The Next Chapter

• Mariam Abid Ansari, Grade 5
• Short Story
• 2023

“Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you, happy birthday dear Mabel, happy birthday to you” my family sang on my 18th birthday as they brought the cake. “Tiramisu!”, I said. “My favorite”. “At 5:00pm sharp, you will receive your gift”, mum said”. My mum's gift was telekinesis and my dads gift was time control. It was 3:00pm and mum said we have to go to the Crystal caves to find out what my power is. To travel to the Crystal Caves, we had to go past the Unicorn Cloud, across the Dragon Bridge, near the Lava Falls and under the Levitating Sea. It all took 3 whole hours because we knew that my little brother, James, would want to get out of our bubble and explore the Unicorn Clouds and Dragon Bridge.

We got back into the bubble and it automatically continued the drive to the Crystal Caves. When we arrived, we saw dozens of crystals, some were clear and some were reflective and a lot were colorful. “Wow, can I keep some, please?”James asked. “No, this isn’t ours”, mum said. As we walked on the pathway with crystals surrounding us, I saw a glimpse of my face on a reflective crystal. We had found a place where there were four symbols on the ground. They represented the Four Elements, Fire, Water, Earth, and Air. “Poof”, The Leaders of The Elements appeared. Phoenix, The Leader of Fire,
Aquatica, The Leader of Water, Hunter, The Leader of Earth and Aria, The Leader of Air. It was already five ‘o’ clock and it was time for my gift to be revealed. “ Your Gift is…… Immortality”, all the Elemental Leaders announced. “What! I don’t want immortality!”, I shouted. “It’s not a gift!”. “Unfortunately, we cannot change one’s gift, We are sorry but nothing can be changed” The Elemental Leaders declared.


100 years have passed, has anything changed?
A lot had changed. Mabel was 118 years old and still looked like her 18 year old self. When she turned 80, a new library had opened, “Ferguson Shines Library”. It became very popular and had new books everyday for kids, teens and adults. Mabel decided to go there for once because she had lived for a long time and hadn’t seen a library so popular. When she arrived at the library, she was speechless. It was huge, so magnificent, it felt like you were in a fairytale. It was huge and full of books.She looked in every shelf for the right book and finally found a book. Not because she liked it, because something was strange. At the back of the book had the author’s name, but what was so special about the name? The author had the same name as mabel. It was written behind the book “Mabel Porter”. “Ok that’s it now, time to go to sleep” I thought. “After tomorrow, I will read the next chapter”. “ I can’t do it tomorrow because I’m turning 18 tomorrow”.