One day, I went to a carnival with my family, where I met a magician. He was sharing some of his secret magic spells. Though I didn’t believe in magic, I still went there for fun.

The magician wrote a spell and said, “Read the words!”

I asked, “What will happen after reading it?”

“Invisibility!” the magician replied.

I was amazed! Then I quickly grabbed the paper and ran away. I kept the page safely in my drawer. After the weekend, when I had to go to school, I opened my drawer, took the page and kept it in my bag.

The next day in my van, I tried those words and then … my fat friend came and sat on me! I felt nothing, as if I didn’t exist at all! Even she didn’t realise she was sitting on me. But after hardly five minutes, I was visible again.

My friend, who was reading a book, got a shock seeing me appearing out of nowhere!

I asked her, “Are you alright?”

“I was …” she answered and fainted. The driver and other children were not aware of anything being amiss.

Thinking that my friend could die, I shouted, “Oh my God! Look everyone, what happened to Maryam!”

Some students quickly rushed to Maryam and tried to revive her. The school was nearby and we arrived there in no time and I quickly rushed out, as Maryam came to her senses.

I felt ashamed but happy as well, because the magic spell did work! As we moved towards the school gate, I realised that I didn’t bring my school identification card. I knew that the school guards would not let me enter unless I wrote an explanation letter. I had to do something, so I said those magical words and became invisible again.

I easily entered without anyone seeing me but the security scanner did scan me and beeped! The security lady was stunned to see no one! She screamed, but before that I ran towards my classroom, I became visible to everyone. Thankfully, everyone was so distracted by her scream that I easily made my escape towards the classroom.

I went inside the classroom and met my friends. We were given half an hour of free time to play and that much time was enough to scare everyone! But what I didn’t realise was that though I was invisible, for some reason my spectacles were not and that was what spooked everyone!

Well, my glasses were also visible to the CCTV camera and it caught me locking kids in the bathroom, pushing a guy inside the garbage bin and of course making scary noises!

This complain soon went to my parents and I didn’t get my pocket money for three months! This punishment was to teach me a good lesson. Hence, I learnt the hard way that one should be happy the way one is and that visibility is a gift from Allah.

Published in Dawn, Young World, September 8th, 2018