Free Superstar: Horn OK Please by Kartik Iyengar

garish Nanny in pink pajamas was ruled out. After all, he was Jenny baby’s cootie-coo uncle. Derek and Hound would thump us if we made her cry. Well, at least Hound would for sure.
     
    So the possibility was narrowed down to the beast of a wolf, the place where Jenny wanted to jump from, Jenny herself, the cemetery, the ugly portrait, the noisy seventh room they called Winston and of course, our two VIPs who would check in tomorrow. Maybe, the awesome library would lend us some clues to the history of this 350-year old dump of a resort. Bloody conmen!
     
    Since the questions arise here, the answers would be here too. That’s one thing I had learnt from my past experiences. This mansion needed some exploring tomorrow. There is a past buried in here for sure. There is no question of leaving this dump without solving this mystery.
     
    Not for love, not for reason, not for money but nobody has the right to pee blood inside my bathtub – especially when I’m inside it. I have a personal score to settle with the apparition.
     
    “Dudes! Are you sleeping?” I asked, as my mind was racing with ideas on how to approach this whole ghostly situation.
     
    “Nope”. ”Nope”. ”Nope”.
     
    OK, so we’re all in the same sinking ship, equally hooked up.
     
    “Good, now go to sleep. Now I know we’re going to nail this fantastic mystery down together”, I said as I rolled over and went to sleep.
     
    I could sense that tomorrow was going to be one exciting day.
    ***
 

 
    CHAPTER FOUR

The Awakening
    ***
     
     

 
    ***
     
    Roses are red and violets are blue,
    Hope comes out of darkness; it shines like the morning dew;
    The human mind is curious; you can’t comprehend;
    If there is an enemy, there is also a friend;
     
    She’d prayed for love, she got what she wanted,
    She’d found new friends; they wouldn’t want to see her dead;
    She found a reason to live; she found a reason to smile,
    Nothing lasts forever; she knew this all the while;
     
    Her joy knew no bounds; her fear knew no end,
    But love made it worth it all, she’d finally found a friend;
    Hope floats, love hurts; she knew, she gave it all away,
    But she was happy; she would live to love and die another day;
     
    She felt happy; her life was complete,
    He’d walked into her life, he’d made her heart beat;
    The sun shone through, she was a woman now,
    A girl no more, she was complete, she was in love and how!
     
    The key to her pain unlocked a dark past,
    It didn’t matter for she’d set things right, fought till the last;
    But if smiles and Imagination makes you say ‘Cheese’
    Drive on, that’s the spirit of Horn OK Please…
     
    ***

Waking up alive:
    The constant honking of a noisy car created a ruckus in the morning. I pulled up the pillow lying beside me and buried my face in between hoping to get some solace. The previous night had been one of its kind. It had left all of us in such a state where we couldn’t even bat an eyelid. The noise grew louder and louder until it became unbearable.
    I groggily got up ramming into almost everything around me. The room was dark except for a thin ray of sunlight that made way through the broken corner of one of the windowpanes. It made a bright spot on the otherwise dark floor. The spot flickered now and then as the sunlight played hide and seek with the foliage. The dust particles left behind a streak as they continued the Brownian motion on the wheels of sunrays.
    I pulled the shades and went to the balcony. The door creaked open suddenly letting in a lot of light into the room. It took some time for the pupils to get adjusted to the increased intensity. I finally managed to open my eyes and what I saw took my breath away.
    As far as the eyes could see, there were coffee plantations beyond the 9-hole golf course. The leaves glistened with the morning freshness as the sunlight caressed the dewdrops making it look like a field of pearls.
    Beyond the plantations, were the tall eucalyptus trees