A Fairy tale by
Daniel and Rachel
Chipi the Coati lived in the forest near the volcano. He was happy as there were plenty of nice
juicy grubs and worms to eat, by digging them up with his long claws, and yummy
fruit that fell off the tall trees, which he sniffed out with his long nose.
Then one day people came and chopped down the trees so that
they could grow grass for cows. Chippi
couldn´t eat grass, and he was frightened by the big noisy machines of the
people. He had to leave and find a new
place to live – but where would he go?
He asked his friend, Crawcaw, the Magpie Jay “Cawwww, a monkey once told me of a secret valley where there are
lots of fruit trees, hackack, but its
through the enchanted forest, you´d need to be very brave to go through there, Hawhaw!” said Crawcaw, nodding his crest
up the mountain “everyone avoids it, they say the trees walk around and don´t
like animals there”
Chipi looked down at his old home – nearly all the trees
were gone – he had to find the secret valley!
He put his nose down and scampered off into the enchanted
forest. Soon the trees became thicker
and darker and the sounds of birds singing in the branches stopped. Chipi looked around, getting nervous – there
didn´t seem to be any friendly animals here, maybe he shouldn´t have come after
all?
Soon Chipi was starting to feel hungry, suddenly he smelt
eggs – yummy! He quickly padded towards
the egg smell. But it wasn´t eggs at
all, it was nasty hot pools of boiling mud!
The pools bubbled and laughed at him.
Chipi carefully walked around them – if he fell in he´d get cooked! The forest was lighter here though, and he could
rootle around for some crunchy beetles and juicy worms to fill his tummy.
Just further on the path was covered in what looked like
giant snakes. Chipi usually didn´t mind
snakes – they were a tasty snack – but these ones were big enough to eat
him! He jumped over a log and hid behind
it – “Did they see me?” he thought.
After a little bit, he poked his head out – the ´snakes´
were still in the same place “Maybe they´re asleep?”. He carefully jumped over each one, until
finally he was past – then with his heart racing, he ran on into the dark
forest as fast as he could.
Soon, he came to a deep, deep pool – he couldn´t see his
reflection in it, but he could see right to the bottom. It was very quiet here. Suddenly a calm voice said “what is a little
coati like you doing here?”. Chipi
looked around, but he couldn´t see anyone.
“I´m looking for the secret valley - people have chopped down my forest
and I´m homeless!”. “Ah”, said the the
soothing voice, “you´re going the right way, but be careful of the boiling
pools, and beware the strangler vines!” “S-s-strangler
vines?” Stuttered Chipi, fearfully. “Go
this way”, whispered the voice, and the leaves of the trees around the pool
fluttered in one direction. “Thank you!”
said Chipi, and then lolloped off in the direction the leaves had indicated.
Soon, Chipi noticed that it was getting misty – and the mist
seemed to be coming out of the ground!
The path stopped, and the way was blocked by lots of big spikey
plants. Chipi tried again and again to
find a way through, but each time the vicious spikes on the plants hurt him too
much. He looked around – there was a big
cliff past the spikey plants - maybe this wasn´t the right way after all?
Then he noticed a line of ants marching past him carrying
big bits of leaves, some bigger than them!
They seemed to be murmering something.
Chipi put his head closer to the ants.
“Up up up up!” chanted the ants as they marched along.
Chipi followed the line of ants and saw that they went up
the side of what looked like a hollow tree, made up lots of intertwined
trunks. At the top, a branch came out which
he could walk on to get to the top of the cliff! Chipi wandered inside – it was full of rotten
wood. How strange! “Oh well, the only way out is to climb up”.
Chipi started climbing.
It wasn´t easy as Coati´s aren´t good at climbing trees, but the many interlinked
trunks made it easier, as did his big claws.
As he climbed, the space inside the hollow trunk seemed to be getting
smaller. He hadn´t noticed that when he´d
looked up from the ground. What did the
voice at the pool say? Watch out for the
strangler vines! “Oh no!” he shouted and
scrabbled up the trunks as fast as he could.
All the time, its was getting narrower and narrower. Finally he saw the branch out onto the top of
the cliff. With one last effort he
pushed himself up through a gap in the vine trunks and squeezed through.
Phew! He´d made it –
now looking down the inside of the trunks it seemed to be really wide
again. What a nasty plant! Chipi walked along the branch and back onto
the ground at the top of the cliff. The
mist was still rising and it was getting thicker. He padded on, not really knowing which way to
go. Soon he couldn´t see anything. It was dark in the mist, and scary, and he
didn´t seem to be getting anywhere.
He was really tired, he´d had to deal with boiling pools,
giant snakes and then a strangler vine, and he still wasn´t anywhere near the
secret valley. He lay down and began to
cry. “I´ll never get there” he sobbed, and because he was so tired, soon fell
asleep.
When he woke up, the mist was still there, but not as thick
as it was – now he could see a path in front of him. He wearily got up and walked along the
path. Soon, he started to hear a rushing
sound. As he got nearer, he suddenly saw
a huge waterfall through the trees. The
sound of the water was deafening, and the path seemed to stop again at the
water. “Not again!” cried Chipi “I´m not
going to be able to climb that!”.
“Oh, you don´t need to do that!” said a gruff voice behind
him. Chipi turned round to be faced by a
big Spider Monkey. “I´m Bolo” said the monkey, “you seem to be a long way
from home”. “I´m Chipi, and I´m looking
for the secret valley” said Chipi, “my home has been taken away by people and I
need a new one”. The monkey put his head
to one side and looked at Chipi for a moment.
“Well, if you want to get there, then follow me”. The monkey looped his long tail around Chipi´s
and led him forward to the loud, rushing water.
“What are we doing?” cried Chipi, fearfully, “I can´t swim and I don´t
like this noise!”. “Don´t worry” said
Bolo – “just follow me!”. And with that
he jumped straight through the water and disappeared.
“Well, I can´t stay here” thought Chipi, and summoning all
his courage he ran into the water with his eyes tight shut. To his great surprise he came out the other
side – he was behind the waterfall! And
there ahead of him at the end of the passage was a way out into the
forest! Chipi quickly scampered out,
away from the rushing water, and came out into a beautiful, light forest, and
on the ground were lots of yummy fruit.
He ran forward and started munching noisily on them. He looked up – Bolo was hanging from a branch
above him laughing. “Welcome to the
secret valley, Ooo wahhhh!”.
“Ack-Cack” said a voice behind him. He turned around – it was Crawcaw, sitting on
a tree, eating a big fat grub. “Crawcaw!”
shouted Chipi with delight. “What took you so long?” winked the bird. “Welcome to our new home!”
