Night Out

Lana rushed back to the dormitory. It was cold outside. Just five minutes after the lights off time, Lana remembered she hadn't taken her presentation file from her locker. This was one time she was glad she wasn't a day scholar. She had instant access to all resources at school.

"I had to forget it just today!" thought Lana. She was beginning to get scared. It seemed unusually dark too. She clutched her torch firmly and hummed a song to distract herself.

As soon as she reached the door of the dormitory, she rang the bell hard. It was half an hour since she had left. Her friend, Renu was to be awake to open the door for her.

"O dear, why is Renu taking so much time?" thought Lana. After what seemed like a lifetime, she heard footsteps coming down the stairs. It was only three days before the school reopened and most of the girls hadn't arrived yet. Lana, Renu and two others stayed back to attend a Creative Writing camp. Suddenly the lights came on in the lobby. "Aah, finally! Renu must've dozed off," said to herself. "I won't spare her for taking so much time."

But just as suddenly as the lights came on, they went off again. "OH! MY GOODNESS! Power failure?" Lana almost screamed. She strained her ears to hear the footsteps. She heard the footsteps again, but this time they were receding. "What's this girl up to?" she wondered. "PsstRenu?" she whispered. No answer. She stayed as if she were rooted to the ground.

Lana suddenly remembered she had the keys to the door. How could she forget? "All this wait in the darkness for nothing! Renu is going to have a good laugh," she thought as she opened the door. "But at least she could've come to the door to remind me instead of walking away?"

It was well past sunrise when Lana woke up the next morning. Renu was getting ready for the presentation on the last day of the Literature camp. She looked around for her file and remembered her little adventure the previous night.

"Renu, did you come down last night when I rang the doorbell?" asked Lana.

"No, I didn't even hear it," replied Renu. Lana explained what happened. She still denied having come down. Her two other friends hadn't heard the bell either!

Lana was to make her presentation in an hour's time titled 'Creating Suspense.'