It was a…a…I had no idea what it was BUT it sure was ugly!
Please let me look it up in my book of ugly creatures. Hmmm, here it is, it’s a…they should tell you how to pronounce these names! I’m going to try it…ready, it’s a…randomuglyanimal (no offense to the randomuglyanimal, but that’s what is written in there)!
I think it may be poisonous, ‘cause if it wasn’t it doesn’t say in the book (it doesn’t say much in the book).
Maybe I shouldn’t have used heavy-duty literally-grows-really-fast fertiliser.
It did say “Warning! Has bad effects on the seed you are about to put it on” – maybe I should have listened to what it said.
Oh well, too late now!
My Grandpa walked up and said,”Ged, did you use the heavy-duty literally-grows-really-fast fertiliser on that seed that I told you not to put it on?”
“So what if I did?” I answered.
“If you don’t cut the tree down with an axe, the tree could wipe out the whole human species with randomuglyanimals like the one that is reaching down right now!” he exclaimed.
Whilst we were talking, the randomuglyanimal had reached down it’s hand inch by inch. Suddenly it grabbed my bag and swallowed it whole! Then it doubled in size!
“Grandpa, run!” I yelled.
When Grandpa and I are a safe distance away, Grandpa said I need to go on a quest to find the randomuglyanimal-tree-cutting-axe from the heart of the volcano.
“Which volcano?” I asked.
“That one!” he said and pointed to the volcano that I was least hoping it would be.
“How do you know! It could be the harmless extinct volcano over there!”
“NO! It’s that one over there. The one that erupts every second day!” I started running the other way.
“Where are you going! You want to be a hero right?” Grandpa didn’t let me answer.
“Of course you do! The worlds counting on you!”
“Are you sure?”
“Don’t question me!!” Grandpa roared.
“Ooookkkk…fine…I’ll go save the world…but are you sure I’m their last resort?”
“GO!!!!”
So I set out on my quest mostly to save the world but also before Grandpa got too angry. I walked for what felt like hours (realistically it had only been about ten minutes) when I reached… why did you put that there? You didn’t reach anything you just kept on walking and walking and walking… then you reached something… it was a rock so you kept on walking and walking and walking when you reached… false alarm, you didn’t reach any thing!
I looked up at the clouds (I’m a bit of a dreamer). There were sheep, rabbits and random stray clouds… OUCH!!! I just ran into the volcano! This quest thing was not my kind of thing, you may have guessed that already. Around me rocks were actually melting from the heat of the volcano and my nose felt like it was burning after walking right into the volcano!
The volcano was too hot to climb so I had to think of another idea… thinking… thinking …thinking… thinking.
My brain was blank! Just as I was straining my brain for ideas this strange person walked up, and by strange I mean STRANGE! The girl was wearing lots of four leaf clovers around her neck, wrists and ankles with pictures of horse shoes and other lucky things on her clothes!
“Are you here to get zee randomuglyanimal-tree-cutting-axe from zee heart of zee volcano in hope to save zee world?” she asked in a strange accent.
“Yes! How did you know?” I replied.
“Just a lucky guess. Wow, I don’t usually get zat right!”
I wondered how many people would be crazy enough to come to the volcano.
“Not many people.” She read my mind! “
“You can ride my pet man-eating phoenix, daddy got him for me for my birthday.” I gulped. Man-eating phoenixes were not my thing.
“Is there another option?” I asked.
“Well let me think… there is the harmless vegetarian bunny but zit ran away from home-sniff sniff- maybe you’d like zee gentle giant of the sea but it is scared of fire, zo I guess the man-eating phoenix is your only option.”
“Well I’ve come this far I might as well try,” I sighed.
“Great! Then come this way!”
She sounded really enthusiastic, maybe this wasn’t going to be as hard as I expected! She led me to a cave in the volcano. Inside was not as hot as I expected.
“What’s your name?” I just realised I didn’t know her name.
“Luck, and yours?”
“Ged,” I answered.
Just then we reached the end of the tunnel…it was empty!
“The man-eating phoenix mustn’t be in,” I said with a sigh of relief. We walked back to the entrance of the cave and sat down.
“What do we do now?” I asked.
“Shhh, I’m thinking,” Luck replied.
After a while Luck found a solution. “I got it! I could phone one of my friendz who knowz someone who could help!” squealed Luck unable to contain her excitement.
“Great! Well as long as it doesn’t include any more creatures.”
“Promise!”
Luck squealed even louder.
In about an hour the person Luck’s friend knows turned up.
“This iz Daisy,” Luck announced proudly.
“Hi Daisy, I’m Ged.”
“Nices to meets you,” Daisy said.
“I’m sorry, Daisy doesn’t have as good speech skills zas you and I,” Luck explained.
“I gots items for you.” Daisy said and opened an over-packed backpack she was holding.
“You gotda rent dem for semi small price.”
“Have you got any money?” I asked Luck. She shook her head. “This better be worth it,” I sighed.
Daisy started rummaging through her backpack. “Here, this may helps.”
Daisy held out what looked like suction cones, there were two pairs, one for me and one for Luck. I gave Daisy five dollars then we put the suction cones on and tried climbing up the volcano. It worked!
“Ya may need me. I’ll comes too,” Daisy said and pulled out a third pair of suction cones. We climbed up the side of the volcano. Once we had reached the top our suction cones were starting to melt from the heat of the volcano – wow that’s hot! We had to think of another option.
Once again Daisy started rummaging through her backpack.
“How’s about this,” Daisy said looking triumphant. She held up a… sandwich?
“What?” I spluttered.
“Good idea Daisy! Let’s have some lunch!” Luck said.
“On the top of a volcano?” I asked but they were already tucking into some sandwiches. Then my stomach grumbled. I realised that I hadn’t eaten for hours. So we had a lunch break. After, Daisy searched through her backpack once again.
“I gotts tha perfect idea! Let’s parachute!” Daisy exclaimed.
I reluctantly handed over twenty dollars, ten dollars each parachute. We put the parachutes on and got ready to jump.
“Ze should use a rope to guide ourzelves down and make sure ze don’t fall too far,” Luck said.
We all agreed. Daisy pulled a rope, a hook and a hammer to hit the hook in out of her backpack.
“Mor moneys please,” Daisy chimed happily.
I gave her more money, by now I only had ten dollars of my hard-earned money left! I don’t like quests very much, especially ones that are this expensive! Ching-ching-ching. Luck had started banging the hook into the volcano with the hammer. We tied the rope to the hook then tested it to see if it would hold our weight.
“Now we know it will hold our weight who wants to go first?” I asked.
“I will!” Luck answered nearly immediately.
She held onto the rope with one hand and the string that activated the parachute in the other… then she jumped! She pulled the string and glided gracefully through the air.
“There’s a cave half way down,” she called up to us.
“Ok, let’s all go in there.”
I leaned over the side a bit and called down.
“I go next,” Daisy declared and I nodded.
I was a bit nervous about going down but if the others can do it I can too, well at least I think I can. Daisy jumped… she didn’t glide as gracefully as Luck but her movements were nice and controlled.
“Your turn,” Daisy called up to me.
I got into the position to jump and then counted to three – one… two…three, then I jumped!
I glided awkwardly down still holding onto the rope. I realised my knuckles were going white so I loosened my grip. I started to relax. About half way down I saw the cave. Luck and Daisy called to me. Just as I was going past I slipped in.
“Great, we all made it!” Luck said.
“Did you think that we wouldn’t all make it?” I asked surprised.
“You look scared on tops the volcano,” Daisy commented.
“I was NOT scared!” I shouted.
“Well it was my first time parachuting into an active volcano.”
“Come on guyz, nowz not zee time to argue, we need to think where to look for zee axe,” Luck replied.
“I think it would be that way.”
Luck pointed to a tunnel at the back of the back of the cave.
“Lets follows that,” Daisy agreed.
We took our parachutes off then followed the winding tunnel. There was a sign saying stuff like ‘warning sudden death’ and ‘turn back before it is too late’ every five steps but they couldn’t mean anything.
“Do you suppose it’ll be far from here?” I asked. I was getting tired.
“Not too far,” Luck replied. We walked for half an hour more.
“Can we have a rest?” I asked.
“NO!” Luck and Daisy said in unison.
“Why not?” I asked.
Daisy and Luck didn’t know the answer.
“Ok, fine,” Luck sighed. YES! I said inside my head, I can rest my sore feet. After a brief rest we set off again. We didn’t need a torch because the glow of the lava in the volcano provided enough light to see.
Suddenly we reached the end of the tunnel. At the end was a large drop, straight down. We stood on the end and looked over the edge which was probably not the best idea but what was the worst that could happen? You couldn’t see the bottom. We sat down with our legs dangling over the edge and the end of the cliff suddenly crumbled and we fell into darkness!
“AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!!!” we screamed.
I don’t know how long we fell for but at the end of our fall we landed on soft moss in a room with gold decorations and lit with candles and in the middle of the room the randomuglyanimal-tree-cutting-axe!
“Wow,” I breathed.
I ran towards the axe, picked it up and said, “Let’s get out of here guys!”
“How?” Luck answered.
Just then Jackie French (who is awesome!) appeared riding a dragon!
“Never fear I am here!” Jackie announced.
“I’ll get you out of here!”
I handed over my last ten dollars then we jumped on the dragon and Jackie flew us to the randomuglyanimal tree, where she cut down the tree and saved the world!
