Written By Mandira Ghosh (Grade 7)
Chapter 1 – A Strange Turn of Events
Nardo, Quinlin, Delta and Luisa were children of the Elrods. Nardo was the eldest, after him came Delta, Quinlin and last Luisa. Luisa, the youngest one, loved fantasy but the others thought it was useless. For now, they were going to their grandparents.
“Come on Del we’ve got to go,” Nardo said to Delta as she was busy packing her socks.
Only fifteen minutes were left till the time they reached the airport and by the time they were set on the plane, the air hostess had already started making announcements. After the announcements were made and the plane had taken off, Luisa said, “I’m bored already. Couldn’t we do something Nar?”
“No, we can’t,” Nardo said.
“It’s a plane Lu, you know we can’t,” said Quinlin.
“If you want to pass the time you can sleep or eat,” said Delta.
“I’d rather do nothing than just eating and sleeping,” said Luisa sarcastically.
After the plane landed, they performed all the processes and then they got out of the airport to see their grandfather waiting for them.
“Come children,” said Grandfather as all the four huddled together with their grandfather and hugged him. And they all went inside the cab.
As they started moving, it wasn’t late enough that they were stuck in traffic. Luisa started admiring the benches on the roadside and which seemed to be dancing and talking to each other. She said, “My, – have you noticed the benches? They seem to be moving to me!”
“What!? – that’s just codswallop Lu,” answered Delta who was a little frustrated to be disturbed while reading a story which was not of any interest to Nardo and Quinlin.
“Let me see” asked Nardo as Luisa shifted from her seat a little to show the benches on the roadside.
“They seem to be disappearing to me!” exclaimed Nardo.
“Hey! look, the car floor has disappeared!” exclaimed Quinlin startled. As he said this, everyone started staring down at the floor of the car.
“Where’s Abuelo! (Grandfather in Spanish)” shrieked Delta. “What’s happening?”
As she said this, in no time did the car disappear and the children found themselves standing in front of a beach-like land but instead of a sea, it was a river.
“Has anyone bought a compass?” Delta asked, pointing towards the school handbags others were carrying.
“Probably – don’t know – let’s check,” answered Quinlin.
There was a compass in Luisa’s bag. As she took it out, surprised, Quinlin asked her, “Lu, why do you have a compass in your bag? You’re too small to be carrying a compass” Luisa paused a bit. Delta had already got the idea that she had brought it to show grandma just how much she had levelled up besides her class studies.
“Just – may have been – an accident while I was packing my bag,” answered Luisa, all red.
“Let’s just check in which direction we are in,” said Delta, trying to change the topic. “So, we’re in the north, rightly opposite to where we were in the car,” she continued looking at the compass.
“How did you know we were in South at the time when we were in the car?” asked Nardo.
“I had checked the direction from Abuelo’s phone,” Delta answered, “It was tough though, as the buttons were too small to press that it took me fifteen minutes to open the compass,”
“Come on,” said Luisa.
“Where?” Delta said.
“To explore the land. Aren’t we going to explore?” Luisa said.
“Lu, you’re joking, right?” Delta replied laughing but Luisa was looking as serious as possible. “What, no! we’re not going. Are we Nardo?” she said, turning to Nardo.
“Why not?” asked Nardo.
“Because we don’t know anything about this island,” Delta said.
“Well, that’s the reason we will explore it, Del,” Nardo answered.
“Alright, fine!” she said.
They started moving on till there was the sight of an eagle walking on the sand.
“Look at that big eagle!” exclaimed Luisa.
“Welcome children, welcome Sea Princesses and welcome QSky Princes,” said the eagle. “What are your names?” he asked.
“This is Quinlin, Luisa, Delta, and I am Nardo” Nardo answered.
“How can you talk in human language?” asked Quinlin.
“Just as you can talk in eagle language,” the eagle replied. Soon enough the children noticed that Quinlin had just spoken in an eagle language. The eagle grinned a bit and said “In this land, people can speak in an animal language and animals can talk in a human language.”
“Do you have a name?” Luisa asked.
“Oh yes, yes, I do. My name is Jester,” the eagle replied.
“Hello Jester,” greeted Delta.
“Now come quick children. It’s not safe staying on this island,” said Jester, changing his look from a laugh to looking serious.
“Why – what happens on this island – if we stay here?” asked Nardo
“That’s a long story. I’ll tell you when we get to a safer island. Come now, hop on my back,” Jester replied.
“But we’re all four of us. Can you carry us all together?” Quinlin asked.
“I’d try to,” Jester said.
They ran to Jester and adjusted on his back. Soon enough when they were in the air, they saw an island. When you see it, you see green flourished with colourful dots. It was so beautiful that I can’t convey its beauty. They landed very soon, which seemed to be in the middle of the woods.
“Here we are,” said Jester, bending down to let the others get down from his back. “Alright, I think that you have every right to know about this world since you are here. It goes like this; this is a world where humans can talk like animals and animals can talk like humans. It was long back that humans and animals lived together. For them to be disciplined, there were two rulers, one who would look after the humans who was a human himself and the other who was an animal kept to look after the animals. The human king was King Espane and the animal was a tiger by the name of King Regnald. It was an unfortunate and bad moment when they both started fighting over power. Both were strong and thus none won, they both lay dead on the island where we met. The fight had ended but the fight had caused an evil spirit to wander in the deep woods. None of the animals or humans knew what that evil power was. It was soon that humans and animals started to fight against each other and had created a border where one side belonged to the humans and the other to the animals. There were no kings and queens after that war for us. That fight led to a war between humans and animals. The humans and the animals had ended their relationship and love towards each other and separated. It’s from then that no human was to be spotted in this world. It lasted until the four of you came.”
“Is this another world we are in?” asked Luisa.
“Yes, and this world has a name. It’s called Brosoron,” answered Jester.
“Jester, why, you have brought four human kids. You do know it’s a disgrace and bad luck for animals here to humans?” spoke a tree. “Look, a tree like me also knows what the rules are, even if trees weren’t included in the war.”
“The trees talk here too?” Quinlin asked.
“Yes, they do. In fact, the building walls here also talk,” Jester replied. “Look, here’s where I leave you now. Go straight ahead to find a lake. Go there and take this soil with you. Take it in a bag if you like. Now as I was saying, go to the lake and dip yourselves thrice while holding hands and then I suppose you’ll be back to your own world. Whenever you wish to come here, you can just take a pinch of this soil and say loudly ‘Take me, oh earth, to a place where animals, trees and walls speak’. This world is known as Brosoron by the way. But remember to be holding hands and saying this all together. It will take you here. That’s what the humans used to do before the war to come here. Now go!”
“Alright, come on,” Nardo said, turning to the others.
Saying this Nardo led the others safely to the lake and they followed the instructions correctly as Jester had mentioned to them. They were back in their world, but they were not in the car now. They had already reached their grandparent’s house. Luisa asked Abuelo, “Haven’t you been wondering where we were? Didn’t you see that we weren’t there in the car?”
“Why may I ask such a question when you were with me the whole time in the car,” Abuelo replied. All of them looked strangely at Abuelo.
Chapter 2 – Who is there instead of us?
The children all looked strangely at each other. Who could be there instead of them while they were in Brosoron. While their Abuelo was taking out their luggage from the cab and taking them into the house. Meanwhile the four children were talking to each other about the new world, Brosoron.
“Should we go back again?” asked Luisa.
“I think we should wait for a few days cos we just ca-,” said Delta.
“Let’s go tomorrow” interrupted Nardo.
“Bu-,” Deta started.
“Alright!” Quinlin interrupted excitedly.
“Let me speak, will you! I say we go the day after tomorrow,” Delta shouted.
“I agree with Nardo,” said Luisa.
“Me too.”
“Majority wins. Sorry Del,” said Nardo.
“Fine,” said Delta.
They started running into the house and one by one hugged their Abuela (Grandma in Spanish).
It was already the next day. It felt like a year to the children.
“Let’s go,” said Quinlin.
“Have we packed everything?” asked Nardo.
“I think so. Shall we proceed then?” asked Delta.
“Yes, let’s!” said Luisa.
“Ok then, I’ll fetch the packet of soil,” Nardo said.
He said this and hurried out of the room to fetch the packet. While he had gone to fetch his pack, the others started talking about the new world they had just discovered.
Meanwhile, in the new world called Brosoron, the evil spirit living on the island was booming with anger. Fire spread all around. Every living thing that came to the island was killed. None knew why the island was acting so strange (Brosoronquakes as in quakes taking place in Brosoron, were taking place). Soon the evilness spread to the island’s surrounding water. Every mermaid, chrus (A magical creature in that world which had two heads and was kind of much like an octopus but with eleven legs), whale and many more were dying due to the venom which was spreading.
Coming back to the four children. Nardo ran to the three children with a small bottle in hand.
“I have got the soil. I transferred it into a bottle and brought it with me, see,” Nardo said showing the bottle.
“Come on then, let’s go!” said Luisa.
So, they all huddled together and held each other’s hands. Nardo took a handful of soil and dropped it on the floor shouting out loudly “Take me, oh earth, to a place where animals, trees and walls speak”. They all vanished into thin air. They zoomed back in Brosoron. Their heads felt funny and stomachs too. Their legs and arms felt wriggly as they entered the world.
“Is anybody else feeling something funny going on in their stomach?” asked Luisa who could not bear laughing at this feeling.
“I do,” accepted Quinlin.
“It’ll probably go in a minute,” said Nardo.
“Look! Look at this!” exclaimed Luisa.
They all ran towards her. They saw a sword lying on the grass.
“There must have been a war here,” said Nardo.
“Or maybe someone lost their sword here,” said Delta.
“Pssst! Psst, look the children have arrived. Call the eagle,” the children heard a tree saying to another.
“The eagle?” said Luisa.
“Oh! Uh, hello. Did you hear me whispering?” asked the tree.
“Uh yes, sorry. Was I not supposed to hear that?” asked Luisa.
“Um, oh alright. No worries if you heard me, eh, is there?” asked the tree.
“Are you calling Jester?” asked Delta.
“Yes, go along with my kids and you’ll find Jester there,” said the tree.
Of they went in a line led by the saplings.
“He’ll probably be sitting on the big counselling rock,” said a sapling.
“Or maybe beside the river,” said another sapling.
“Aww, you all are so cute,” said Luisa, cooing one of the herbs’ leaves. The herb smiled and they went on. It was almost dusk by the time they reached a very big rock. The four children guessed it was the counselling rock the herbs were talking about.
“Behind this rock. Come on,” said a herb.
They went behind the big rock and saw Jester sitting, eating his food. He saw them and stood up, “Hello, welcome and thank you,” said Jester.
“Why thank you?” asked Delta.
“That’s thank you because you came,” he replied.
“What’s that island called? On which we landed in the first place,” asked Nardo.
“Oh, that. That was the Evil Island,” replied Jester.
“Hey, when we came to this world, we were here for almost an hour or so and when we returned back and I asked my Abuelo, wasn’t he wondering where we were. He replied that we were there the whole time. How is this possible?” asked Luisa
“Uh, I don’t know why he said this,” confessed Jester “Maybe you can just ask from the trees over here. They know about a lot of stuff even though they don’t move. I don’t know from where they get this information,” he added.
“Hey, you’re a tree or at least a sapling. Do you know, by any chance, why this is happening?” asked Nardo, turning towards the saplings.
“Well, my mom did say this will happen or else people would think that the people coming here are magical and will desire to come here and when they do, they would destroy it,” said the first sapling.
“It was nice meeting you Jester but I really think we must go back,” said Quinlin.
“Ok, bye, take care!” Jester shouted back, as the children started running.
They ran through the branches of several trees. It was irritating to the trees as they were woken from their sleep. They would shout back, yell, and sometimes the children had to stop just to hear others scolding them.
They ran as quickly as they could. They ran back to the pond where they held each other’s hands and dipped themselves thrice. They were very well-coordinated dips.
They vanished in thin air from Brosoron and came back to their world, England. The next day they were supposed to go back to Australia to their parents.
For the remaining hours of the day, the children talked about Brosoron and talked to their grandparents about how excited they were to return to their parents and how sad they were to leave their grandparents.
The next day…
“Come on Quinlin,” said Delta “We’ll miss our flight,” she added.
“Coming!” shouted Quinlin as it was a two-storied house and he was packing upstairs while Delta was calling out to him downstairs. “I’m here, I’m here,” he said. After that, he panted for a bit and then the children and their grandparents were off to the airport.
“Please put your seatbelts on prior to take off. You may take off the seatbelts when told. If any emergency then please do inform us. If any fire breakout or disorder in the atmosphere leads to plane damage, we will inform you 10 minutes prior to the plane crash. The emergency door is right at the back,” the children heard the air hostess announce and put on their seatbelts. It wasn’t soon enough that the plane took off and they went to sleep.
They landed after 8 hours of flight. They were extremely tired and wanted to go to sleep on the plane but they couldn’t. They collected their bags and walked outside the airport.
They were expecting their parents to pick them up but they weren’t there. They waited for them for a while and decided to take a taxi by themselves. They took a taxi to their home.
When they reached there to see that their parents were moving in a big dressing table. It looked old and rough. It looked as though it was a hundred years old dressing table which had not been disposed of. They ran to their parents and Luisa asked, “Why didn’t you come to pick us up?”
“Well, can’t you see we are moving in this beautiful dressing table. We would have come to pick you up but then we believed you that you four will catch a taxi and come here but we don’t believe that the workers will not steal anything from our house,” their mother replied.
“Nevermind,” sighed Nardo.
The four sighed and went into the house to freshen up. They saw that the dressing table was going to be kept in the kids’ room.
Featured Image Courtesy – Treehugger
