A Journey in Manaus
By Rose Marley
“We’re here,” cried Holly, as she jumped off the plane steps trailing her
suitcase behind her. “Right, so as soon as we get in we unpack then get a boat
down the river through the Amazon jungle, then we…explore,” she finished with a
happy sigh.
“Okay, okay, calm down Holly,” Mum said with a
smile.
“Is everybody unpacked?” shouted Holly.
“Nearly,” replied Holly’s brother Max.
“Yes honey,” called Mum and Dad together.
“Then let’s go,” she cried excitedly.
“Hold on, Holly, don’t get on yet they haven’t told us to,” said Mum
exasperated.
“Alright, I’m just so excited we’re going on the Amazon
river,” replied Holly.
“Yay,” said Max sarcastically.
“Finally,” said Holly relieved, “we’re off.”
And down the river they went at an unbelievable
speed twisting and turning around bends and tight corners before finally the
river began to widen and calm.
“We’re on the Amazon river,” exclaimed Holly, “can I
have a turn of the oars please?”
“Yes, of course darling,” replied Dad.
Once Holly had started rowing they floated gently
downstream. In time she started to stare at the water.
“What’s that?” she said eventually, pointing to a
dark, murky trail in the water.
“I actually don’t know Holly my dear,” said her Mum.
“Hey, Max you know about this stuff,” said Dad, “why
don’t you take a guess.”
“Nooo,” said Max after a long time, “I don’t know,
although it might be oil.”
After a while of drifting along looking at the
oil they came to a fork in the river.
One had an arrow pointing down it and the other didn’t but it had the oil going
down it.
“Holly it’s that way,” her Dad said pointing to the
arrow way, but Holly thought she wanted to know what the oily stuff was so
without even knowing she took the one with the oil.
“Holly,” Mum shouted, “wrong way, it might be
dangerous,” and just as she said it the calm river they knew soon turned into
rapids and Holly lost control and the oars slipped out of her hands.
“Aaaah,” she and Max screamed together as the canoe
rocked violently. Then she saw it, first one then a whole shoal of dead silvery
fish all lying in the oil, her family had obviously spotted it too because they
all fell silent.
After a few moments of silence the boat came to an
abrupt stop; they had crashed into a vehicle; that was leaking oil!
“Er, mum, dad I’m gonna
get out and well, have a walk,’ said Holly and jumped off the boat and onto the
moist ground.
“Okay be safe and don’t
get lost,” said her Mum in a flat tone.
Holly started to walk
in the humid atmosphere then stopped suddenly for right in front of her was an
enormous truck that was about to cut down the tree beside her. She was
absolutely stunned at what she was seeing, and because of that she ran forwards
and shouted, “stop!” as loud as she could and to her surprise everyone did stop
but then someone stepped forward.
“What do you think
you’re doing here? We are just doing our job so get out of our way little child,”
said the man rudely with a bit of mock in his voice.
Holly felt a little
embarrassed and also very scared because then a big muscley man stepped out of
a nearby truck and stomped towards her and she felt like she needed a whole
crowd behind her to back her up.
“Go home little one,”
said the man in a booming voice.
“If you want your paper
you can get out of the way because we’re planting eucalyptus trees to make
paper for young people like you so clear off,” shouted the first man.
And so Holly ran all
the way back to the boat and by that time a team of rescuers had got there...
Soon, Holly was
snuggled in her warm bed thinking about how she could have stopped the men if
she had had lots of brave people with her willing to help the environment, and
how from now on she would only use recycled paper and hoped other people would
to!
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