Edmunds Elementary School - Burlington, Vermont
My Narrative Essay
Isaiah
1/4/08
Uninvited Guests
There it was again! That noise. It was a screeching sound of the “chills down your spine, nails on a chalkboard" variety. There was also a low rumble that made him disoriented and nauseous. “What on earth could be making this noise? I don’t own a chalkboard and no animal that I know of could be making a noise like this,” David thought. Then he thought of the boy next door, Daniel. Daniel had once let live crickets loose in David’s house and they kept him up all night. This was the last straw. He would catch him in the act this time. He quietly tiptoed downstairs and looked for movement, only to find Theodore, his Newfoundland. “I’ll get you next time”, he cried out. Silence answered him.
Then, a sleepy voice from the next house said, “Keep it down! You woke up Daniel.”
“Well, I know who isn’t doing it,” thought David. The entire situation was new to him. The house was silent now, but it was one of those creepy silences where you know something is going to happen. The screeching resumed, this time louder. It seemed to be coming from the basement. David hated going into the basement. It was cold and dark down there. It was lit by a single flickering light bulb and the dark shapes looked menacing. He would sometimes bump into a wall. He decided to go down there anyway. He wanted to see what was down there.
He tiptoed down the stairs just as he had done earlier; so he didn’t scare anything away. When he reached the basement he saw something he had never seen before. It was a door in the wall. It was too small for a human to use, but the noise seemed to be coming from behind it. It was crude and the pieces of wood that were used to make it were rough. David was getting frightened. His heart was pounding. He was sure he had seen the doorknob turn.
Out of the door came a creature. It was a furry snake that looked somewhat like a ferret. It made a sudden lunge at some bread crumbs on the floor. It didn’t look like a reptile, but it had scales at random intervals on its back.
This gave David an idea. He could lure it outside with food. He threw the crumbs out the window. The creature’s snakelike body slithered after them. David walked upstairs, relieved that he had gotten rid of the creature and fell asleep. From across the street a voice said, “What could be making such a horrible racket is beyond my understanding...”