Highly Commended Story - The Three Tasks

“The Three Tasks” by Trishar Das, Kothari International School, Noida, India, is the Highly Commended story in the sub-junior category of the first biannual Short Story Contest 2019.

Trishar Das is an avid reader as he reads a lot of books. He loves to read storybooks and encyclopedias. His hobbies include playing football and basketball. He also plays the guitar and keyboard. Along with his family, Trishar likes traveling around the world and have already visited 9 countries. He writes down his thoughts in letters, stories and paragraphs. His ambition is to become a scientist.

The Three Tasks

In a neighbourhood, there lived three friends. Their names were Donald, Frank and Melissa. One day while playing, they reached an abandoned house at the end of the street. They decided to play hide-and-seek in the house. As they started playing, someone pulled Donald’s pants. Donald turned back and saw a dwarf shorter than him. The dwarf had a crooked nose and a wicked smile on his face. He was wearing a pointy hat. Donald got scared and shouted. His friends came running to him. They got scared too. They wanted to run away from there, but the dwarf didn’t let them. He held them tightly by their arms.

The dwarf said “I am going to take you all to my world now.” The kids started crying and begged him to leave them alone. The dwarf got irritated with their howling cry and said “I will spare you on one condition. You have to do three tasks for me.”

The kids stopped crying. The dwarf replied, “The first task is to get a list of all the children of the neighbourhood, so I can take them away to my own world. The second task is to get me an excellent meal. The third task is to get me an animal with four legs and a tail as a pet.” The dwarf gave them a week’s time. He also told that none of them should mention about him to anybody or they would vanish. After that, he instantly disappeared. The kids were worried and did not trust the dwarf. They had to do something to make sure the dwarf would disappear forever.

After one week, the children arrived there. They saw the dwarf waiting for them. They gave a list to him. He was very happy and said, “I am very hungry. Give me food now.” They served him a meal that looked tasty and smelled yummy. The dwarf was so greedy that he gobbled up the food quickly. Soon, his entire body started to burn. He felt as if his skin was emitting fire. He started jumping on his seat and shouted, “SPICY! SPICY!”

He got very angry and screamed, “I am sparing you because you gave me the list. Where’s my pet?” Frank handed over a bag to him. The dwarf excitedly put his hand inside the bag but freaked out to see a huge lizard inside.

He was so angry that he immediately disappeared to find the kids on the list. He didn’t realize that he had reached a gym where wrestlers were preparing for a competition. He announced the names on the list and angrily shouted, “Evil little humans! You have spoilt my life so I will take you to my world!” The wrestlers inside heard him and came out furious with anger. The names on the list were not of kids but of those wrestlers. The dwarf got beaten up badly by all of them and ran away, never to be seen again.