FOREST ESCAPADES

Nine-year-old Katy was on holiday with her mom, dad, and little brother in part of The Amazon in Peru.

Getting ready for their hike one morning Katy had packed her bag full of extra snacks for in case she got too hungry. She was all set to go. Katy and her family loved adventure and would go camping and hiking all the time; by the seaside or up in the mountains; they did not mind where they were, as long as they were in the great outdoors and with each other.

“Come on kids, lets get going!” Katy unquestionably inherited her adventuresome essence from her dad especially. Her two-year-old brother was strapped to his dad’s back, safe and sound; wide eyeing everything they passed.

“Look dad! mom look at that!” Katy was most astounded and taken with her surroundings; they were also the only two kids in their hiking group, so they were extra adored!

After a while had passed, they all decided that it was time for a break and something to eat and drink.

“Glad you bought all those snacks huh?” her dad teased as she opened her backpack offering something to anyone who wanted.

While everyone was still snacking and throwing their heads back a little, Katy decided to wonder off and explore while she waited for the rest.

She saw the hole too late and down she went, tumbling, rolling swaying; everything was spinning, and she could not make out where she was or what was beneath her.

Eventually, it stopped, she stopped falling; looking up, there was nothing but tall trees and the clear blue sky; “thank goodness for clear blue skies”, she thought. She was still trying to grasp what had just happened. Everything around her still looked the same, yet; vastly different.

“Mom, dad?”

“Mom? Dad?”

“Sebastian?”

There was no answer from anyone, from anywhere. She thought that maybe she had wondered off a little too far, and tried retracing her steps, but now nothing was familiar, and she had no idea where she was.

After sitting on an excessively big mushroom for quite some time she decided to start walking in any direction to try and find her parents and little brother a long with the rest of the hiking group.

Trying to divert her a little she started humming, and soon there were the most beautiful birds all around her, they were all so colorful and started humming and chirping with her.

“That’s kind of peculiar” she mumbled as she looked around her at all these birds joining her humming. She shook it off and continued walking and humming. Every now and then she would call for her parents, and each time there was no answer.

She had been walking for ages since leaving the mushroom and felt a little exhausted. She sat down on what looked like another large mushroom but not the same; her little eyes were too tired to care and she fell asleep.

Her eyes shot open at the sound of thumping that grew louder and louder, she got up as quickly as she could and dashed for the nearest tree; luckily, most trees were big and gave enough hiding space. She peeked around the tree; careful not to be spotted by whatever it was that was headed her way, as they approached her eyes grew wider and she could not believe what she was seeing.

They were enormous rabbits; rabbits! It felt as if though her heart had stopped for a moment, it was impossible, it could not have been real, yet they were.

She was a little afraid all by herself, but she needed to keep on looking. There was not much water left in her bag and her snacks were also running out. She decided to only snack and drink when it was necessary.

She had already seen enormous rabbits and was afraid of what she might find next.

It was getting hotter again, which meant it must almost have been noon, Katy did not really know how to tell the time by looking at the sun.

“Where is everyone, where am I?”

Her voice trembled a little, she was only nine years old, and there she was in part of the largest forest in the world, who knew where she could end up.

She walked for a long time before sitting down to rest and have a sip of water and something to snack on, the day was coming to an end and night would fall soon. Day 2, all by herself. She found a tree into which she climbed to settle for the night; although she was not sure if she would be able to sleep so high up. She must have fallen asleep after all when rustling down below startled her, so much that she had to regain her balance on the branch she was sitting on.

“Could it be mom and dad and Sebastian?”

She thought to herself as she sat wide eyed, trying to get used to the dark of the night.

She heard it again, the rustling, but could still not see. She was wide awake now, readying herself for whatever was down below to climb up the tree at any moment.

Then she saw it. Big, yellow eyes, big, big, bigger than what you would expect any large animals’ eyes to be.

She could still not see what it was but knew that it was not her family.

Katy was tired, but she could not sleep after seeing those big eyes.

She had to know what it was that was lurking below her.

It grew dead quite and there was no movement, she could not see its eyes anymore, and did not know if it had left or if it was still down there.

When the bright morning sun woke her, she sat up straight right away, the nights activities was still fresh in her mind. When she looked down, she could not see anything at first, she turned around to look on the other side. There they were. A prowl of Jaguars. They were much bigger than they should be, those must have been they eyes she saw.

“Great! Now what?” she mumbled to herself trying to figure out how she was supposed to get down from the tree now, being surrounded by these blood thirsty creatures. she thought about going down the front, the tree stump was big so maybe they would not notice, but she did not really want to risk it.

Her concentration was rudely interrupted by the growling that came from below.

They had noticed her, and they were circling around the stump of the tree.

There was nothing Katy could do but hope that they would not decide that it was a good day for climbing trees. She did not know much about the wild, but because her dad knew so much, she knew a little; and she knew that these cat species were not really tree climbers, but they were more than capable to do so if they needed to.

Day three nearly passed and she was still up in the tree. The Jaguars had left when they noticed something on the ground they could hunt down, that was a reliever. She decided to stay there for another night, she was scared that they were still close by.

She noticed something from the corner of her eye, she caught the shadow of what looked like something with wings, but she was careful to turn her head.

The shadow disappeared and when she looked up there was the most beautiful, massive butterfly hovering above her head.

“Why is everything so big?” she mumbled, although there was no one that would answer her.

The butterfly disappeared and so did the sun.

Night had fallen, once again.

The night seemed cooler than the previous and Katy had nothing else but the clothing she was wearing.

By now she knew that everything was bigger than what they should be.

When she woke the next morning, day 4 in the forest among the unknown, all by herself; it was pouring with rain.

She quickly scanned her surroundings, to see if there were any predators waiting for her, she could not really see much, but decided to take the opportunity to get down to find some sort of shelter.

She started running, trying to find shelter, but there were only trees and shrubs and bushes, nothing that could protect her from the pouring rain. She imagined that even the drops were bigger than what they should be.

After a while, the rain had stopped, and Katy was soaking wet.

“I need to get out of here” she mumbled to herself, looking around for any kind of indication as to where to go next, but to no avail. There was nothing and there was no one.

She sat down and sobbed and sobbed for what seemed like an eternity. She could feel something behind her, but was too afraid to turn around, her eyes still watery from all the sobbing. She could not move. She was terrified. The Jaguars crossed her mind but let that thought go; “they would have attacked already”, she thought.

She slowly turned around, a giant, once again, Kinkajou staring down at her. It was such an adorable looking animal which made Katy a little less frightened. It did not seem to be very bothered with her, it looked at her as if she were an invader, which she technically was.  After their “moment” the animal left, and Katy was all alone once again.

She continued walking, to where she did not know, it was not as if the walking had helped much up until now, neither had the screaming.

Katy found a rolled over hollow tree stump which she crept into. She emptied her backpack and rolled it up to use as a pillow. There she laid, night had fallen, and she had fallen fast asleep.

“Katy! Katy, wake up honey.”

“Come on darling, wake up.”

Her eyes were hazy, and she could barley make out the person leaning over her.

“There you go, come on”

She recognized her dad’s voice.

She sat up swiftly.

“Okay, slowly now, slowly”

He leaned her head back on the ground and wiped her face with a cold wet cloth.

“Dad?”

“Yes honey, it’s me, I ‘m here.”

“Where am I?”

“Still in the forest, you were out for quite some time.”

She sat up, slowly this time and examined her surroundings.

“What about the Jaguar?” she was startled as it all came back to her

“There are none of those here, that I can promise you!”

Someone shouted from the group, and they all burst out laughing.

“Dad, mom, it is true, there was a whole prowl of them, circling the tree that I was sleeping in”

Her mom just shook her head and smiled.

“Honey, you took one nasty fall when you went exploring by yourself.”

“Mom, I was there for ten days, and the animals, they were so big”

She told her mom about everything that she had seen, and the animals that chased her when they saw her in the hollow trunk that she was hiding in. There was monkeys, frogs, sloths and ant eaters, there were so many different animals the last few days, some chased her, some didn’t even notice her.

“I think you were just having a dream honey, you tripped over the root of that tree;”

Her mom pointed to a big root sticking out from the ground

“you hit your head against the tree when you fell.”

She took Katy's hand and let her feel the bump on her head.

“You are going to have a big headache, but I promise you there were no Jaguars and no enormous rabbits or butterflies.”

She was probably just dreaming she thought later, there could never be such big rabbits. It was an adventure nonetheless, but she would not want it to really happen.

She enjoyed the hike with her family and the rest of the group, they saw plenty of tropical animals, but none as big as in her adventure, and no Jaguars!