Hatana Cilo

• Eve Fleming, Grade 7
• Short Story
• 2015

A city on a ship that was a whale? Where was I? Dreamland? I snorted in disbelief, I must be losing my mind. It's not like you see flying whales everyday but then again in the olden days people were so shocked that the world was round and how many times have you heard your teacher say anything's possible?

A couple of minutes ago I was a pretty average twelve year old kid. Not to smart, Not to sporty but absolutely AWESOME at video games. Not long ago I was beating my brother by loads in Mario kart when I had 'poofed'. I could just see his smug face smiling as he overlapped me. I scowled. I bet he was telling Mum right now that I had 'fainted' because he was 'beating' me by 'loads'. Well I thought I might as well find out where I am.

I walked around in the city of the whale ship. Almost everyone I saw was odd. Men with beaks, women with 1000 arms and legs, children with snakes for hair even the cats had eyes on their tails. I stopped in front of a friendly looking birdman and asked him where I was. "Your in Hatana Cilo which basically translates to The Land of Dreams" he replied. "Who are you anyway"? the birdman asked, "you don't look like your from round here." "I'm from Sydney" I replied. "Ah" said the birdman "so your a reality kid." "Well you better come with me because your in trouble.

As birdman who's name was Agog and I crept along behind trash bins all my questions erupted from me. "So why am I in trouble and why did you call me a reality kid?" I asked. "Well" Agog said "You come from what us folks around here call the reality world." "People from your world do not think magic is possible." "So why am I in trouble" I asked. "Apparently you disrespected magic greatly and you have been sent here to be punished" replied Agog "Now mate, lets get going and reach the portal before the government catches us.

I raced swiftly through the streets, I knew I had to get to the portal that would take me home quickly otherwise the government would catch Agog and I and punish me. as we turned the street corner, I saw the portal. it was massive beam of blue light. Yes I thought we were going to make it. Suddenly five birdmen with guns stepped out from the shadows. Oh No I thought...

"Run" Agog screamed as he fought the men with amazing Kung Fu skills I would not have thought he was capable of. I ran faster than I had ever ran before. Silver bullets flashed past me but I did not slow down. The portal was getting closer and closer. 100 metres, 75 metres, 50 metres, 25 metres. Suddenly it was right in front of me and I jumped into it with a roar. then everything went black.

I woke up to see a smug face smiling down at me. "Guess what Cam, I beat you in Mario Kart." "When I had finished the race you were still on your first lap" my brother said smugly. I just smiled and said "rematch."