One beautiful afternoon I and my friends were going to the park. My friends were Emaan, Zayna, Zoe, Zara and Ayesha.

We told our mums that we are going to the playground. When we reached there, my friend Zara said, “Let’s go on the swings.”

So she went on the swings and the others took turns on the slide. After a while, we were tired of playing, so we decided to go to Zoe’s house which was close to the park. At her home, we grabbed something to eat and then went to her backyard and started to play hide and seek.

My friend Zayna hid in the bushes and suddenly she screamed, “Aaahhhh!”

We got scared and asked what happened, to which she replied, “There is something behind the bushes.”

“What is it?” we inquired.

“Let me go and check,” said Zoe bravely.

“Ok! But be careful,” I warned her.

Zoe checked and called us, “It’s a tiny creature of some sort.”

We were all scared but also interested to find out what it was, so we went bravely. When we saw it we were shocked. It was a very small man-like creature, with a hairy body, creepy eyes and green skin. It was wearing a white cap, red and green shirt with a pant and matching green pointy shoes.

“Who is this?” we all wondered.

“I have never seen anything like this before,” said Emaan.

“Who are you?” we asked. It did not reply.

Then Ayesha said kindly, “We know you are shy and must be scared but we want to know about you.”

It said, “Ok! I am a garden fairy and I live in this garden. I can grant you wishes.”

We all got excited after hearing that. So many wishes started brewing in my head, but I couldn’t make up my mind.

We all had the same problem, so we asked him to give us a day to decide what we wanted to wish for and he agreed to it.

The next day, we went back but, unfortunately, we couldn’t find the garden fairy anywhere. We were all so disappointed! We shared our wishes with each other and had a good laugh. Afterwards, we went back to our homes, but now we had our wish lists ready in case we find the garden fairy again.

Published in Dawn, Young World, August 4th, 2018