Amelia's Adventures in the Amazon
Amelia is a girl with an active imagination. Today Amelia and her best friend Emily are sitting outside in Amelia’s sandbox. Amelia's dog Seamus is snuffling loudly in the grass beside her, his white ears stuck straight up and his tail straight as an arrow.
Amelia stretched out, warming her belly on the sand and closed her eyes. She imagined herself laying in the plains of Africa, sunning herself with the lions. She let out a huge yawn, and growled quietly. Her best friend Emily giggled.
"What are you doing?" asked Emily.
"I’m laying in the plains with the lions," said Amelia, sitting back up again.
"No you’re not, you’re sitting right here with me, in the sandbox," replied Emily.
"No, I was sunning myself with the lions. Haven’t you ever imagined yourself somewhere else?" asked Amelia.
"Well yeah, but never something that weird," said Emily.
"Well, how about we play a game? I’ve always wanted to see the rainforest, why don’t we go there?"
"But we can’t. We’re in your backyard."
"Just trust me. Close your eyes," said Amelia as she closed her own eyes.
All of a sudden it felt like the sandbox was whirling and twirling and whizzing about. Amelia started giggling, but Emily wasn’t so happy. Poor Emily was clutching her stomach, keeping her eyes clamped shut so she couldn’t accidentally peek over the edge to see what was happening. She wasn’t sure she wanted to know.
The sandbox stopped. Emily could hear strange new sounds around her, but she kept her eyes closed tight. Amelia tapped Emily on the shoulder, "Open your eyes silly, it’s okay."
Amelia laughed as she watched Emily open her eyes. Emily couldn’t believe what she was seeing! There were huge trees all around her! Trees that she had never ever seen before! They were in the middle of the Amazon Rainforest! Suddenly Emily jumped and screamed, "What was that! Something touched my leg!"
Amelia burst into giggles. "It’s just Seamus! He must have jumped into the sandbox with us!" She bent down to scratch Seamus behind his ears, but he was too interested in the Squirrel Monkeys chirping madly in the treetops. Amelia giggled some more as Seamus tried his best to climb up between two trees. Those mischievous monkeys were certainly having fun teasing Seamus.
Amelia stepped outside of the sandbox and started to look around. It was so beautiful! Everything was so green, the flowers were bright colours, and the animal noises were so strange! She motioned for Emily to join her as she walked down a path.
It wasn’t long before both girls came upon the oddest sight! Way up high in the trees were bright yellow bunches of bananas! "I always thought they just came from the grocery store," said Emily. Amelia laughed and said, "Me too," and the two girls kept walking.
Amelia suddenly stopped and crouched down on her hands and knees. The moist earth beneath her caked onto her skin. "What are you doing?" asked Emily.
"I’m about to go running with the jaguars, don’t you see them?"
Emily turned and looked, and sure enough she could see jaguars a little off the path, watching the two girls very closely. Emily thought she could hear a low, deep rumbling sound coming from their direction. "Um, Amelia? I don’t think they want you to run with them. I think we’re supposed to run away from them!" Emily started running away as fast as she could.
Amelia started to run after Emily. She found her a little further up the path, sitting on a fallen tree. She was watching something on her lap. As Amelia got closer she saw that a Longwinged Butterfly was crawling on Emily’s lap.
"Isn’t it beautiful?" said Emily, "It just landed here after I sat down."
Amelia looked closer and smiled, "It is beautiful, but we have to keep moving. I don’t want those jaguars finding us, or Seamus."
Just as she said his name, Seamus came racing up beside her, covered in mud from head to toe. His tail was wagging furiously and he was panting so hard his tongue was almost touching the ground.
"Seamus! Where have you been? You’re disgusting!"
Seamus wagged his tail happily and looked up.
Amelia and Emily followed Seamus’ gaze up into the trees and saw a sleepy old sloth hanging from the branches.
"Oh wow, a sloth!" exclaimed Amelia. Amelia climbed up onto the fallen tree and tried to figure out how to climb up to the sloth. She wanted a closer look. Out of the distance the girls heard a voice say, "Girls! It’s time to come in!" The two girls looked at each other, and Amelia yelled, "Just a sec mom, we’re in the jungle! We’ll be home in a minute!"
Amelia jumped off of the fallen tree and took Emily’s hand, "Come on, we have to go home!"
Both girls started running down the path to the sandbox. Seamus was running far ahead of the girls, bouncing and growling at the monkeys still chirping in the treetops.
As the girls reached the sandbox Amelia stopped and turned around, "Just a second, I forgot something." Amelia walked back down the path a way, bent over to pick something up, put it in her back pocket, and then walked back to the sandbox.
"What did you forget?" asked Emily.
"You’ll see," said Amelia.
Seamus jumped into the sandbox, and both girls closed their eyes. Emily wasn’t looking forward to this part. The sandbox started whirling and twirling and whizzing about again. Amelia let out a giggle, and Seamus started barking. Almost as quickly as the sandbox started spinning, it stopped again.
Amelia opened her eyes and jumped out of the sandbox. "Come on Emily, we’re home!" Emily opened her eyes and her jaw dropped. They were home! But how --?
Amelia started giggling, "All it takes is a little bit of imagination and you can go anywhere."
Amelia took Emily’s hand and they walked together up to the backdoor where Amelia’s mom was waiting.
"Where were you girls? I heard a lot of giggling but I couldn’t see you," said Amelia’s mom.
"Oh, we were in the Amazon rainforest mom. It was really beautiful!" said Amelia. She told her mom all about the squirrel monkeys that teased Seamus, the bananas way up in the trees, the jaguars that were watching them, Emily’s longwinged butterfly, and the sleepy sloths.
Amelia’s mom laughed, "Amelia honey, you have one wild imagination. Come in for dinner."
Amelia was trying to hold back her laughter as she pulled a small wild purple orchid from her back pocket and handed it to her mom. "Here, I picked this for you, mom."
Amelia’s mom looked shocked. Emily’s eyes widened, and she yelled "Where did that come from?" Amelia looked at her and laughed, "From the rainforest. I picked it just before we left. I thought my mom would like it."
"But, we-"
Amelia lead Emily into the house, "I just have a wild imagination, Emily. Let’s eat dinner."
The End.
Copyright Sara Janssen 2005. All Rights Reserved.
posted by Sara @ 6:35 p.m.
Comments: 1
