Koala Hugs

• Vedha Vivek, Grade 4
• Short Story
• 2018

“Waa. Waa.” That was the sound of a miniature, new born koala. All of mother koala’s friends had come to see. Mother koala slowly climbed down the tree. The baby koala leaned forward and fell out of mother koala’s pouch! A kangaroo picked up the baby.
“Hello” she whispered. A possum held the baby.
“He’s so cute!” she exclaimed. The possum gave back the baby to mother koala. While the parents were talking, the jellybean-sized koala wriggled out of his mother’s pouch. He wriggled deeper into the forest to look for food.

A giant furry creature hopped in front of him. The furry creature had a pink, twitching nose, two long floppy ears and a little, cotton ball tail. It was a rabbit. The rabbit asked, “Are you okay?” The koala nodded his head. The rabbit picked up the koala and took him to her burrow. In the burrow, the mother rabbit took care of him as her own and even fed him carrots!

While the koala was having fun, a family of sly foxes were hunting for food. They used their strong sense of smell to find prey, and they did. They smelled the mother rabbit and baby koala in the rabbit’s burrow. They sprinted to the burrow and tried to attack. Just then, a huge elk knocked out the foxes from behind! One of them escaped with the rabbit in his mouth. The elk picked up the koala and ran away.

Then it was the elk’s turn to take care of the koala. Eight months later, the baby koala was all grown up could walk around easily. He obviously didn’t move much since he was a koala. Every day, the koala would go deep into the forest to find his mother but every day he came back home without any sign of his mother. The next day, he decided to go deeper into the forest. On his way, he got hungry, so he tried to find food.

He walked further and further until he found a little gum tree with a big furry, grey koala. The big koala climbed down the tree and gave the little one a koala hug.