The Voice Of Nature

• Siena Yang, Grade 4
• Short Story
• 2021

The cool autumn breeze flowed frequently across Lilian’s face gently brushing her tears away. Her eyes were bubbling with fury and her cheeks were stained with tears. She felt betrayed that her village had banished her. She had tried to convince them that nature could communicate and she tried to prove it by forcing seashells into people’s ears while they slept to hear the whisper of the ocean. She crept into people’s backyards and put a microphone up high in a tree to amplify the trees talking. Worst of all she told the leader that the grass said that he was puny and weak and soon enough she had been banished. She sat alone mumbling in gibberish angry at her village. Still nature had looked after her as it had given instructions on what to do, where to find food and where to rest.
Until one autumn evening when the sky was dimming Lilian heard the trees muttering a complicated incantation and in the blink of an eye a single piece of wood clambered down and sat at her feet. Soon she heard the grass saying that her village was experiencing incredible things that were not common. But the strange things were common to Lilian as her village began to hear the grass shrieking in the wind and the trees speaking their gibberish. Lilian ran, it was her chance to prove she was right!
When she reached the village, everyone was unconscious except for the leader and soon regretted his actions and he learnt that you should never banish or prohibit people for their beliefs and you should accept that we are all strange in our own ways. Lilian accepted the apology and instructed the trees and grass to lower their voices. Smiling to herself she walked to her hut and nature was silent again.