Abeerah looked cautiously in her wardrobe again, hoping to hear the inkling of the laughter of her friends from behind her clothes. But it seemed as if everyone had disappeared.

Abeerah and her friends from the neighbourhood were playing a fun-filled game of hide-and-seek. Her parents had gone out to meet some relatives and weren’t expected until late at night. They had advised her not to get involved in any mischief or get harmed in anyway.

Abeerah waited for her friends to hide so that she would then look for them, and now all her friends sort of vanished. She had looked in every nook and cranny of her house, but she could not find anyone. She now had started feeling frightened as she was home alone and wondered where her friends could be.

Abeerah seated herself on the corner of her bed and looked out of the window. The sky had begun to wear a black sheet and she became more worried for her friends with each passing minute.

As Abeerah wiped a tear running down her cheek, she wondered if her friends had tricked her and had gone back to their homes. The idea cheered up Abeerah despite her tears and she walked out of the main gate to her neighbour’s house to ask if Fatima had returned. However, her mother shook her head and she also got worried for her daughter.

Abeerah’s faint hope had dissolved and she started crying afresh as she returned home, wondering if she hadn’t made the rules clear — that one could not hide beyond the boundaries decided and that the hiders had to reveal themselves if they weren’t found in 10 minutes.

Suddenly, a thought hit Abeerah. She remembered that she hadn’t looked for her friends in the room her parents had forbidden her to enter. She immediately stood up and mustered up some courage to go in that room to check. Though Abeerah never disobeyed her parents, she knew she had to go to that room and see if they were there. And she also had to save her friends if they were in any kind of trouble.

Abeerah went down­stairs and opened the dark brown door of the ‘Forbidden room’, as it was referred to by her family. The sight she saw inside made her awestruck and her jaw dropped in disbelief. The interior of the room was the most beautiful and serene place she had ever seen — as if a scene from a fairy tale.

The clouds were white and fluffy, and hung low in the sky such that one could reach them on tiptoe. The place was covered with greenery and tall trees laden with delicious-looking fruits. In the backdrop, she could see a series of towering mountains topped with ice. The place was surely a feast for the eyes.

At a distance, Abeerah spotted all her friends sitting in a circle and discussing something. Abeerah felt tempted to step over the boundary and enter the beautiful place and enjoy with her friends. However, it was just then that her father’s advice rang in her mind: “Never judge a book by its cover, for what you see beautiful might not be all that pretty.”

This advice set Abeerah’s mind to work and she decided not to enter the room but call her friends from where she stood, back into the real world.

“Ayesha! Fatima, Dania, Eman!” she called out loudly. Her friends looked around as they heard their names being called. Abeerah waved to them until she caught their attention and they ran towards her till they crossed the boundary of the door and re-entered the house.

With tearful eyes, they hugged and kissed each other and shared their experiences. Abeerah’s friends told her that they spotted the door to the room by chance and decided to hide there. The beautiful place inside tempted them and they went inside only to find that the place was actually a barren desert, from where they could not get out unless a person outside the room called out to them, otherwise they would have to stay in that hot, barren place forever.

They thanked Abeerah for getting them out and helping them, but Abeerah was truly grateful to her father, whose advice she had heeded to, that had prevented her from being tempted by a false world.

Published in Dawn, Young World July 29th, 2017