Fear

• Matthew Caristo, Grade 4
• Short Story
• 2017

My heart was pounding. I looked back, and could see the tiger’s eyes flashing at me. I ran for my life, running past all the animals in the jungle and pushing the branches out of the way. The tiger was still chasing me, hunting for its food. I ran as fast as I could across the jungle floor.
I thought I saw an opening. I dashed quickly to the opening. When I got there, I just notice it was only the sun shining on the jungle floor. I stopped to catch my breath. The tiger was looking at me curiously. The tiger was ready to pounce, when a monkey appeared, swung me up into the tree above and threw me into the next tree. I could still see the tiger and the tiger could still see me. The tiger was trying to jump up but I was too high. There were lots of tiger scratches across the tree. I got scared. The tiger marks looked painful. I looked in the distance between the tree next to me and the tree I was on. I had an idea!
I thought to myself, ‘I can jump to that tree and the tree after that and the tree after that.’ I took the deepest breath I ever took, calmed myself and jumped! And I made it. I felt confident for the next tree. I made it again. Now I felt super confident for the next one. I jumped. I made it again. The tiger was chasing me along the trees. I took a deep breath for the next one because it was higher than the other trees. I jumped! I missed it. I fell to the ground with a big thud! I was face to face with a tiger.
The tiger licked his lips. ‘I looked delicious,’ he thought. So he took three steps closer to me, I got really scared. I closed my eyes and put my hand in front of me but instead of feeling pain, I felt comfortable. I opened my eyes with a big surprise! The tiger’s nose was touching my hands. I thought, if I would move, the tiger would attack. So I kept calm and stayed still.
After a while, the tiger stepped away. I thought I made friends with him, but then he growled at me. Then I noticed that he was looking at my shiny hat. I knew that I had to sacrifice my hat. I slowly took it off with a sob on my face. I handed it to the tiger sadly. I quickly had a last look at it for the last time and the tiger chewed it to pieces and threw it away. Then the tiger looked at me and walked away. Luckily I now I had time to look at my GPS and the exit was to my right. I looked right and there was my village. Then I went home to my hut. What an eventful day!