Way Home

• Joanna Ryzner, Grade 8
• Short Story
• 2007

I’m somewhere not far away from home in the rainforest; it’s green, wet, cold but sunny and misty. Splinters of light make their way through the overgrown tree tops. I’ve been lost for several hours but it seems like days and every step I take is either a step further or closer to home. I’m saturated and glacially cold and also is my food. I’m surrounded by danger, everywhere I look I see plants like the Great Wall of China, insect talking to each other like their going to bring the whole swarm and animals glaring at me as if I’m a creature they’ve never seen before. I feel like an intruder, destroying their habitat with every footstep I take.

Every breathe I take, every brume I breathe out into the cold air I wonder if this will be the last breath I will ever take. Among the green I see eyes shining at me like mirrors facing the sun. I creep closer to where the eyes are shining and suddenly…. I hear a loud roar and a tiger figure leaping towards me at the speed of light. I run for my life as fast as I can looking for a tree I can climb, most are too high to climb so I keep looking.

I finally find a tree I can climb after and climb it as fast as I can, I blunder the first few times, I attempt to get up it no matter what because if I don’t I’ll be torn to shreds. I succeed and the tiger stops aware of its surroundings but passes, the tiger didn’t notice me and kept looking further on.

I try to get my breath back scared and aware that the tiger could come back, I make sure the coast is clear and quietly and go the way where there aren’t as many leaves trying to keep quiet. After hours of walking, irrevocably come to a spring, I know exactly where it is because it flows beside my house down hill, I wasn’t exactly sure how far down the hill I was though. I had no water so the first thing I did was have a drink, the water was as fresh as you can get it because it’s always raining. I start walking up the hill but it was extremely hard because it was slippery.

I’m still walking up the hill slipping countless times but injured abominably, cut excessively by the ferns. Although they look beautiful and affable, don’t come too close or you’ll unleash the acrimony or the rainforest for disturbing the amity.

After what felt like hours of walking I was so astonished to see my house. I saw my parents and ran to them as fast as I could. I caressed them as hard as I could but got them dirty although they didn’t seem to mind. I had a shower and sat in front of the fire, I’m glad to be back home.