The three siblings huddled close in the bushes as they stared at the river.

"Hmh! Does not look haunted to me" said Myna. He was the eldest. He was ten.

Seri, the middle sibling, shuddered a little and said "I feel weird. Perhaps we should go back to the hotel before Dad and Mom miss us."

"You are just scared, Seri. Admit it!" said Azh, the youngest.

"Yes" said Myna. "We told you this was not for girls. You insisted on being here.”

"Right" Azh joined in. "We had to let you join us because you said you were going to tell on us if we did not let you. So just keep quiet."

The three of them stared at the river in silence for a few seconds. Seri held tightly onto branches of the bush.

"Yuck!" said Myna, "This river is not haunted. Let's go back to the hotel."

"Good" Seri said. She turned to go back to the hotel.

Azh said "First, let's go down there and splash about a little. Look how shallow and narrow it is."

"Good idea" said Myna. "Race you to down there." The two of them ran out of the bushes down the grassy bank to the narrow stream of water.

Seri hesitated for a second before dashing down after them. She could not go back to the hotel by herself. Dad and Mom had said the three of them were always to stay together. What would she tell them when they asked her why she was by herself?

The boys did not hesitate when they reached the water. They stepped right into the river and kicked water about.

"Our backyard has more water than this after it rains" said Myna. He picked up a shiny small stone from the shallow stream and threw it downriver.

Azh turned quickly to Seri and said "Boo!" Seri jumped, letting out a scream. Azh laughed at her and stomped about in the water in riotous fun.

"Nice going, Azh" Myna said. "Make Seri scream so that somebody will hear her and come down here and ask us what we are doing here. Just stop it."

"Yes. Stop it!" Seri yelled at Azh, kicking water in his direction.

In an instant the tiny narrow stream turned into a deep roaring river that swept all three of them off their feet.

They found themselves submerged and being swept along. They screamed and thrashed and flailed about. They had to stop screaming because when they opened their mouths, they swallowed water.

Myna saw a huge ugly alligator swimming towards him. Or maybe it was a crocodile. He knew there was a difference between an alligator and a crocodile. Right now he was too frightened to think about what the difference was. He ran. He found himself running underwater along the river bed. The beast caught him in its jaws and began to chew on him.

Seri dived out of the way of an ugly hippopotamus that snapped its jaws at her. Her long jeans snagged on one of the hippo's teeth. She was dragged along underwater on the riverbed. The hippopotamus kept trying to swing her up into its mouth. It failed each time because each time Seri kicked against the hippo’s gigantic unbrushed and unflossed teeth, to catapult herself out of its cavernous smelly mouth.

Seri dug her fingers into the soft sand of the riverbed as she was dragged along. This made it difficult for the big fat hippopotamus to swing her about. She was aware she was being silly when she could not help herself from reaching out to clutch at the shiny stones floating up from the river bed from where her dragging fingers were digging them up. She was certain those shiny stones were diamonds, if not alluvial gold bits.

She saw Myna's terrified eyes as he was sucked into the alligator's mouth. He was holding onto and pounding its tongue and trying to climb out. She felt bad for thinking the alligator looked as if it was smiling as its long jaws chomped on poor Myna.

Azh was also deep underwater. He was completely encircled by the eight tentacles of a gigantic multicoloured octopus. It didn't seem to know what to do with him. While seven of its tentacles were coiled tightly around him the eighth tentacle was playing with his hair. His hair was being floated upwards by the river water and looked like river weeds.

The octopus was fascinated that Azh's hair was waving about straight up in the water. Seri felt really guilty when she felt like laughing at the sight of the octopus looking puzzled at Azh's slowly upward floating-waving hair.

Each time Azh's struggling got him a little free of the grip of the seven tentacles coiled around him, one of the seven would uncoil itself to push him back down from the top of his head. All the while the eighth tentacle was having fun playing with his upward floating-waving hair.

A loud voice said "Hey, kids. What's up?"

The river disappeared instantly. The three of them were on their bellies on the grass frantically squirming about. They stopped and jumped up at the sound of the official voice.

There was a police officer standing a little way off, smiling at them.

He was in full uniform. His police cap was in the hand that was scratching his head in puzzlement as he looked at the three children romping on the grass.

All three of them felt embarrassed. They were a little disoriented, too, because they noticed their clothes were utterly dry.

"Uh, nothing, officer" blurted Myna. "We were just, uh, just, uh, you know--."

"Laughing!" piped up Seri, nervously. "Azh here said something funny and we were rolling on the ground laughing. Azh says some really funny things all the time. Right, Azh?"

"Yes. Yes." mumbled Azh, not knowing what else to say. "Everybody says I'm the funny one in the family, officer."

Azh was trying hard to not squirm. There was something small and wet and slimy wriggling down his back under his shirt.

"Well, all right, then" said the police officer. He laughed as he continued "Children should not be around here without their parents. People say this place is haunted." He winked at them.

"Yes, sir" said Seri, forcing her lips into a smile. "Come on, you two, let's get back to the hotel."

She took off at a run. Azh and Myna sprinted after her, without hesitation. The three of them did not look back as they ran as fast as they could.

Had they looked back they would have seen the police officer slowly morph into a turtle, and waddle into the narrow shallow stream that appeared out of nowhere.