It was a stormy night. The wind was howling loudly, and the rain was pouring. Someone was knocking on the door. I was in the living room with my brother. We were watching the recent news. I didn’t hear it at first because of the loud storm. It was quite rare to see a storm as I live in a very suburban area. It felt like God sent it himself. Anyway, it was only when my little brother alerted me that I could respond to it.
I don’t have good hearing. I am a computer programmer, meaning I have to spend most of the day locking in my room. The only thing I hear is the clicking of the keyboard. I decided to go check it out as I opened the door, nothing. There was nothing.
‘Hum, that’s strange,’ I muttered. ‘Eh, whatever. It’s probably just some debris or rain.’ I answered my brother.
Then, I went back and sat on the couch.
‘Breaking news! There has been a shortage of toilet paper recently as….’
‘Be aware! Wild dogs have been seen roaming around….’
‘The “Masked Robber” has recently escaped his confinement…’ the news flashed.
‘This is crazy,’ my brother mumbled. ‘There’s so much happening whilst we’re here sitting on our couch. Life sucks!’ he shouted.
‘Hehe,’ I snickered.
‘Wait, Abish, someone is knocking on the door again,’ my brother told me.
‘Eh, it’s probably just some girl scouts wanting to sell their cookies,’ I said.
But then I realised – ‘Wait a minute, it’s very dark outside, and it’s also raining very hard. It can’t be girl scouts,’ I thought to myself. ‘Who could it be?’ I muttered.
Not sure what to do, I thought long and hard.
I remembered what my mum said, ‘Remember, never open the door when someone is knocking as it could be a stranger!’
But what if it was not a stranger? What if it was a friend of mine, maybe a relative? I started getting quite anxious as the knocking sound got louder and louder. I started panicking. But then the knocking suddenly stopped. It went quiet. All I could hear was the pouring rain.
‘There’s no time! Run, Abish!, Run!’ I thought to myself. I quickly got up and ran over to the door. ‘What’s the worst that could happen? I muttered.
I swung open the door, and to my surprise, it was nothing again.’
‘Is this a prank?’ I shouted, but no one could hear me as the storm was too loud.
‘Hello?’ I shouted in an irritated voice. As you can tell, I was getting quite annoyed. I went back inside. But then all of a sudden, the knocking continued.
I looked back and sighed, ‘Eh, not again.’
I opened the door again, but there was nothing again. I went back inside. The knocking continued. I opened the door again, but nothing. This kept happening for a good five minutes.
‘OK! I had enough!’ I yelled furiously. ‘You have ten seconds to show yourself,’ I continued.
At that moment, I heard some footsteps coming from my backyard. As I live in Beverly Hills, backyards and gardens are very common. However, no one must cross into it without permission as it would lead to a felony called ‘trespassing’. When I turned around, I saw a large dark silhouette right in front of me.
‘Uh, sir, you do know you’re trespassing, right?’ I confronted him. ‘Wait a minute, Steve! Is that you?’ I asked him. Steve is my postman. He brings all the mail to my house.
‘Hey! Abish, yeah, it’s just me! Your favourite postman, Steve!’ he muttered nervously.
‘Hum, why are you ner…wait a minute,’ I realised that wasn’t Steve. Steve never carries a duffel bag with him. He delivers with his hands. And he isn’t so tall. It wasn’t Steve! ‘You’re not Steve!’ I shouted as I ran back inside. Luckily, the robber slipped on the floor, allowing me to escape.
I quickly slammed the door shut. I was terrified. My pals were sweaty, knees weak, and arms heavy. The doorknob was shaking violently. I knew he was fully equipped with the right gear, and I didn’t have time to ask questions.
‘Who are you?’
‘Where did you come from?’
‘Why are you doing this?’
There was no time. I had to think of a plan to get my brother and me to safety. That was when I had a perfect idea.
‘We can shut off the power to the house and surprise attack him,’ I told my brother.
‘What? Why would we need to do that?’ he asked curiously.
‘There’s no time for explaining, hide!’ I assured him. I quickly ran and shut the power off using my programming skills. ‘Here’s the plan, when he enters, we will be hiding behind the couch, and we will jump and surprise attack him,’ I briefed him.
‘Bang!’ The door fell. It looks like he became a little mad. ‘Well, well, well. Where are you, kids? I just want to play,’ The robber said. ‘Wait a second. I know who this is. It’s the Masked Robber!’
It really was him, the same person on the news! There was no time to think. We got to think fast. As he got closer, we got more anxious. Then, it was time, the right time. We stood up and jumped straight towards him.
‘Ahh! You clever punks!’ he shouted whilst we tied him up.
‘This is what you get!’ I said directly to him.
Finally, I called the police. They arrived just in time and captured him.
‘Wow, thank you, boys, for doing something so dangerous yet so courageous. You deserve something special.’
After they left, we turned the power back on and went to bed. I still wondered what would’ve happened if I didn’t think fast enough. Anyway, I think I learned something essential that day. Don’t open the door as there may be a stranger, and that could cause a lot of danger.