by Willow Gore
Late in the afternoon, I had finally pulled up to our campsite where my family was staying for a week. My dad kept begging me to help put up the tent, but I wasn’t bothered so I wandered off to find my mum, but I couldn’t find her. She was gone!
“Lilly, sweetheart, I’m going off to find some wood for the campfire tonight, alright,” said Dad.
I just nodded as he walked away. Now I was all alone in the middle of nowhere, so I began to wander off. I wanted to live in the moment and not worry about what anyone else was doing. So off I went, looking at all the mountains, waterfalls, and rainbows, until I came across two huge shipping containers, one green and another red.
I stepped inside the green one to have a look, but all I saw was a big, blue swirly portal in the middle of the container. It was sucking me in. I clung on to the rusty steel door holding on for dear life, but the portal was too strong and I went flying in!
I was lying on the cold muddy dirt. I could see one hundred koala lemurs starring back at me. They were eating blue tropical bananas. I jumped back up and ran for the door of the shipping container, which was weirdly sitting in the middle of what looked like Madagascar. I wasn’t sure where I was. I began to sprint but banged my head really hard and was flung back. Everything went black.
*
Slowly opening my eyes, I could see a pigmy hippo standing over me. But scientists said that they were extinct. This must be the last one left, I thought.
I could see that the hippo was trying to get something off me. Then I realised—he was trying to get a boa constrictor off me! The boa constrictor had skin as rough as bark and eyes as big as the sun. It was trying to attack me. I thought that this was going to be how I died, but luckily the brave and fierce hippo saved me. It ripped the snake off me with one mighty bite and threw it all the way across what I still thought was Madagascar.
Frozen with confusion, I said, “Thank you,” but by then the hippo was nowhere to be seen. I stood up to have a good look around. Out the corner of my eye, I saw little fairies with bright blue wings, blonde silky hair, and clothes. They were as small as ants.
Quietly making my way over to where I could see tiny mushroom houses and miniature plants running up and down fresh sparkling rivers, I saw one of the fairies charging towards me. Just when I was about to run away, it started to talk to me.
“Please help us. There is a big bad giant that keeps attacking us!” the fairy exclaimed.
“Well, what am I supposed to do as a poor helpless ten-year-old?” I asked.
“Well, we brought you here so you could defeat the giant, but then it formed a tsunami while jumping and splashing around in the water,” the fairy continued.
“Keep going,” I said.
“Okay, well, you must defeat the giant before the tsunami reaches land. Once you do defeat the giant, you will be able to leave and go back to your parents. Please help us,” the fairy begged.
I was very tempted, but how could I defeat a giant when I wasn’t even half the size of a giant’s leg. But the look on the fairy’s face convinced me, so all I had to do was wait for the giant. Wait and wait and wait and wait and wait and ….
We all stopped talking. The giant had returned!
I grabbed the biggest, closest stick near me and sharpened it on a rock so that it was ready to help me defeat and destroy the giant. Then I froze. I was so scared, but the fairies pushed me out of the bush. They were much stronger than they looked … but I couldn’t be thinking about that right now. I had to fight.
All I could see were two hairy, mouldy, grotesque feet. I ran up to the giant’s left foot and started to stab my stick into it.
The giant began to talk it. It said, “Hi, my name is Mandy, and I overheard your conversation with the fairy, and I want you to know three things.”
“Okay, what are they?” I asked.
“One: I didn’t want to destroy a bit of the fairy’s land. I just wanted to be a fairy, but I’m stuck as a revolting giant!” Mandy cried.
“Oh no, don’t say that!” I replied.
“Wait, there’s more. I also didn’t want to form the tsunami. I just wanted to see what fun felt like. And last, but not least, we might want to find a way to stop the tsunami because it’s coming this way!” Mandy screamed.
“What? Ahh … We need to think of a plan and quick! Oh yeah, and everything you said was so nice and I’m sure the fairies will forgive you,” I said.
I looked up at the giant and asked her a quick question, “Hey, um … Mandy, how did you form the tsunami?” I asked.
“Well, I stomped my left foot in the water and then swoosh away went the water,” answered Mandy.
After finding all that out, I thought of a way to fix it. If what she said was correct, then it would be very easy to fix it. I thought that if she put her right foot in, then it would fix the whole problem. The tsunami would go away.
We both ran towards the water, to exactly the spot where Mandy had put in her left foot. We were both very scared that it wasn’t going to work, but we had to try. We had about ten minutes before the whole place was going to be covered with water. So, we quickly got to work. Mandy shoved her foot in and, after only seconds, the water went back to normal.
Mandy and I ran to the fairies to tell them the good news. The fairies were relieved that Mandy wasn’t trying to hurt them and even more relieved that the tsunami was gone. After they heard about the giant not trying to hurt them, they let her come live with them and they let me go back to my family and I could tell my family about my day.
“Hey, Mum … Dad! When you guys were gone, I got sucked into a big blue portal and almost died but then I stopped a tsunami with the help of some fairies and a giant!” I told them.
“Wow, sweetheart, way too much fresh air for you. Come on, it’s time for dinner!” my parents exclaimed.
