A thrilling and imaginative story by Sayantani Das of Class IV, Epic Public School about a young girl who wakes up to a world where everything has changed—her birds are giant, her sister has a tail, and it’s suddenly the year 2035! Was it all a dream, or something more?
“What is going on!?” I shouted, confused. “This place is familiar yet different at the same time! How?”
I was 10 years old when I went to bed, but now I look like I’m 20! “My birds, WHAT!?”
I jumped out of bed and shuddered against the wall in fear. And then, the unimaginable happened right before my eyes—my birds were twice the size of a baby calf. “I can literally ride them!” I thought in disbelief.
I walked to the other room. It was the living room. Everything there was new to me—the sofas, the tea table, the flower vases, and even the colour of the walls had changed.
“No way!” I gasped, feeling as if my eyeballs were about to pop out. This shock was nothing compared to what I saw next—the calendar showed the year 2035.
“But wasn’t it 2025 when I went to bed?” I questioned myself.
Suddenly, I heard a loud rumble and indistinct screams coming from the other room. I rushed to the scene immediately. My mum, dad—everyone—was screaming, and my sister… had a huge tail!
My parents were worried, and so was I. But my sister? She was overjoyed! She was jumping around the whole house, breaking everything with her tail. On top of that, she could jump much farther than usual!
When I unlocked my bedroom door, the birds went crazy, and then all of us—including the birds—started chasing my sister. She ran up to the terrace.
When we reached there, my jaw almost touched the ground. I stared and stared but found no explanation—the terrace had swapped places with the balcony!
As I stood there, trying to make sense of it all, my sister flicked a watering can off the terrace wall with her tail, and the water splashed into my eyes.
When I wiped my eyes and opened them, I was back in bed. The clock read 8:00 a.m., and my alarm was ringing.
“Pip! Pip!” it went.
I hurriedly looked at the calendar—it was 2025. I rushed to the mirror and checked myself—I was 10 years old again. Then I went to check on my sister and the birds. Everything was normal.
I let out a sigh of relief and continued my perfectly normal, peaceful life.
