Highly Commended Story - The Trick

“The Trick” by Prithvi Kannan, SBOA JC, Chennai, India, is the Highly Commended story in the sub-junior category of the second biannual Short Story Contest 2020.

Prithvi is an avid reader. He reads a variety of genres like mysteries, comedies, and moral stories. In the non-fiction space Prithvi likes to read about science specifically about nature and astronomy. Apart from reading Prithvi loves playing. He loves cricket. He also holds a purple belt in Karate.

The Trick

There were two boys Patrick and Slatrick who did not like each other. They were always competing with each other – in studies, sports and everything. One day there was a race in the school and Patrick won the race. Slatrick was very angry. So he decided to trouble Patrick. When Patrick was passing by a muddy puddle, Slatrcik decided to throw stones, so that Patrick may fall in the puddle. But, Patrick was alert and he saw that there was a puddle and went in another direction.

Slatrick was even more upset now, since his plan failed. So he set a trap for Patrick. Patrick was playing with his friends in the playground in his apartment. He had brought his football that his uncle had given him for the last birthday to play with his friends. When Patrick was not looking, Slatrick hid the football. After playing a game of hide and seek, Patrick and his friends decided to play football. The football was missing. Patrick and his friends went searching for the ball everywhere. One of the friends had noticed Slatrick around. So they asked Slatrick about the football. Slatrick said he knew nothing about it. Just then, Slatrick’s younger brother got Patrick’s football and said come let’s play to Slatrick. Slatrick was caught. He grabbed the football from his brother and started running. Patrick ran after him. Just as Patrick was about to catch up with him, Slatrick kicked the football hard, thinking it will go out of the apartment into the street. But no…the football went and hit a window in the apartment, the window cracked and uncle there scolded Slatrick and complained to his parents. Now everyone got to know the whole story and Slatrick was not only scolded but also lost a lot of his friends for bad behavior.