Lantern at the End of the Rain

In a small village called Sempur, it rained almost every day. But for Lela, a 12-year-old girl living with her grandmother, the rain was never a reason to stop dreaming. She had one big dream: to become a writer.

Every afternoon after the rain stopped, Lela would sit under a large mango tree beside her house. There, she wrote imaginative stories in her worn-out notebook—tales about rain fairies, cloud dragons, and brave children who saved their village from darkness.

Unfortunately, her classmates often laughed at her dream. “Writers don’t come from villages like ours,” one of them teased.

But Lela never gave up. One day, she submitted her story to a national writing competition. To her surprise, her story titled “Lantern at the End of the Rain” won first place. She was invited to Jakarta and given the chance to publish her first book.

Now, Lela is an inspiration. That small lantern of hope shined brighter than any storm. She proved that stories, even from the humblest places, can touch the hearts of the world.