me and my brother always go there for her amazing cookies. Mrs. Leigh gave me lemonade and cookies, we both sat down and talked. I said calmly “Mrs. Leigh, did you know that the parkers were moving away?” She was puzzled and asked “who are the parkers? “And she told me that house has been empty for 10 years since a fire. I was terrified and scared. She now understood all the incidents which happened in school with Mary. The Parkers and the girl were standing outside the window with a very creepy smile. 

• Authors: Sahana and Sivaranjini