Adventures

• Maria Demina, Grade 4, West Lakes Shore Primary School
• Short Story
• 2014

Excellence Award in the 'The Text Generation 2014' competition

I love adventures. I don’t mean small adventures like climbing the tree outside your window. I mean daring, dangerous adventures that make you feel scared and happy at the same time. The ones where you think back to the times when humans climbed giant trees, lived in caves and went hunting alone. It’s like the spirits of your ancestors wake up and tell you to follow them.
I know there are some people who prefer staying at home. Sometimes I feel like one of them (I’m not saying they’re bad). But when I go outside, I feel totally different. I want to explore… because life would be boring without adventures.
In adventures, it’s good to imagine. When you imagine, it’s more fun, scary and cool. It’s also great to imagine you are having an adventure. Sometimes after you read a book about adventures, you want those things to happen to you, but usually, it’s not possible.
It seems that naughty kids usually have more adventures than nice kids because they would climb on a shed roof or do something else naughty without fear of getting told off. But I reckon nice kids can have great adventures as well.
In adventures, there is a part when you can hear ‘the call of nature and adventures’. There is nature in adventures, because a long time ago people had all sorts of adventures with nature, like having to swim to another forest or getting chased by an angry animal. Now, people have less ‘nature’ adventures, but that’s all right. Anyone can go to a forest, river, mountain or any interesting place and have their own adventure. That’s why I love camping. It’s both nature and an adventure.
When you have adventures, you want to be independent, brave and wild. Sometimes it even feels like you want to run away and live in the bush, but then you realize you can’t do it, because you will miss your family and you won’t be able to survive alone.
I think every person has had at least one adventure in their life. That means everybody has had fun and knows what ‘the call of nature’ sounds like.
I believe that an adventure can be anywhere. You just have to imagine.