Daisy's Egyptian Adventure

• Amelia Cole, Grade 3
• Short Story
• 2017

Sweat poured down the nine-year-old’s face like black rain soaking her clothes as much as the sun was soaking her. Staggering forward, Daisy sorely regretted coming here but her mind willed her legs on. Her family had been travelling across Egypt in search of ancient treasure when Daisy had lost them and she had kept going on her own. A storm whipped up, making sand slap her face, and when she couldn’t bear it any longer, she collapsed on the sand and drifted off to sleep. While the night rolled on and on for endless hours, the storm slashed and bashed about, covering Daisy in a blanket of sand.

Uhh! Uhh! Daisy coughed and spluttered sand out of her mouth. The storm last night had blown sand all over her, soiling her hair, filling her boots like sandpits and even filling her nose, clothes and ears too. She peered around and noticed a pointy, triangular 3D shaped building blocking out the sun.

“The storm must have blown the sand off it last night” she wondered aloud in a hoarse whisper. “I think it’s a pyramid” Daisy added. She slowly advanced towards it and placed her clammy palm on a brick that she noticed was sticking out of the stone building. She pushed it hard. There was a creaking, as if the system hadn’t been used ever but then, finally, about ten bricks gave way and crashed on the icy cold floor and crumbled into tiny pieces. A wave of fear, but also curiosity washed over her, sending shivers down her spine. But curiosity won the fight and she tiptoed inside. It was pitch black and she couldn’t see a thing, but she kept going. Suddenly she was falling, falling down an enormous abyss. It felt like hours, days weeks, before she smashed down, her body straight as a pencil, into a deep pool of icy water. Daisy thrashed furiously and pulled herself out of the water, drenched and gasping for air. She threw herself up on the sandy bank, exhausted and dripping and, quietly, in her head, hummed herself to sleep.

Drip. Drip. Water trickled off Daisy’s body in a never-ending way. Stumbling along the river bank, she came to a large stone chamber where hieroglyphics roamed the walls and pots and jugs were stacked and labelled on sandstone shelves. A bundle of fur was resting in front of a golden pot in which the hieroglyphics were carved in silver and gold. The bundle yawned and then lay its sly eyes on a trembling Daisy. It leapt, bloodthirsty, at its victim. Jumping out of the way of the creature, Daisy, almost without thinking, grabbed a pot and threw it at the thing. It froze as the liquid from inside the pot touched it and then it fell, lifelessly. Grabbing the special pot, Daisy tipped the contents out and saw the most amazing thing … the lost sapphire of Egypt! - the treasure her parents had been seeking all their lives.