Hands
(Sent by Valeria Muscato, a student from San Justo, Argentina)

Martina, Camila and Oriana were best friends since they were born.

They went to the same school and, sometimes, they spent their weekends together in the house that Martina's father had outside the city.

Outside the wind was very strong. It was whistling with intensity between the trees and the stars were hidden. A terrible storm was arriving.  After dinner, they all got ready to go to bed.

The three girls went upstairs because they had to sleep in the lodger's room. Inside it, there were three beds in line, parallels, separated with light's tables.

On the left, was Martina. She liked staying near the door. On the right, was Camila. She liked staying near the window. And in the middle, was Oriana. She was fearful and she felt protected for her friends.

The girls'd just slept when suddenly the father's voice woke them up. "The grandmother is feeling bad." He said. "We have to go to the hospital. Try to sleep!!"

Sleep? Who would sleep after that bad news? The girls wouldn't. The storm had already started. Thunders, rays and wind were terrifying the girls.

"I'm scared!! I'm scared!!" Oriana screamed.

Martina tried to calm her friend and switched her lamp on. Camila did the same, so Oriana's bed was the most illuminated of the three.

At that moment the lights went off. The three girls shouted out. They tried hard to calm down but they couldn't. They were fearer than before. Oriana burst into tears.

"There are candles on the kitchen!! You can go down and take them!!" she said.

"You can...!!! I don't want to take them! I'm scared too!!" Camila got angry.

"I don't either!!" Martina said.

"Oriana thinks we are super girls but she is wrong!! We are afraid too!!!"

However, suddenly, Martina got a brilliant idea. "We get into our beds, we wrap up and extend our arms so we can hold our hands". They did it so they could feel that their hands were holding tightly.

Next day the mother woke them up with the happy news that the grandmother felt much better.

"You are so brave!! How was the terrible night?" Grandmother asked them.

"We felt fear but we decided to extend our arms and we held our hands like that."

What impression they were experiencing in this moment!!!! As much as possible they were trying hard for touching their hands, they didn't even touch lightly!! However the three of them had felt that their hands had been touching each other.

"Hands? Whose hands were those!?" they said with horror.

Hands. Four more hands'd been floating on the dark that night looking for others hands. Ghosts, sometimes, have fear too, so at night they need us and they are looking for holding our hands.