An original story on dreams and fantasy, written by our student Tanvi Dash.

Tanvi is 13 years old young writer from Hyderabad. Dancing is her passion. We are proud to have her as a student of the Little Writers Program, an Online Creative Writing Program using Applied Storytelling & Applied Theatre tools under the mentorship of Trainer Khusshbo Chokhaani. We congratulate Tanvi for this exemplary true self-expression.

Man-eating Giraffes!!

Lilou was sleeping peacefully in her bed on a peaceful, starry night. She closed her eyes and the next second, she was in a completely different place! Lilou found herself standing in the middle of the jungle with her sister, Flo. The trees were quite long, about twenty meters. There were creepers on many trees. It looked as if they were surrounded by the color ‘green’.

Lilou saw as many as seven giraffes, the yellow and brown, peaceful, tall giraffes who were feeding upon surrounding leaves.

Lilou, in his night suit, was sleeping in a cozy bed just a minute ago, and was suddenly standing in the middle of the jungle with completely different clothes, making her look like a dinosaur trainer! Conversely, Flo looked like a Hawaiian woman on a holiday with a pair of binoculars!

Something did not seem right about all this, like a ‘Spidey sense’ tingling. Lilou saw a giraffe walking towards them. She thought that making wild giraffe friends, in the middle of the jungle, where she appeared all of a sudden was not a great idea. She decided that running was the best thing they should do.

She pulled Flo’s hands and started running. Astonishingly, when the jungle ended, they saw a planned, maintained, magnificent city before them. It was completely surrounded by forest. They could see a taller building at the other end of the city, it looked like a palace.

They heard a rustle of leaves behind them and both turned to see what it was. It was then that they remembered that they were getting chased by a giraffe. The giraffe came out of the forest, they hid behind a house nearest to them. After the giraffe had passed by, they came out and saw a few people who were not at all amazed to find a giraffe in the city.

After talking to them, Lilou discovered that this city was a bit different than those they lived in. The people here had ‘Giraffe forecasts’ like we have weather forecasts. It tells when and where a giraffe will pass on that day. The people there had ‘anti-giraffe’ crops, and houses and they had gotten used to giraffes.

In the meantime, another giraffe had emerged from the forest and this one started chasing them! Lilou and Flo ran as fast as they could. They jumped on the roof tops, bumped into people, but ran as fast as they could. As they went deeper into the city, they found many more people and a kind old lady even told them when the next giraffe was coming.

Lilou started ignoring the giraffes but when she saw one picking up a man and gobbling it down its long throat, she could not ignore them anymore. They were not giraffes; they were man-eating giraffes!!

When they saw the next giraffe coming, Lilou and Flo started running again. They ran as far as they could, trying their best not to get in its way, but somehow it felt as if it was chasing them. They were soon out of breath. After a long time of running, bumping, tripping and falling, they reached the palace. They had run through the whole of the city! Behind the majestic palace, the green, dense jungle started again.

Finally, Lilou and Flo found some help. The king himself ordered his men to help them. The brave soldiers went straight toward the giraffe with their shining armor and swords sitting on well-groomed horsebacks.

They held a big net and heroically captured the giraffe inside it. The giraffe started shrinking! Soon the giraffe shrank to the size of a human being! Lilou and Flo felt quite relieved. Their clothes were dirty because of all the running and Lilou’s energy was drained. Flo was dog-tired after all the running.

But at the end of the day, the tiny giraffe was returned again to the woods. Even after all the running, they did that day, they were happy and in good spirits. It had always been Lilou’s dream to have such an adventure and she completely enjoyed it. The only thing that disappointed her a bit was that she could not talk to the king personally because everything suddenly went blank when she went to find him.

When she opened her eyes again, she was back in her cozy little bed, in her bedroom. Her stomach was rumbling with hunger and she was thirsty. It was just a dream, a dream of man-eating giraffes!!

Leave your valuable feedback in the comment box to motivate our student.