The Unexpected Visitor

Late and dark, one summer midnight, the doorbell rang.

Upstairs, I sat alone glancing through the pages of my book. The

audible jarring of the electronically simulated bell caught my

attention.

Perplexed by the lateness of the hour, I arose to my feet for good or ill

and tip-toed toward the stairs. Stealthily, I descended the staircase,

mustering my inner man/woman of steel in preparation to meet my

unexpected visitor. Upon approaching the door, I could hear from the

other side a disturbing scratching winding up and down the door like

a rattlesnake.

“Someone is trying to unlock the door!” I whispered to myself.

“Think, think!” I grabbed the only object in sight that could be used

as a possible line of defence; a baseball bat. I silently pressed my face

against the cool metal door and peered through the peep hole to catch

a glimpse of my would-be burglar. My imagination ran wild with

visions of me wielding my baseball bat to fight off a mysterious

maniac.
Oddly, my limited view of the front porch revealed nothing more than

the swarm of mosquitoes that had congregated around the porch light.

But the scratching and shuffling continued from the other side of the

door, only inches from my face, which was still pressed against it.

I decided to take drastic measures into my own hands. I turned the

doorknob counter-clockwise. I cracked the door open half an inch

before giving it a swift and abrupt kick with my right foot! Then, with

the baseball bat in hand, I swung the door wide and gave a growl.

Sadly, there was no one. Only a cricket chirped. Searching the

darkness beyond the yellow glow of the porch light, I then made eye

contact with the guilty party. In a corner, a monkey was staring at me

with wide eyes like black pearls. He was so shocked by my

cacophonous emergence that he just sat there staring up at me. It he

had been eating his dinner of mangoes.

I grabbed a flashlight and I followed the monkey around to the side of

the house. The masked, would-be intruder wobbled his way to a

mango tree and climbed upward. He just sat there on a branch in front

of us, his little black pearl eyes squinting, nose dripping with snot,
occasionally, chewing on a few mangoes as I watched each other in

wonder, and relief.

Going against your parent’s words is not correct. However, this time

it turned out to be the other way as it made me realise how brave I am.