But I also saw a strange, weird and exotic animal that I’m pretty sure has never been seen by humans before—or since!
I know from my books at home that if an explorer discovers an unrecorded species, they should describe and name the creature. So I’ve decided to do the same.
Here is the first of my discoveries. The size of a cat, it broke cover from the grass whilst I sat at the watering hole, watching the animals and enjoying the sun. With a piercing ‘PEEP!’ it jumped over my outstretched legs, grabbed a melon-sized fruit from the trunk of a grazing elephant and disappeared into the grasses again!
The Charliesmallicus (Sketched from memory.)
Fast, fearless and intelligent. (All good explorers name at least one thing after themselves!)
The steam-powered rhino sucked up gallons of extra water into his tank at the watering hole, and munched down armfuls of dry grass for fuel. As I called him over in readiness to continue our journey, he harrumphed in a way that seemed to say that he was ready for anything.
Although he couldn’t speak, I found his presence very comforting. He had already proved a good friend and a formidable ally, and I felt that I could rely on him entirely. I knew that if it hadn’t been for him, I would be nothing more than a slight case of indigestion for a rather fat hyena!
As I gathered my bits and pieces from the ground, he lumbered up behind me and gently rested his great head on my shoulder.
‘Good boy,’ I said, patting his snout as he hissed with contentment. ‘Time to get going.’ I picked up my rucksack and climbed onto the rhino’s broad back.
Whatever this land was called, I had arrived at a truly incredible place. As the rhino carried me across the golden plain, with the sun shining and animals calling, I tingled with excitement. I felt invincible, ready to tackle anything. And there, at last, was the jungle, less than a mile away and glittering dark green in the sunlight.
‘Come on, Rhino,’ I called, giving him a kick to hurry him along. ‘Nearly there!’
We galloped full pelt down a gentle slope towards the first fringe of trees. Now I felt we were getting somewhere. With any luck the rhino could plough straight through the jungle like a bulldozer. When I got to the other side, I might find a path that would lead me back home.
Nothing could go wrong now.
But then the grasses in front of us began to rustle like crackling flames. Something was lurking within them. Something huge!
The grasses waved frantically back and forth, and suddenly, rising like a monster from the depths, a massive snake was towering over us!
Snake Bite
The serpent glowed, iridescent in the sunlight. Colours pulsed across its skin like electricity: purples and greens and yellows. The snake’s body was as thick as a car’s tyre, its head as large as a stallion’s. The steam-powered rhino stopped in his tracks and grunted, hunching his back and pawing the ground with his foreleg. Carefully the snake and the rhino circled each other, waiting for the right moment to strike. I had the distinct impression that these two animals had met before and had unfinished business to attend to.
I decided that I definitely didn’t want to be stuck on the rhino’s back while the two giant beasts fought, and I started looking frantically around for a hiding place. But I was too late. The serpent, hissing like the air brakes of a huge lorry, spotted me on the rhino’s back and started coiling and writhing in ecstasy. It had clearly decided that I was some kind of rare treat, and was determined not to miss this opportunity to have a bite.
The steam-powered rhino hissed back and shot a boiling-hot jet of steam from his nostrils. The snake reared out of the way, whipped its head to the left and struck at me with lightning speed.
I tried to slip from the rhino’s back, but the snake was too quick, and I felt myself being hoisted into the air. One of its fangs, dripping a green and deadly poison, was hooked through the belt of my jeans.
That was close! I thought, when the serpent flicked me high in the air. Then I realized I was tumbling straight back towards its gaping mouth!
‘Help!’ I yelled. This was it. I was doomed!
But just as I thought my adventure would end with me floating in the digestive juices of a long tube of muscle and poison, the rhino struck! The snake was knocked sideways as my faithful friend hit it full charge in the stomach. (At least, I think it was the stomach. It’s sort of hard to tell which bit is which on a snake!) I dropped to the ground, landing quite comfortably on a huge, springy fern. Then I rolled under its wide leaves for shelter and, my heart beating fit to burst, watched a most terrible battle take place.
A Fight To The Death!
The snake fought back, but its fangs scraped uselessly against the rhino’s metal sides. The sound was like the screech of fingernails being scratched across a blackboard. It made my spine shudder!
Then the rhino charged once more, snorting and bellowing, slamming the snake back into a tree with incredible force.
‘Come on, Rhino,’ I yelled as he butted and bullied the serpent across the scrubland. The snake was surely done for now—it lay stunned and gasping for breath against the tree, and I could see that one more strike would bring an end to its rhino-ambushing days. But then, disaster!
As the rhino smashed into the snake again, with a blow that would surely have ripped it apart, his steel horn sliced deep into the tree’s trunk and stuck fast.
Desperately the steam-powered rhino tried to pull himself free. The whole tree shuddered with the effort, but the metal beast remained stuck.
Seizing its chance, the battered snake darted under the rhino’s stomach and up over his back, quickly encircling him in coil after glistening coil of rippling, muscled body. With one huge effort, the rhino ripped his horn from the tree, but it was all too late.
‘No!’ I cried, and rushed to help my friend. But the snake struck out at me, spitting poison from its fangs, and I could only watch in horror as it tightened its hold on the steam-powered rhinoceros and started to squeeze with all its formidable strength. The rhino’s metal body screeched in protest as it started to buckle under the pressure.
‘Fight, Rhino, fight!’ I yelled. There was little else I could do, and as if in slow motion the rhino gradually collapsed, his sides crushed under the snake’s mighty coils.
I knew that he had lost the battle and that the serpent would then turn its deadly attention to me.
But the rhino had one last trick. As the serpent squeezed him like a living car-crusher, the rhino’s thermostat flicked to BOILING HOT. His metal flanks flushed suddenly red with the heat. The snake screamed in pain, but couldn’t let go. It knew the rhino still had enough strength to lunge with his deadly horn.
So the snake gripped, and the rhino grew hotter and hotter, his sides glowing like a hot plate, searing the snake to his metal skin like a rasher of bacon to a frying pan.
The snake, smoking and cooked to a turn, gasped its last breath. But the poor old rhino’s workings had gone beyond the point of no return. With a terrible shudder the poor crushed animal exploded!
I dived back under the fern as bits of metal piping and lumps of snake rained down. Then a large glass marble dropped from the sky and rolled in front of me. I turned it over and saw that it was one of the steam-powered rhino’s glass eyes. I bit my lip to keep my eyes from watering as I put it in my bag. It was a terrible end to my adventure with such a brave and incredible creature, but at least I had something to remember him by—and proof that he was real!
Bits of metal continued to fall and the ground was soon covered in shards of red-hot shrapnel. Suddenly, PUFF! The dry grass burst into flame and a wall of fire raced across the ground at an alarming speed. Grabbing a slab of well-cooked snake, I ran for the jungle before the fire could cut off my escape route.
Smashing into the trees, I turned to look back at the scene of devastation I had just escaped. My poor friend the rhino littered the ground in a hundred different parts, and the pack of manic hyenas that had been following us all
day was slinking between the fires and piles of smoking metal. Snarling and quarrelling, they fell hungrily on the snake meat that littered the ground. It reminded me of how hungry I was, and I ravenously bit into my snake burger.
Then, before the hyenas spotted me, I forced my way through the thick, strong undergrowth and into the depths of the jungle. I kept my eyes and ears peeled for the signs of any new danger. But everything was strangely quiet.
My First Night In the Jungle
Trees of every shade of green soared above me. Thick and limbless, their trunks shot way up into the murky height of the forest canopy. Wherever I could, I followed animal paths through the dense undergrowth, and if my way was barred, I hacked at the ferns and creepers with my penknife.
Every now and then the cry of a distant animal or the nearby rustling of leaves broke the eerie silence of the jungle. It gave me the jitters. I couldn’t help remembering the scary red eyes I’d seen on the other side of the vast plain, and I wished the steam-powered rhino was still at my side.
Coming to a clearing, I stopped in my tracks. For here was a wide, clear pool, fed by a babbling stream that looked exactly like the one at the bottom of my garden! It had the same tinkling sound and the same moss-covered, stony bottom. Could it somehow be the same stream? I wondered. Was I really just a stone’s throw from my own back door after all? Maybe my garden was just the other side of the tangle of bushes—like a portal in a sci-fi story.
I ran, my heart beating fast.
‘Made it!’ I yelled at the top of my voice, crashing through the foliage. ‘Home at last!’
But I was answered only by the cries of a band of scarlet parrots that darted through the leaves overhead. It was not a magical doorway to home. I was still inside the jungle. A jungle that could be anywhere in the world … or beyond.
Suddenly I felt very tired and flopped down on the bank of the stream. I undid my water bottle and pushed it below the surface, letting it fill to the brim. I held the bottle up to what light there was to check for anything horrible wriggling about, then took gulp after gulp of the cool, clear water. Then I started to look for somewhere to spend the night.
I decided I’d be safer up a tree, away from any nocturnal beasts that might be roaming the forest floor, so I picked up my rucksack and started to climb one of the giant trunks.
The rough bark made it an easy climb and I quickly reached a huge branch that grew out across the jungle floor thirty metres below. The branch was so wide it was easy to walk along, and near the end I discovered a very handy platform, covered in grass and leaves. It was almost as if someone had made it specially.
Now I’m snuggled down in the thick, musty covering and trying to write down everything that’s happened. This is the second night I’ve not made it home in time for tea, and I wonder how many more nights I’ll have to camp out under the stars. Not that I care! I’m having the adventure of a lifetime in this mysterious land and I feel safe and snug in this jungle nest. But I’m really tired after everything that’s happened. I can hardly keep my eyes open.
I must… get… some … sleep.
If I had known that something was watching me from up in the forest canopy, I wouldn’t have fallen asleep so easily!
The Roof of The Jungle
Waking up early the next morning, I lay sleepily watching a strange and beautiful humming moth. It was hovering by the large purple flowers that grew on the vines hanging from the trees all around me. It was drinking the nectar through a tongue that was as long as a shoelace!
The moth flitted from one flower to the next as I folded away my pyjamas, struggled into my clothes and shrugged my rucksack onto my back. It was such a beautiful sight that I began to wonder why I’d been so nervous of the jungle the night before.
Then a huge and hairy hand reached down out of the mass of leaves above me and I was hoisted up through the air!
I found myself staring into the dark and angry red eyes that I had seen in the jungle on my first day. They belonged to a colossal silverback gorilla!
With a grunt, he gripped me between his feet and, using his powerful arms, swung off through the trees.
‘Help!’ I cried, staring down at the jungle floor passing in a wild blur far below.
‘Stop!’ I beat on his ankles and tugged at his coarse black hair, but I don’t think the gorilla felt a thing.
Surely I wasn’t going to be his breakfast? After escaping the crocodile, the hyenas and the serpent, it all seemed rather unfair. What was it with this place that everything tried to eat you? But as I was soon to find out, breakfast was not what the gorilla had in mind at all!
For hour after hour we swung through the trees, the gorilla never tiring, his pace never slowing. I started to feel terribly travel sick with the constant, stomach-churning swinging and the blur of leaves flashing past my face. Then the silverback started to climb up through the branches, higher and higher. Vague images whizzed past my eyes: glowering faces, grimacing, canine-toothed mouths; until, when it seemed we could go no higher, the silverback came to a halt.
We had arrived at our destination: an incredible gorilla city in the sky!
All around us stretched an immense and complicated network of platforms. They were built into the very tops of the jungle trees, and then down through the foliage for half a dozen levels, all connected by walkways and bridges and vines.
Although my vision was a bit blurred from the bumpy ride, I could see that each platform was made of planks of wood and bark, all bound together with creepers. The planks were rough and looked as if they had been torn from the sides of a tree by brute force. Some of the platforms had fences around their edges; others were covered by rickety shelters, with walls made from woven fronds.
A whole colony of gorillas were moving between platforms, lazing on branches or busy grooming a friend. They swung through the trees on hanging creepers, some nursing babies in their arms, others stopping atop a platform for a chat with another gorilla, or to pick up some fruit and continue on their way as if they were strolling through a shopping mall.
Everywhere gorillas were going about their daily business, but as soon as they saw us they started to whoop and scream and chatter. The big silverback climbed to the very highest platform and dropped me in a heap.
I lay in a daze as the big ape thumped his mighty chest like a big bass drum and called the gorillas to order.
The tribe gathered around as he spoke to them with a series of grimaces and grunts. I couldn’t understand what was going on, but the silverback seemed very pleased that he had captured me. He poked me in the tummy, sat me down, stood me up and pushed me with his thick, leathery forefinger, making me take a few wobbly steps. Feeling very woozy, I couldn’t offer any resistance.
The gorillas chattered in delight, but when one of the others tried to pick me up, the silverback roared a warning, his lips folded back to reveal a row of impressive teeth.
The other gorillas backed away and watched from a distance as the silverback played with me like a rag doll, and I suddenly realized that this was exactly how he thought of me! As some sort of doll! I was the gorilla equivalent of a cuddly toy!
How embarrassing!
I looked around to see if there was any chance of escape, but it was impossible. We were high in the canopy of the jungle, and the gorillas were so skilled at moving through the trees that they would be on me before I could climb a fraction of the way to the ground. I decided I would have to bide my time and wait to see what happened next.
The Gorilla’s Pet
Things just go from bad to worse! Now I’m locked in a cage. Silverback has made it from twigs as strong and flexible as whips. It hangs above his platform and I’m placed here every night, or when he goes off on one of his hunting trips. I don’t mind too much about that part, though. I’m so grateful to have a break from him that I haven’t even bothered to try and escape yet. Instead, if I’ve not been keeping the horrible silverback amused, I’ve just snoozed the days away in this c
age. But now I think it’s time to bring my journal up to date.
Promise me one thing. If you ever have a pet puppy or budgie, PLEASE don’t make it do tricks. Don’t make it beg or roll over, and don’t teach it to talk. Just let it behave like a little dog or bird. I know how humiliating it is to be made to do silly tricks day after day! The silverback pokes and prods me, making me walk one way, then the other, back and forth, back and forth until I scream with boredom. And this delights him even more! He loves to hear me shout at him. ‘Leave me alone, you big, hairy lummox,’ I yell. But of course he doesn’t understand a word. He just grins his foolish grin, pokes me in the back and starts me walking again.
I’ve lost all track of time. I don’t know if it’s Tuesday or Wednesday, or if I’ve been in this jungle for two days or two weeks. All I can tell is if it’s day or night. At the moment it’s nighttime, and the gorillas’ city is lit by hundreds of beautiful lanterns. I have no idea where they come from. Surely they can’t have electricity here? But I’m too tired to think about it. I am going to get some sleep after a really exhausting day of marching up and down for the gormless gorilla. I’ll write some more tomorrow. Today it was sunny.
The Next Day
Not much happened today. Marched up and down. Sat in my cage and watched Silverback snooze, knowing that as soon as he woke up, he would have me performing tricks for him again. Today it was sunny.
The Day After That
At sunrise today, Silverback went off on a hunting trip, leaving me in my cage. Out of sheer boredom I’ve tried to saw through the twig bars with my penknife, but they are as tough as leather and the blade just isn’t big enough. The crocodile’s tooth is no good either. The end is sharp enough to poke into the bars, but even when I wiggle it back and forth as hard as I can, the bars just won’t splinter.
Gorilla City Page 3