Anna Maria Manalo

Part 7: The Wishing Well

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Welcome back! I hope you all liked/loved “The Tambal” true story! If you missed it for some reason, fear not as it’s archived here in the website with the full episode for you to read at leisure!

Last we met with Delia, she had succeeded in getting both Charles and Alaina, her two new acquaintances from school to go to her backyard. After walking a few miles, they come upon the well that Delia had been talking about.

Here’s the rest of the story:

the wishing well

“Charles, must you always go faster than me?” Alaina taunts.

Charles looks behind him, observing that Alaina appeared tired and bored. They had been walking around for a better part of an hour hoping to find some semblance of rope or vine to string together and use as a way to go into the well.

“I can’t even find a strong enough branch to use.” Alaina complains, picking up sticks and branches that were small and thin.

“Check this one out.” Charles dashes to a branch that had fallen off a tree. It’s large and appeared very sturdy. Alaina walks over without comment, looking at the fallen branch.

“It’s dirty.”

“Of course it is. It’s in the forest. You expect it to be totally clean?” Charles laughs, then grabs the end.

“Help me, come on.” He adds.

Alaina stares at the fallen limb and reaches down. She pulls, but it doesn’t budge.

“Roll it. Can you roll it first?” Charles asks.

“I can.” Alaina nudges it with her foot, then pushes the limb. Charles pushes.

The limb moves and thousands of ants and bugs disperse underneath, some crawling onto Alaiina.

“EEECK! Get it away from me!” Alaina yells, frantically sweeping at herself as the bugs and ants crawl around.

Charles swipes her arms and pulls her away. “You don’t wanna stay there long.”

“You and your stupid plans.”

“Got better ones, Miss Mayor?” Charles jibes.

“Hey!” Delia walks towards them from the direction of the house. She’s smiling and has a coil of boat rope in her arms. “Guess who came home!”

Charles looks on, appalled. “YOU made us look all this time and your dad…”

Delia grins. “Sorry. How would I know what’s in the garage?”

Alaina walks over and grabs the rope, swivels and walks past Delia, headed for the well.

“Hey! Not tonight. It’s dinner time already!” Delia yells back.

Alaina ignores Delia, walking determinedly towards Delia’s house. However, Alaina finally arrives by the well and tosses the rope aside.

“I’m going to go home, soak my feet before my pedicure gets all crappy from all this walking! Bye!” She declares. Charles runs after her.

“Wait. Are we going back tomorrow to go down there?”

“I’ll be here. I’ll go down with or without you guys.” Delia yells.

They two run and turn down the road, disappearing. Delia watches them, turns towards the house, grinning. She laughs a very mysterious laugh.