Short story: The wish-bone

By: Shaurya Arora

Once upon a time, there was a girl named Sara. She resided in England. She lacked confidence and had no courage to make friends.

On the eve of Christmas, Sara sat down to have dinner with her family. The dinner table had a variety of dishes, all of which were Sara’s favourite. Sara picked a piece of fried chicken and the moment she took a bite she found something magical. She found a wish-bone. According to an ancient story, a wish-bone is considered to be lucky and it supposedly has the power to make wishes come true.

Having a wish-bone in her hand made Sara excited. She said to herself, “Now I can wish for what I have wanted since forever!”. After dinner, everyone went up to their rooms to sleep. Sara, before going to her room, snuck the wish-bone in her pocket. She took it to her room, stood in her balcony and broke the wish-bone.

Everything was normal for some time, but in a while sparkles started appearing in her room. A bright white light filled the room and a beautiful fairy appeared in a blue dress. Sara was shocked to see such a pretty fairy. Standing before her the fairy said “What do you want for my child?” Sara responded, “I wish for confidence”.  The fairy smiled at her and said “Your wish is granted! But remember, it will be so only for a week, that is till the 7^th day 12 am, after which I will take the wish back from you”. The fairy then left the room. 

Since that day Sara started living with confidence. She started moving and speaking to everybody but after the 7th day 12 am the fairy appeared and said, “Now the days are over my child, and I will have to take your wish back”. Saying this she took Sara’s wish away and disappeared. After this Sara got back to square one, felt gloomy and sad. She resolved to have her wish back. 

She started praying too hard to make the fairy appear again. Again the blue fairy appeared and said “What do you want my child?” Sara said “I want my confidence back! Permanently!”. The blue fairy smiled and said, “Darling that is not possible “. Sara revolted by saying, “You gave it to me last time then why not today!”. The fairy said “I never gave you the wish. I only pretended to have given it to you”. 

Sara got confused. She asked, “Why did you come when I broke the wish-bone?”. The fairy smiled again and said, “I did not come because you broke the wish-bone. I came because the Almighty asked me to help you. So I pretended to grant you the wish you wanted. You think that you don’t have confidence, but it exists, within you and you should use it!”. Saying that she left the room and Sara finally knew that she had confidence within her and cherished it.