A True Tale of Argentinian Life

Sally

Today Sally would turn 34. Sally… I still keep vivid memories of our childhood. So lively, witty, playful… She was my best friend, indeed. Just to think of what happened to her makes my blood freeze. It was this very same day 28 years ago that we celebrated her last birthday. I remember it as if it were yesterday: it was a chilly June day and the air as heavy with the smell of damp. However, this didn’t discourage anyone from having a good time. Some children were playing cowboys in the garden, while others, inside Sally’s house, were dancing rhythmically, swaying their bodies to the music. But everyone’s minds were on the magic show, which finally started at 5. After the magician amused the audience with some conjuring tricks, Sally’s elder sister, Maureen, stood up and tripped determinedly to the front. With an intent look she tugged at his cap and whispered sth in his ear. By her sparkling eyes I could already anticipate what she had in mind:

“Ok,” the magician said to everybody, “Maureen wants to show us a trick. Tell me dear, what are you going to do?”

With her typical mischievous grin she announced: “I’m going to make Sally disappear.”

So Sally went next to her sister. We were all cheering and clapping our hands in delight. Maureen took the magic wand, stood upright, and closed her eyes firmly. Just then an eerie silence descended. She seemed as if possessed by some driving force, paralysed in a state of deep concentration. After a couple of seconds without moving a single muscle, she tilted her head back and took a deep breath. Then, she began raising the wand so gently, that for a second I thought she was a conductor waving her baton, ready to lead an orchestra. Suddenly, she opened her eyes, and with a creepy voice she yelled “ABRACADABRA!!”

No sooner did she say this than all the lights in the house went out. After a couple of minutes the girls’ father turned on the switch and crept towards the couch, thinking Sally was hiding behind it. He poked his head over it but to his surprise, Sally wasn’t there. He also pulled back the curtains, but she wasn’t there either.

“Where’s your sister?” he asked Maureen.

“I haven’t the slightest idea,” his daughter replied innocently.

Mr Glith couldn’t believe her words, “How come you don’t know? Come on, tell her to come, the game’s over.”

“Really, I dunno,” she insisted.

At this point Mr Glith became anxious for his seemingly lost daughter, as he had eventually realized Maureen wasn’t lying.

“Oh, please, make her appear again!!” he cried desperately.

“I wish I knew how. The old woman next door told me the trick yesterday, but she forgot to teachme the solution."

On hearing this, a shudder of fear ran through his veins: the old woman, who was no other than Mrs Bridgewood, was believed to have committed suicide some years before, after the widespread rumour that she had killed her husband with an axe.

The police scoured every corner of the house and the neighbourhood, including Ms Bridgewood’s house, now uninhabited, but there was no sign of my friend anywhere. Indeed, no trace of her has been found so far. I know it’s hard to believe, but since her disappearance, many neighbours have reported seeing bright lights inside the mysterious house now and again, although nobody has been able to prove it conclusively.

Just in case, every 24^th of June Maureen has done the very same trick as a kind of ritual, hoping to see her sister again.

SCs and AWRs

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1nHS1OymV172-EgkRtPLxnbkzdHDmunUq8u--C7Cww-4/edit?hl=es#