Ella and Nela were two special little girls. They were twins. That means they were sisters and they were born at the same time. At first glance, they looked incredibly similar, but they were completely different. Ella was brave and always wanted to do everything right away. Nela was hesitant and thought long and hard before she did anything. They did everything together.
There was a special house in the town where they lived. It was on the highest hill and everyone could see it. The houses in their town were colorful with pretty gardens and flowers in the windows. This one looked different. It was dark grey, no grass grew around it, it was covered with cobwebs and only crows and ravens flew around it. It was a haunted house. No one knew what had happened in it, why no one lived there. Ella and Nela, of course, were very dying to know that. They were forbidden to go to the house. But they had to find out what had happened there. They had to solve the mystery.
One late afternoon, they decided to go there and find out. When they arrived at the haunted house, Ella wanted to run inside immediately. But Nela grabbed her arm and held her back. “Ella, wait. You don’t know what’s inside. We have to be careful. Let’s try opening the door slowly first.” Ella nodded in agreement. They walked up to the door. They pushed it slowly and it opened. The girls walked in. It was dark all around. Only a faint light shone through the dirty windows. “Hello, hello. Anyone here?” The girls called. No one answered. They just heard some creaking behind them. When they turned around, they couldn’t believe their eyes. Two rickety chairs were bouncing towards them. They were wooden and looked very old. Nela grabbed Ella’s hand and backed away. Ella asked her: “Do you see what I see, Nella? Do these chairs really move by themselves and follow us?” Nela just nodded. She was unable to say anything. The chairs kept getting closer and closer and the girls backed up until they were finally pressed against the dirty wall. The girls stood bravely opposite the chairs, waiting to see what would happen next.
That’s when something unexpected happened. One chair spoke, “You don’t have to be afraid of us. We used to live here a long time ago. But we didn’t clean or take care of the house. Until one day the house couldn’t stand it and said that if we couldn’t take care of it, we didn’t deserve to live nicely. He turned us into these chairs and the only way to save us is for someone to clean up and put the house in order. But nobody wants to because they’re all afraid of the house. It looks scary.”
Without thinking, Ela immediately shouted excitedly, “Then we’ll clean it up and get everything done. We’re not afraid of anything!” And she got right to work. It took several hours to get the whole house looking tidy. When everything was done, a big wind started to blow through the house. It lifted the chairs into a whirl and spun them around so that they could not be seen. The girls covered their eyes. Everything in the house began to spin.
When all was quiet, two people stood in front of Ella and Nela. Instead of chairs, there was a husband and wife. They hugged them warmly and thanked the girls for rescuing them from the curse. From then on, they cherished their house and the things they had.
