Aurora and the Chamber Of Wishes

In a sunburnt, wrecked village where people were greedy for anything they could find, there was one girl called Auroura and she was selfless. She too would scavenge but only for survival. Although she had a big heart, people rejected her. Days passed and yet Aurora was still treated like garbage.

One day whilst she was being bullied she couldn’t take it anymore so she ran away into the woods, tears streaking down her face. A few minutes later she had reached her favourite willow tree, and here no one could torture her. So she curled up into a ball and calmed down her mind. Just as she was about to leave she saw a glint in the corner of her eye. She looked back, but she could just see the woods. As she turned back she saw the glint again. “Just a trick of light” said her brain, but her mind said “look again”. So she looked and there, wedged between the gnarled roots was a glint of gold. She sprinted to the gold, thoughts racing through her head: “What could it be?”. She was cautiously excited as she lifted up the ancient roots and saw gold. Excitement rushed through her as she picked up the sheet of gold, her hands shaking.

As Aurora looked at the sheet of gold and looked closer she realised that it was a map! She thought of going to the end of the map or selling it. Her adventurous spirit said “go!”, but her homeless self said “sell it”. She looked at herself from her dusty, dirty feet to her ragged clothes all the way to her midnight black hair, which she removed to reveal her dusty rosy cheeks and above her twinkling eyes lost in dilemma. But whispering in her head a voice said: “you only live once”. So it was set – she would go there. And the next day she set off.

A few hours after climbing up mountains and valleys she reached the end. She dropped the map in awe, because towering above her was an ancient, immense chamber. And just visible through the moss it said “HERE LIES THE CHAMBER OF WISHES”. These letters were engraved in a rusty metal door. Her whole body was shaking with excitement, as she slowly pushed the door open. And what a sight! The top of the chamber was covered in flowers but most importantly hovering around the chamber was millions of big balls of blue light – wishes. She thought of her life and inside the voice said “I deserve one”. She herself was unbelievably kind, so she wished for people to make peace.

And the other wishes? She let them free, but forbid them to go to the rich. So the wishes went. The rich looked up with greed, but got nothing as the wishes flew just above their reach. Aurora came out of the forest, and instead of being hit on the face, she had villagers begging her for forgiveness. “I will tell you this”, she announced, “when you are in hard times, first try to get out and then try to fight the problem”. And from that day she was still the humble, big-hearted soul who had changed the world.

A ray of sunshine

(Based on a true story)

One day at Panthera (one of the few real sanctuaries in South Africa) two new tigers were coming! Their  names were Ares and Arabella. Kat and Lizaene (the founders of Panthera) were very excited to find and rescue them from a tiger breeding farm, so they went a week before adoption and visited them and saw that Ares had a distinctive lightning bolt stripe over one their eyes! Kat and Lizaene were counting down the days till they would get their tigers home safely.

On the day Kat and Lizaene went and saw the tigers but Arabella was with a different tiger! Kat and Lizaene said this is not Ares, where is he? But the seller said “I sold all the other tigers to another farm, these two are the tigers you can have. I don’t know about any others, you can look if you want”. So they looked for hours asked everyone working at the breeding farm if they'd seen him. Lizaene never gave up and said "If we can't find him then we have to at least try and see where he is." They asked everybody they could see and went all over, the last person said: "Nobody wants to tell you this, but our boss had put him down with many other tigers for the bone trade, so you should just take the other tiger that was left behind by mistake." Lizaene was furious and very upset.  So they had to take the other unknown tiger but named him him Rays because he was as bright as a ray of sunshine. So till this day we still are feeling sad about what happened to Ares but feeling happy that a beautiful ray of sunshine filled his place

Arabella at her home in Panthera, South Africa

Wrapped in Hope

Back in Africa, Namibia a little baby elephant named Sorres was born! All the elephants gathered round to teach him how to walk since elephants move around a lot to get food and water, but however hard baby Sorres tried he couldn’t stand up!

After a while a guide got in a truck and went to check on him but what should he find but baby Sorres abandoned in the baking desert wondering around in the towering trees hopefully to find food and water. At once the guide went back to his camp and told everyone what had happened. Rachel, their manager sent some guides to put bottles of honey milk and to check on his health. It was heart-breaking to see him. The vet said “he can’t survive on his own we have to bring him in.” Reluctantly the guides agreed. Next thing you know we have a small room covered by sheets with a vet reassuring a baby elephant trumpeting in agony whilst being trained to walk.

Over the following days we visited him lots to see him snuggled in his leopard print blanket happily munching on leaves and sniffing people’s hands. After a few weeks sad news flooded the camp that Baby Sorres didn’t make it. After being fed he lay down and peacefully drifted away. The normally jubilant camp was dull in his absence. But now you know anyone can have the biggest heart no matter how big or small.

Rachel’s Big Idea

Many moons ago a teenage girl called Rachel had an idea. “Animals and humans are so separated, what can I do to help?”. And by this simple question her mind grew. A few years later she invested in her idea by researching. After a few months of work, she saw the endangered species elephants and deep within she knew she could help them. And she did. After she graduated from college, she went straight to live in Namibia, Swakopmund following her heart. She got some builders and started to build a base camp. With help of a few guides, and a content camp mum she created a campsite called EHRA, elephant – human relation aid! A few years later Rachel now the manager of EHRA was now in contact with countries, cities even schools! Every two weeks they would have new volunteers help fix toilets, paint school walls, go on safaris but most importantly meet new people and friends. Rachel is still funding EHRA to this day but happy of her progress. And all that started this was one big idea from a little girl.

Anaya’s short stories

Anaya wants to write short stories that use characters and places from the different places she will go.