A Cave Of Confusion

• Jacqueline Lee, Grade 5, Caringbah North Public School
• Short Story
• 2015

Excellence Award in the 'Read Write Repeat 2015' competition

My fingers reached anxiously for the wall. It was ominously dark; it was insensitively slippery. My fear increased rose in a deluge of despair with the near –to- crawling claustrophobic walls that enveloped me in its heinous claws. “Will I ever get out of here?” I screamed silently before advancing deeper into the shadows- the creeping shadows in that cave of confusion!
It was then that I heard the heavy breathing!

“You must stay together,” Miss Thompson had warned.
(“What’s the benefit of that?”)
“Johnson are you paying attention?”
(“Why should I?”)
“If we go to the rock pools to the right, we’ll find all the specimens we need for the school project?”
(But if we go to the left?”)
“And, class-Johnson are you listening? Don’t go near the caves. It’s out of bounds.”
(Sounds like the place I’d like to be in…”)

The caves were an adventure waiting to happen: shivering, shimmering walls of ice echoed words of warning in eerie, high pitched whistles, musty, murky green walls camouflaged slithering, jellied creatures lurking in cracks and crevices. And there were tunnels- tunnels, tunnels-tunnels leading to a labyrinth of adventures. One led to an underground lake for smugglers and pirates, another to a bundle of bones of buried dinosaurs and then there was the tunnel leading to the secret passage. At the end of this stood a rusted gate, with a heavy key sitting temptingly in the keyhole. My mouth hung slack. Carefully, I turned it. It clattered open to an overwhelming sight!

The cave was like a giant’s mouth: more ominous that my darkest thoughts, more treacherous than a bear awoken early from hibernation, more unnerving than a death shroud. Mysteriously, it had become claustrophobic in there. I had crossed some invisible lines. As I rubbed the gnawing cold from my bones, I imagined myself as a secret agent on a mission- a secret on a mission being pursued by a stealthy assassin! In spite of my blanched faces I was determined I wouldn’t be caught. Silently, I edged towards the exit.

Without hesitation, I sped off. Turn left, then right- tripping –left- accelerate-slipping on slime-right-fog clearing-shadows shifted behind- now in front- fear grabbed onto my heart- turn back-right turn-deep breaths-footsteps closer now- retracted steps- going forward- which way? Tripping…tumbling…

I was tumbling through sinister surroundings, now tumbling right along to a pair of heavy duty sneakers.
“Johnson! Where have you been?”
(“In the cave, silly”)
“You haven’t been in the caves have you?”
(“Of course, where else”)
“Anything to say for yourself?”
“Sorry Miss”
“Well don’t let it happen again”
“No, Miss”
(“Well not until the next excursion!”)

By Jacqueline Lee