A WISH TO A CURSE: A chapter book by Advait

                       

A wish to a curse

 Index:

Ø TIME TRAVELLING WATCH 

Ø TITAN WATCH DESTROYED BY A TITAN 

Ø A DINOFYING EXPERIENCE 

Ø I CAN’T EVEN SAY ‘MUMMY’ 

Ø A CIVILISATION IN MAYAN’S NAME!

Ø I WISH I WAS A CHRISTIAN “SAVE ME “

Ø AK-47 AIMED AT MY HEAD

Ø “I AM BACK!!! BUT IN A TOILET? “

TIME TRAVELLING WATCH

Aryan was a 12-year-old boy who had to steal for a living. His parents and his brother Mayan had died in a car accident when Aryan was 7. He had been stealing since then. One day, he was going about his routine of stealing things when he came across this enormous mansion Blueberry Ville. He knew he would become rich if he robbed this place. So, he decided to wait till night

At 1:00 a.m., he climbed in through the first-floor window. He walked into the kitchen, living room, master bedroom, and mini-theatre but no one was home. He was so worn walking around the huge mansion that he almost dozed off on the sofa. He sat on a Titan watch.

He looked at the dial; it was quite huge. Instead of numbers, it had words written on them. Gods, Dinosaurs, Egypt, Mayan Civilization! His eyes instantly started to water, he wiped his tears away and started playing with the dial. He simply clicked a button and the arm pointed at gods. His surroundings started changing color and…

TITAN WATCH DESTROYED BY A TITAN

He was in full Greek Armor fighting a war. The war was between Gods and Titans. He was a demigod called Perseus, a son of Zeus. He was still wearing his watch. He hid behind a rock and tried to make the watch work again. At that exact moment, he saw a 12-foot man penetrate the rock from behind him using quite a powerful weapon.

He had an aura of power, which made Aryan feel like his soul was getting ripped off his body. Aryan asked him who he was. He smirked and said that he was Kronos, Titan Of Time. Aryan wanted to cut him apart with his sword because of his gruesome face; it was so ugly he would never be able to erase it from his mind. Before he could even touch the hilt of his sword, he broke his watch. His scythe cut right through his watch like it was a piece of paper.

He was so angry that he mindlessly started shouting at Kronos’s ugly face. He realized that he was shouting in Greek. Kronos kicked Aryan so hard he went flying about 6 miles away from there. Kronos shouted really loud and started charging straight at Aryan. Aryan raised his sword and it went straight through something. He had stabbed Kronos! Kronos started yelling in pain and cursed him saying, “You will travel from era to era every 24 hours.” He fell on the ground. Then, Aryan’s eyes started feeling heavy and he blacked out.

A DINOFYING EXPERIENCE

He woke up in a shady place with stinky viscous water on him. A shadow above him looked like a Brachiosaurus…

Wait, what! A brachiosaurus!

He ran at his full speed and realized he made a dust storm behind him. He noticed there was a pond 6 seconds ahead. He hit his brakes and his face was right over the pond. He looked in and screamed. His scream came out as a roar; he was a velociraptor!

He felt saliva on his neck. He turned and saw a Rex above him. He ran again. This time the T-Rex did chase him, and it was quite fast. It missed his tail by a few inches each time it tried to bite or slash. Next, he saw a group of velociraptors and ran straight at them. They saw him and started gnashing their teeth.

He realized that even they wanted to eat him. So, he had to keep running. The bunch of velociraptors, who were now being chased by the T-Rex, were chasing Aryan. Each time a velociraptor tried to bite him, the T-Rex would eat that raptor. After a while, all the velociraptors were gone. The T-Rex felt full and left Aryan alone. Aryan’s body felt like lead. His sight was changing he saw…

I CAN’T EVEN SAY 'MUMMY!'

He saw a man with a dog’s face. He had the face of a black hellhound. He gave Aryan a hand. Aryan took it and said, “Thank You”. He didn’t reply; instead, he started sniffing at Aryan. His eyes widened.

He banged Aryan on the head with a spear. Aryan’s eyes squinted, and he fainted. He woke up staring at some queen. She said something in another language and mentioned Cleopatra. He asked her why she had put him in some stupid handcuffs… but his voice was way too loud and angry, at least more than he expected.

The next thing he knew she thwacked him on his head with her staff. And again, he blacked out. When he woke up, he was in prison. They had tied him up with the knot that he used to tie shoes. He knew they were going to cut him in half if he removed the knot. So he tried to think of an idea but he couldn’t. He felt sleepy and he slept.

A CIVILISATION IN MAYAN NAME

He woke up dazed, staring at a hairy man who had an ax in his hand. The man raised his ax and almost cut Aryan in half. Aryan was dead scared as he dodged the man’s slashes. He turned and ran, but then he saw a whole army of Spanish raising their guns at him. When he ran back to the man, he had an army too, more buff-looking people though less in number. He was scared and ran to the Spanish. They put him in handcuffs instantly.

He stared at a guy in awe and laughed. The next thing he knew, the gun of the man was banged on his head, and he blacked out. He woke up drowsy in a weird jail. One of the doors was made of wood that he could break with a kick. The guard outside was snoring, and his ax and keys were laying 2cms from him. He grabbed the ax and keys. He was going to escape when he saw some serious criminals in the cages. He freed those who he thought would help him, and left the rest. Then, the soldiers came in, and his fake, non-courageous army ran away. A soldier shouted, “Matalo!” & banged Aryan on the head again.

AAAAHH!!! Aryan shouted at the top of his lungs. This time he was stuck in a dungeon. A man threw a piece of rock into Aryan’s cage and shouted. Aryan instantly shut up. After a while, again Aryan roared and said, “You filthy Mayan!”

That did it; he used his tribe’s name as an insult. Aryan shouted again, and the guard came in. Aryan was scared and knew he’d be killed. At that time, his surroundings started changing and his body felt like lead.

I WISH I WAS A CHRISTIAN

All Aryan knew was that he was back in India. He ran out of the house he was in. As he ran out, he tripped over something. He turned around and realized it was a corpse. He scampered across the ground and banged on something. He noticed a person standing above him. He thought the man was kind and asked him if he would help him. Instead, he grinned at him and kicked him on the head. Aryan fainted, and when he woke up again, he was stuck in a prison.

He just remembered he was a Hindu, but that was before when he had a family. But, he still had the Ganesh pendant. He had kept it as a memory of his parents and brother. When he looked for the pendant, it was gone. He thought they took it, as they were Muslims. The idea of their taking his only memory of home and family angered him. His body felt as hot as a blasting volcano!

He got angry and kicked the side of the cage with all his force. The side blasted open. He had expected it to just fall to one side, but he had kicked it on the rusted part. He saw the man who had kicked him walking past him. He ran straight to him and banged a rod on the man’s head. He turned and kicked Aryan looking unaffected. Aryan fainted. The next day, he woke up and he was staring at the floor with his hands and neck strapped to a wooden plank. He was about to be beheaded when his body felt lighter and he…

AK-47 AIMED AT MY HEAD

He woke up to see an AK-47 aimed at his head. He wasn’t sure if it was an AK-47 but he guessed it was. At least, he was still alive but had to land again in the middle of a war. And that too the World War 2! He ran straight to a group of people and stared at their motionless, fierce faces. They all said random words like, ”Judjudgalibujimonderasteracha”. He had read about them when he went with his family to the library. They were called Huns.

He remembered they liked ripping people’s limbs off. So, he walked off as fast as he could. He tried communicating in Hindi, but they said something in another language. They balled their fists at him, so he ran off. He remembered that India was under British rule during that war. So, he ran off to the British people. They threw him back to the Indians.

They all stared at him in awe. He realized he was in complete Indian armor.

He had a spear strapped to his back and best of all, he had so many muscles that even a Hun would run off and pee in his pants. He used the advantage and charged at people and they kept backing off. Next, he used his spear and banged a guy on his face. The guy went flying into another country and got cut into two halves. The guy’s country got mad and attacked other countries. The war had begun. One person came to Aryan and stabbed his blade right through him. Aryan’s eyes felt heavy and he blacked out.

I’M BACK, BUT IN A TOILET!!!

He was standing this time and heard the voice of Kronos, “You will be back, but I will find you and track you down soon.” Aryan was glad to be back. He started jumping, but he realized that his feet were in a closet. He was so happy to be back that he didn’t care he was in a washroom. He ran out to check if there were any corpses. He wished that he still had some of that muscular body left.

He was standing in a few ragged clothes, which everyone was staring at. Wait, why were all these people so fair and wearing clothes like that? He went to the closest person and asked him where he was. The man said this was London. Aryan went pale and fainted. When he woke up, he saw himself in a suit and in the same mansion Blue Berry Ville that he had left from. He saw the same watch sitting on the sofa he had taken.

It was half broken. Aryan tried moving the dial. It started spinning, and then it changed the options on the watch; this time from Africa to America to Atlanta. He threw it away, but it came back like a boomerang and got stuck to his arm. It was getting heavy. And then the dial pointed at America. His surroundings started changing and…

  THE END

Written by:

Advait Pradeep

Edited by:

Aanchal Agrawal 

Past is the new present: Chapter book by Dhanya

Past is the new present

Table of Contents

CHAPTER 1 : Building a Time Machine 

CHAPTER 2 : Land of Gods     

CHAPTER 3 : Dreadful Dinosaurs 

CHAPTER 4 : The Magical Pyramids     

CHAPTER 5 : Meeting the Mayans

CHAPTER 6 : The Marble Monument  

CHAPTER 7 : Anne Frank

CHAPTER 8 : Back in Time

Written by:

Dhanya Aravindan

CHAPTER 1: Building a Time Machine  

It was the first day of summer. My friend Mahima and I were assigned to write a novel all through summer. It was nice of the teacher to offer that job to us. We kept thinking through it but didn’t get any good ideas for the story. We wanted it to be based on fantasy. We were badly lost in our own minds. Our minds went blank. Suddenly, an idea came to my mind. It was about building a time-machine, visiting various eras, and choosing one era to base the novel on. Mahima said that my idea was crazy, and there was no such thing called time-traveling. I insisted. She was quite amused. She finally agreed to build and test the time machine with me.

         We were excited to start working on time traveling. We were still not sure if we were traveling forward or backward in time. We decided to go backward and learn about the different eras. We found some interesting eras. We were going to see God followed by dinosaurs, Egypt, Mayan Civilization, Mughal Invasion, and World War 2. We were really looking forward to the adventurous trip. We decided to choose the era which was the best amongst the six of them and write the novel on that era.

         Finally, we completed drawing the draft of the time machine. It took us about a day to draw the draft, as we had to think of the structure of both the interior and exterior parts of the time machine. We had to find out what materials to be used and where they had to be fixed. It took us time to find and get the materials. Another day passed. At last, we started to build the time machine. We faced some technical problems, but we managed to fix them. It was quite confusing and complicated to build it. We worked all day. At last, the time machine was ready for a trial. It was perfectly working just as we had thought. We got ready for our first trip - to the land of gods.

CHAPTER 2: Land of Gods

We landed in the Gods era. I was stunned by how much the place around me was changing as we went backward in time. We were really getting excited. It was a two-day trip. On the first day, we decided to just explore and get to know more about that time. On the second day, we wanted to talk to some of the Gods. When we were walking we came across a board about the formation of the earth. I started to read it. It was pretty interesting. It was about the three layers of the earth. Who made the earth? How long will it stand for? I had many more questions. I had to ask someone all of them, but no one was around.

         We reached the town and spotted many people. The town was filled with water and people were hovering. They were dressed in an elaborate manner. They had a lot of gems on their clothes. They even wore lots of jewels. I went up to a man who wore a brown robe with a belt tied around his waist. I asked him if he could tell us about the formation of the earth. He was pretty kind and nodded his head. He started with a story about the two parts of the earth. It was about land and water. He said that he used to live on land just like us, but one day a group of demons attacked the city and they created a whole lot of destruction. After they left, the city was empty. So, they decided to just submerge the city into the water so that enemies cannot invade. I thanked him for the lovely story. Now some things were starting to get clear in my mind. It was a long day, and it was almost time to leave.

         We were ready to leave and jump into the next era. The old man gave us a box decorated with beautiful gems. It had a small ring inside it. Its specialty was that after wearing it, it would take the wearer to whichever place he/she wanted to go just by snapping fingers. It had another specialty. It was a multiverse translater and could translate any language. It was as cool as our time machine. I admired it. It was time to leave. We had already decided that we were not going to write the novel about God’s era. We set off to meet the Dinosaurs.

CHAPTER 3: Dreadful Dinosaurs

We reached the dinosaurs’ era. We were excited and kept a camera with us to take photos of dinosaurs and more exotic things. We were just walking when a flying dinosaur came and lifted me up. He flew to a faraway place with me. I was petrified. Mahima followed the trail and reached where I was. We were very happy to be reunited. We looked around; all we could see were dinosaurs. We were perplexed why dinosaurs didn’t come charging at us. The dinosaurs were sweet and candid souls. We had a good feeling about them.

         Suddenly, one of the dinosaurs walked right up to me and started to talk, but we could not understand a little bit. We remembered about the ring, and I wore it. It interpreted everything and we could understand the dino-talk. He invited us to his birthday party which happened to be that day. We agreed and joined him. There was a cake and a small party that was quite entertaining. We taught them some amazing games. Most of the day was over and it was time to go. We told the dinosaurs that we would go back and come once again later.

         We were approaching the time machine when a group of dinosaurs came charging at us. That was when we remembered that the dinosaurs told us that there were two groups of dinosaurs, bad and good dinosaurs. The bad dinosaurs were the ones who were chasing us. We ran. A good dinosaur came and fought with the bad dinosaur giving us a chance to escape. We ran and jumped inside the time machine. We decided that this era was good but we needed a more challenging era to write the novel about. We left. We reminisced about our time there and flew to the next era. Egyptians, here we come!

CHAPTER 4: The Magical Pyramids

We were in Egyptian times. It was historic and magnificent. I was lost in my dream-world and started to ramble around when Mahima came and called me to look at something very huge made of bricks that had patterns on them. They were amazing and irresistible. We took a close look at the monument; then, I remembered that it was the pyramids of Giza. I just stood still and stared at it. I leaned back and fell. The fall hurt my head badly. I turned back and looked as I called out to Mahima. To my horror, the pyramid started to open into two parts. I had triggered some lever when I leaned on the loose brick. It was mesmerizing.

We walked inside and saw knives, swords, jewels, pharaohs, and many more things. We walked for a long time, explored, and clicked pictures of many things. It was getting late, so we decided to leave. Just then, the pharaohs came to life and started to attack us. We took all the swords, knives, spears, and threw everything at them. We hid behind the coffins. There was a creaking noise. We looked in front of us, a pharaoh came out covered in toilet paper. It started to chase us. That's when I realized that it was a mummy that was chasing us. We dashed out of the pyramid. We thought we had escaped but the mummies were right in front of us when we exited.

          We started fighting again. This time, it was worse because the mummies were multiplying by the minute. It was tough for us since we didn’t have much of an army nor did we have weapons. At one point of time, they were literally in our hair. We had just finished a marathon in the dinosaur era. We were not runners; we were tourists. There was no point in telling that because no one was listening! We barely managed to jump into the machine. They started to bang the windows, but we got out of there on time. It was a riveting experience. We were thinking if this adventurous experience should go into the novel. We jumped into the Mayan era.

CHAPTER 5: Meeting the Mayans

We opened the door of the time machine. The place had two giant buildings that were as tall as Burj Khalifa in Dubai. We kept walking with the magical box that had the ring in it to make sure that it was safe. While walking, Mahima noticed that the box was lighter than before. We got scared. We had carried that everywhere we went. We started to look around. We tried to retrace our steps to the entrance. It didn’t work, as we had been walking in a circular motion. We could see the same sculptures and monuments repeatedly.

         Later, we realized that we were stuck in a labyrinth. We tried following our footprints as when we entered it had sand on it. But the sand must have worn out. This plan didn’t work, so we had a thought that we could assume it as the puzzles in the magazines and find where the four exits were. This plan also failed. After all this drama, I remembered that Mahima had brought a compass with her in case we got lost. This was the situation in which we would use it. The only thing that stayed in Mahima’s mind when we entered was that we had entered from the east. 

          We found out which direction was east and we started to walk. The compass told that we were 1/4th a kilometer away from the entrance. We saw a bright ball of light shining. That's when we came out and felt relieved. We could see the sun shining brightly. During this labyrinth mystery, we totally forgot about the missing ring. We walked towards the time machine. Through the window, we saw a metal object shining. When we reached, we found out that we had left the ring in the machine itself. We felt so relieved! This experience was pretty challenging but confusing. We were too exhausted to go visit the next era. It was time to meet the Mughals.

CHAPTER 6: The Marble Monument

We arrived on time. The draft for the Taj Mahal was being drawn. We thought that Mahima and I could help them with the draft as we had 4 years’ experience in drawing. It was really complicated because we had to fit really small artistic marbles everywhere. We were smitten by a new idea. We thought that the monument could function in other states of matter too; just like water could be in solid, liquid, and gas. The architects agreed to the plan, and the set up was changed. The construction began.

         We decided to make it a monument, a mosque, and a school. It was a three-floor building, The first floor had a school, the second a mosque, and the third a museum. There was a secret basement that was not mentioned anywhere. It had Shah Jahan’s wife's body. After all, that was the only reason why Taj Mahal was to be built initially. All the floors except for the basement were gorgeous.

Finally, after its completion, we were examining and admiring the monument. There was something unusual. Usually, when I called Mahima she’d respond, but this time she didn’t. She was staring at the sky. When I went out to look, the sky had an owl with a necklace embedded with a picture of Hitler. The owl had a letter with it that it dropped on my hand. “Dear Shah Jahan, the people of Agra are having a battle tomorrow at 3 p.m. sharp in North Park. No ways to escape this! See you there --Hitler.” That's all the letter said. The weirdest thing was it didn’t mention the reason why the battle was there. An old man walked up to us and said that there were unnecessary battles all the time. We thought we could go to WW2 and fix this problem. We set off right away.

CHAPTER 7: Anne Frank

We reached at noon. First, we went searching for Anne Frank. We went up to the attic of the building where she lived. We found her there. She was puzzled and so was Mahima. Anne didn’t know who we were, Mahima didn’t know who she was, but I knew who Anne was because I had read her autobiography. I explained to Mahima that Anne was in WW2 times when Hitler was too! When I said the name Hitler, Anne started to shiver. She said that Hitler hadn’t found her yet. She shivered as she was scared of him. I told Anne that Hitler had sent a letter to the Mughal invasion era about a battle. She was confused, as she didn’t know anything about the Mughal invasion era. We came back to the topic of Hitler.

She shuddered as she spoke. She told all the cruel things Hitler had done and was planning on doing. In my mind, I worried, “Anne has only a week left.” Anne even told us about the diary in which she was writing. I had already read the diary and knew we had just a week left before Anne would be taken away to the concentration camp. We thought of having a war with Hitler. But Anne was very scared and told us not to have a battle with a despot like Hitler. Mahima and I snuck to have a battle. Of course, we would win as we had more advanced weapons, especially the ring. Suddenly, something unexpected happened. Hitler surrendered to us! He agreed to not put people in concentration camps. All the wars were settled in the world. It was the biggest miracle.

         After the Hitler problem, we decided to take Anne with us, but she refused. I knew that she didn’t want to leave her family and home. We made a gorgeous home for them and left. We didn’t want to leave Anne, but still, we had to. It was a long journey back home. Mahima thought during the way back we could discuss our novel. We had chosen the best adventure; it was the Egyptian era.

CHAPTER 8: Back in Time

 We started from the WW2 era. Something made the machine go bonkers, and it stopped moving. We were really frightened and didn't know if we would get back to our generation. The worse part was that we couldn’t use the ring. We tried to call out to someone, but there was no signal. We even tried to search for a restart button, but it’d take hours and hours together to get restarted. Suddenly, a voice told - “You cannot escape; you will be trapped here forever. Have a nice visit again.”

         We were totally lost in our minds and puzzled. The door opened. We saw dinosaurs talking about the earth in the WW2 era! This kept happening repeatedly, but different people in different eras in different situations. The door opened exactly 8 times. There was nothing that we could do. We tried using the ring and assumed nothing would go wrong with it, but it was even worse with it. We saw alien-like dinosaurs, knights having only one eye, and much more crazier things. For some reason, I took a look at all the buttons and found something interesting.

         When we made the machine, we had exactly 32 buttons, but now there were 33 buttons. It was impossible that someone added another button. Besides, that button was not labeled. It was the unlisted button. I saw an insect pressing against it. I threw it away and everything came back to normal.

We wrote our novel and published it. It was the best time travel ever. But still, there was an unsolved mystery waiting for us. 

The unlisted button ??

Written by:

Dhanya Aravindan

Edited by:

Aanchal Agrawal

The Dragon Warrior by Advait

Once, Suijin, God of Water, came to visit Japan. On her way back, she saw a rotten dragonfruit.  She blessed it, and it became ripe again. She left the fruit there.

A few days later, a lady named Cho came to the same spot and saw the dragonfruit. She took the dragonfruit home and cut it. Inside it, there was a baby. The baby came out and quickly grew into a boy with complete armor. Cho showed him to Chang, her husband. Chang was delighted and kept the boy as a son. They kept the dragonfruit safe. Nobody touched it. It didn't rot for it had Suijin's blessings.

In the next few years, the boy grew up to be called the Dragon Warrior because he came from the dragon fruit. He was the protector of the village. For some reason, he didn’t age! Soon, his parents, Cho and Chang, died.

One day, he went to fight a giant, who was destroying the city. He went to kill it. During the fight, he got killed but then, the giant made a mistake of throwing him in Suijin’s lair. He came back alive again, as he was blessed by Suijin.

He was returning home when he died suddenly. A monkey ate that dragonfruit from Cho and Chang's house.

Written by:

Advait Pradeep

To the classes on Harry's broom

One day Rehaan’s parents went to Phoenix mall when he had football classes. They told Rehaan to take the help of grandparents to drop him, but they were both sick.

Rehaan called his dad to ask if he could go with Harry Potter on the broom. Dad agreed and told him to wear his helmet. Rehaan rang the doorbell of Harry Potter’s and requested him to drop him to the football ground. Harry Potter readily agreed and took Rehaan to the football ground. 

Rehaan thanked Harry Potter for being such a helpful neighbor.

Written by:

Rehaan

Harry Potter saved Adwika

One stormy night, Adwika was with her grandparents. Her grandfather was sick, so she went to the medical shop. On her way back home, it started to rain. She got all wet. She started thinking about what to do. At that time, Harry Potter arrived there. Harry Potter was Adwika's neighbor. He took Adwika home on his broomstick. 

Later, Adwika went to Harry Potter's house. They drank hot chocolate.

Written by: 

Adwika

Harry Potter taught Adviti how to swim

Aarav Singhal and Harry Potter

Written by:

Aarav Singhal