Amazon Emergency

By Aoife McFarlane

 

It was midnight. Everyone was sleeping apart from children in their beds, shivering with trauma from the thunder and lightning filling the sky. Animals were running for their lives on the burning forest floor of the Amazon. Leopards huddled under broken branches of fallen trees.

 

11 August 2024

Dear Diary,

A couple of days ago, I was walking down the road with my best friends Rosie and Jess. We were talking about the storm that had happened the night before. That’s when it happened.

“What is that smell?” questioned Rosie.

“It’s smoke!” replied Jess her voice serious.

I hadn’t said anything yet until I saw it. The dark, grey colour of SMOKE! “There it is there!” I had shouted. “In the centre of the rainforest SMOKE!!”

Knowing this was serious all three of us raced across the road not thinking to look for cars. After a minute we were at the edge of the rainforest. It was smokier than I thought it would be but that wasn’t stopping us.  Me, Jess and Rosie didn’t have long to go, when we heard something loud and hoarse nearby. It almost sounded like someone laughing. It wasn’t any old laugh; it was a laugh that gave me a shiver down my spine. It was evil and screechy. We walked on...

A few minutes later, we found where the laughing had come from. Now there was a voice, it cried, “okay, Eric. Soon we’ll finish burning the land and it will be ready for the palm oil growers. Then we can start logging the next area.”

“You’re so clever to think up such an excuse to say we’re planting more trees! Now we will become rich, and everyone will think we are good guys!” came the voice again. We looked closer, we could see axes everywhere, some in trees and the rest scattered around in any old way. The axes looked terribly sharp.

Then accidentally, I shouted, “the trees, look at the trees!”

“Did you hear that, Eric?”  

“Yes, yes I did,” came another voice deep and crooked. “Who goes there?”

We ran. We ran as fast as our legs could go. So fast it was like being chased by a man-eating monster!

As we reached the edge of the Amazon once again we were out of breath, barely able to speak. It was lunch when we got back to our separate homes. It took a long time to explain to my parents what had happened. They weren’t pleased with me; they saw on the news the company would replace the trees to make up for the ones that got cut down.

“IT IS NOT TRUE!” I screamed at the top of my voice.

“Of course, the news is true we aren’t going to listen to a nine year old girl and not the news!” said Dad.

“And why are you not in school?” questioned Mom. “You’re GROUNDED!” I stormed off to my messy room, I lay on my bed to think up a plan. We had to stop Eric and his crew (by ‘we’ I mean me, Jess and Rosie). Finally, I figured out a plan. The plan was to collect tape recorders, cameras, notebooks and pens to write notes and for evidence. After, I’d sneak out to get Jess and Rosie. Then, we’d creep into the Amazon to find Eric again. We’d record what he said and take pictures of what he does. Finally, we’d go to the news and tell them everything  and show them all the evidence. After that, they would come and see for themselves what Eric had done then Eric and his crew would be arrested.

The plan took one whole HOUR! I was determined to get this done because if I didn’t the forest would be gone in no time. I wasn’t going to let that happen.

Now that I was finished packing up my gear, I set off through the dark streets of Amazonia to get Jess and Rosie. The streets, that were so quiet that you could hear a fly burp, were dark and creepy.

I found Jess’ house first. I had to tell her the plan because she was confused about what was going on. Once Jess finally understood me, we bolted over to Rosie’s, she was confused too. I said we didn’t have time to explain, and I’d explain on the way. Then, we wandered off into the Amazon.

The only noise you could hear were the noises of the night echoing through the trees. The luscious smell of the undergrowth everywhere you stepped was beautiful but that didn’t last for long. Now we could smell smoke, Jess was already coughing this was where the action came in. There was the evil laughter again, it was familiar. It was Eric!

I was scared, so was Jess and Rosie because we could hear voices now. The closer we got the louder they became it said, “in no time I’ll be rich, the richest man in the world in fact no one will stop me!” 

“Let’s go now!” I whispered getting a camera, “hide, don’t get seen. Just take some convincing pictures then meet back here at 11pm.”

“Okay,” murmured Jess.

“Fine,” mumbled Rosie.

We split up to get different angles on the pictures (like professionals). I hid high in the branches of a tree; Jess lay on her stomach on the damp ground under bushes and Rosie sat on a fallen tree branch. We knew where each other were but we stayed silent and just took pictures and recorded what they were saying so people knew they were lying and what they had seen on the news was fake.

I collected the photos and told them the next part of the plan. “We need to go to Radio Amazonas. We need to do it now so we can show them our proof.”

“Let’s go,” replied Jess.

We ran to the news. It was packed and we sneaked through the crowd. There were all sorts of radio stations. We were looking for Radio Amazonas, the most popular. Finally, we found it. We ran in and told them what had happened then we showed all our evidence and recordings. They believed us and soon enough we had loads of news reporters and police with us.

Once we got back to the  Amazon, everyone gasped at the sight of all the trees gone. Eric was in the centre of all the cut down trees counting his money. A news reporter went over and asked Eric if he was going to replace the trees or not, “yes, I will replace the trees,” he cried.

That’s when Rosie stepped in, “well according to this video you said the opposite.”

Eric hesitated, “okay. Yes I wasn’t going to replace the trees, I just wanted money, I wanted money because I was greedy I didn’t think, please don’t make me go to jail…”

“Okay, but tomorrow come back and replace the trees and never attempt to do anything bad again.”

And that’s what happened.