Danger in The Daintree

“Dad, I am going swimming in the lagoon with my friends,” I said and I packed up ready to go! On that particular day the sun felt like it was almost blowing fire onto the Earth, it was that hot! It was the perfect day to go for a swim in this tropical and luscious rainforest - either swimming or a day for ice cream!

The Daintree rainforest was a family favorite where we owned a holiday house and we always enjoyed spending time together as a family. However, that particular day after I left on my way to the lagoon for a swim was a day I will never forget! Why, you might ask - because when I returned from it, my mum was absolutely nowhere to be found. Do you know how hard it is to be a 10-year old girl and have your mum disappear without a trace? Let me tell you what happened next…

So, It is five years later, and I found myself back in the same place where my mother left me on our vacation that day. By the way, a lot has happened since my mum left, well after all, I am now a 15-year old teenager. Anyway, my dad and I permanently moved from Canada to Australia soon after my mum disappeared. That last holiday altogether holds very fond memories for me and dad, well up until my mum left! But in the end, it made sense that me and dad would relocate to the Daintree because it was paradise!

So my dad and I were in paradise and starting to settle back into our holiday house, which is now our home. As I was unpacking my things in my bedroom, dad told me he had some work to do in the office. After I had finished putting all the important things out in my room such as my journal, my teddy my mum had brought for me and my laptop, I went to find my dad to ask what was for lunch?

I noticed that my dad was sitting at his desk and he randomly told me that his computer had died and he needed to use my laptop, so I ran upstairs to get it for him.

Dad said “I went out for a walk this morning and I found an advent calendar on the ground - weird, I know”. He knew I loved chocolate so he said that I could open it right away. As I opened one little advent calendar door, I found out that it wasn’t chocolate at all, strangely! I decided to keep this a secret from my dad because even though I am not your typical ‘puzzle person’ I didn’t want to tell dad yet in case I hurt his feelings!

Now I knew I definitely had to stick with the 24 day rule…no one can break that because it is still a Christmas advent calendar after all! So everyday I opened a door and I found all the puzzle pieces until after the 24th day. I pieced them all together and realized that there was one missing and then I thought who would give me an advent calendar with only 24 puzzle pieces inside of it - when there were supposed to be 25?! So, I went out for a walk, feeling hugely disappointed thinking I will grab some ice-cream to cheer myself up. While on my walk, I bumped into an old lady. She had a green wig on with silver hair sticking out from underneath. She was wearing a pink flowery dress and she had horn rimmed glasses…she was certainly a little bit strange!

The old lady asked me, “do you know who this puzzle piece belongs to”? At that moment, I was filled with joy and I said, “it belongs to me”! She gave it to me and I ran straight back home and I finally pieced it all together and realized there was actually a letter on it! On the letter there was handwriting that looked oddly familiar and it was talking about this tsunami wizard. This tsunami wizard who was named ‘TW’ and it sounded like he was a really, really bad person! When I looked even closer, I saw the name on it, it read ‘Mira’. Mira was my mother’s name…

So, now I found this weird puzzle, that has my mum’s name on it, talking about the Tsunami Wizard, and so I thought I am going to go out on a quest - I need to find out where she is or what this is about! So, I went back to the exact same place that I found the last puzzle piece, and the interesting lady with the green hair was still there, walking around and just looking at the plants.

I asked her, where did you get this puzzle piece? She said from a tall man with blue hair and blue skin. Then I thought to myself why is there a man on this earth with blue hair and skin?! I think he must be some sort of alien. I asked her did you know who this blue guy is? '' She said “No, I don’t”. Then it dawned on me the only person who might be slightly unusual in my life would be the tsunami wizard. So then I quickly ditched my ice-cream idea and decided to go and look for this TW, because they MUST have wanted it to mean something or to have shared a message with me of some sort.

I looked at my phone, went onto Google Earth, and found a place called Tsunami Bay. I thought this must be where he is! So, I walked there and found a giant hole underground. I jumped in and the entire place was this wet, gray stone cave covered in moss with a weird smell coming out of it that was a mix of bacon, toe nails and rotten eggs - bleugh! Then, when I walked a few steps forward, I found a pile of sand and decided to dig and dig! I found a blue gemstone that lit up when I touched it! I thought back to all of those fantasy novels I had read and decided that it looked like a soul stone.

Once I found the soul stone I climbed back up to find my friends and have them help me. So they started plotting with me and they (like me) thought we should defeat the Tsunami Wizard. So, I went back down to the stone cave with my friends and we found some small animals that were weird and bizarre. One looked like a unicorn but with a pig’s tail and the other looked like a squirrel with the body of a cow. As we walked further into the cave we found prison cells. I then realized something…..that old lady that gave me the piece of the puzzle way back then, was actually behind the bars in front of me right now. She had told me that her name was Lady Stroud but I never really knew her - but why was she trapped in the TW’s lair? So I thought, hmmmm….if the Tsunami Wizard had caught my mother then I HAVE TO GET HER BACK!

There was one thing about Lady Stroud which reminded me of my mum….it was the way in which she adjusted her glasses and kept her fists tightly clenched and it was a “habit” that my mother used to do when she was younger to stop herself from biting her nails. So, I thought maybe TW had brainwashed all of these people, but then I used the power of the soul stone. At that moment, I figured out how to use the magic and power of the soul stone and I trapped the animals inside of it. What is this magical soul stone you might ask? Well, one of my friends reminded me that I had this precious soul stone and as I looked at it I thought this didn’t look like just any soul stone, this was special, it was made not by just a fraction of the Tsunami Wizard's soul, but his ENTIRE soul. Because most wizards who want immortality can only live for 600 years or so, but TW was so dedicated to immortality that he dedicated his whole soul to the soul stone so he could live forever, and ever! Because of its power, I was able to then break the people’s memory chain - and they suddenly revived back to their original selves and there appeared, in front of my eyes, as if an illusion had occurred….was MY MUM!

I picked all the locks with my friends as quickly as we could and I grabbed my mum and absolutely made a run for it! After we got out of the cave, my mom told me that without TW’s soul stone, TW was unable to live. So she told me that he was officially dead! When my friends and I got back to the house my dad was utterly shocked when he saw my mum and me. He asked me “how did you do that?!” and so I told him all about the adventure! At last….we were all reunited once more….

I cannot describe to you how blessed and happy I felt in that moment! I had forgotten that everyone had been bullying me at school - it had completely slipped my memory as I was only filled with happiness and joy! I EVEN forgot to eat ice cream that day! And so we all decided that if we are here in this tropical paradise that is the Daintree, we should go to the beach and celebrate! It was the best experience of my life today and my dream in life had been met…..I had my mum back after all these years….