Mango's Big Adventure

• Amelia Cole, Grade 2
• Short Story
• 2016

Mango is a dog who belongs to a rich family and a child called Lucy. Lucy never let Mango out of the house unless they were having a short walk in the big, green plains of their back garden.
One day the family went out to the movies, but they accidentally left the back door open and Mango wandered out into the forest near the front garden. Then it started to rain. Big drops of wet, cool rain came drizzling down. It began to get dark, and the drops turned into big fat, cool, moonlit rain instead.
Mango got worried and ran to a large tree. Then she heard a growling sound from an unseen forest creature and backed into the tree — but instead of the hard trunk, part of the tree pushed back into a door, allowing Mango to scamper up some stairs to a little room. In this room stood a fairy.
The fairy saw Mango and understood that she was a magic type of dog who could talk to magical kind. So she said, "Hello, who are you? I'm Lily.”
"I'm Mango," the little dog said. "I didn't know I could talk, where am I?" she said, as she peered more closely at the little room.
"Calm down Mango. You're in the magical tree of the hidden wood. Your family is at the movies, but they'll come back soon. Now, come here, I'm baking sugar cakes, so if you're hungry you can have some," said Lily.
"OK," said Mango.
That night when the family came home, they all worried about Mango and called the police. But they did not know that there was a spy in the police team who worked for a company that wanted to cut down the forest and build a city there instead. So he would try to harm the forest and maybe Mango.
The next day Mango woke to the sight of a man in a police uniform setting fire to the grass. There was a loud bang and a lot of red stuff outside. It sizzled, it crackled, and it looked hot. Policemen were quickly all over the place. Then Mango noticed some stairs that she had not spotted before, and she ran up them. At the top was a slide that led underground. Mango took a deep breath and slid all the way down. She landed with a bump and there was Lily.
"Oh, I thought you'd never come! Now run ... this tunnel leads to a rabbit hole in your garden ... Look, there it is!" she said.
So up they climbed and, to their surprise, there was the spy.
Mango leapt up and grabbed his trousers and would not let go until the good policemen came and arrested the spy. Mango’s family called the firemen to put out the fire. After the policemen and firemen had left, the family made a big fuss of Mango and gave her a special treat.