The Talking Millipede

• Emi Rowden-Tiago, Grade 8, Henley High School
• Short Story
• 2016

Excellence Award in the 'Top Secret 2016' competition

I’m walking with my family. We are on a hike through the Amazon and have seen a few insects, no animals or monkeys like we were told, just trees and bushes. My parents turned left then right through the wilderness, and it was extremely hard to keep up. As they kept getting further and further away from me I accidently turned left instead of right and in the realisation I tripped over and landed on my stomach. Pain rushed through me as I got my hands underneath me ready to get up when… “help me, help me” called a small voice. I turned around to find the source of the voice, but saw nothing. “Down here” it called again. I looked down to see a millipede looking up at me, the millipede started talking about people in suits coming around and cutting down the trees in the forest, he said this in a rushed, panicked voice. He looked up at me and said, “can you help me”.
I thought about it for a second. I told the millipede that I would help him as long as we didn’t run into my parents. I asked him what his name was and said it was Randy. Randy said that the main organisation for cutting down the trees was just straight ahead. We passed more trees and bushes and heard a few birds every now and then. Then we finally reached the camp site. There were men everywhere with big chainsaws and axes. I ran up to the closest man and put the Randy behind my back, I asked him if they could stop cutting down the trees, he looked at me like was a lunatic and said, “what do you think gives you the right to demand something like that, missy moo?”
I realized this was going to be harder than I thought. I ran to the middle of the site, everyone noticed me and put their equipment down. I talked about all the wildlife’s homes that they would be destroying and all the species they would be wiping out. “We need wood for our furniture and school desks, but we can make do without it, can’t we?” There was a long silence, then all of a sudden a round of applause broke out in the crowd and someone yelled, “why are we evening doing this, we are practically killing animals”. More claps and cheering sounded out and then out of the corner of my eye I saw my parents, they came running over and hugged me tight and asked what had happened. I just told them that I got lost and wondered over here. In the meantime, I had completely forgotten about Randy, I pulled him right up to my face. Randy smiled at me and thanked me a million. He said that now there can be mini Randy’s growing up here too. The men started packing up and my parents took me home.
The End