A New Adventure

A long story I had to write as an assignment when I was nine, turned out pretty good. Enjoy!!
It was about to be winter vacation, when our English teacher assigned a two thousand word narrative composition, entitled ‘A new adventure.’
When I heard it was about writing, I took out a pen and paper and got to work as soon as I got home. On the first day I was finished with half the story and it was of good length. I finished the work in less than 4 days, and the rest of the days I simply edited it. I’m going to be sharing it with the internet today. Note that I was only nine and it is nowhere near what I can do now. Just saying =P. Might be pretty long, but I put hours work into this, and I hope you like it. Here it is-
A New Adventure
Once long time ago, there lived a crony old man and a boy, in the middle of a jungle. The old man’s name was Norman Faraway. The boy’s name was James Faraway, and he was eight years old. Norman was a usual man with, unusual abilities. You see, Norman was a wizard, and James was his grandson. James was a lonely boy, because his only companion was his grandfather. James wanted to see the outside world; he wanted to have adventures in the outside world. His grandfather had forbidden James to ever set foot outside his jungle. Norman instead would create magical little boys so that James would have playmates. One night while trying to go to sleep, James saw a falling star. He quickly made a wish, to be in the outside world. This is a story of James and his grand adventure.
As soon as a wish was made, James felt himself slowly disappear and reappear in the outside world near the local streets of Chicago. James thought he was dreaming for a moment. He thought things like this don’t happen in real life, but he forgot that he lived in a magical house, in the middle of the jungle. When he touched the outside wall of a store, he realized he wasn’t actually dreaming. James loved it! He looked around and saw shoe shops, Donut shops, clothes shops, grocery stores, big trees, small trees, houses, roads with cars being driven, etc. He even enjoyed the smell of diesel!
He started crossing the street, but he didn’t know he should look both ways before crossing the street. He almost got run over by a car, and as the car drove by, the driver started screaming at him. James shook his head, because he didn’t know why the driver yelled at him. He was passing the Donut Shop, and the smell of fresh donuts, made James realize that he was hungry. He went in the donut shop and helped himself to a donut and started walking out the shop. The shop owner caught up to him and asked James for money, for the donut. James didn’t know what money was, and of course, didn’t have any thing called money. The shop owner told him if James didn’t have any money, James should work for him for the rest of the day and eat as many donuts as he wanted. James thought it was a wonderful idea and agreed to work for the shop owner.
Meanwhile, back in the jungle, Norman was getting worried. He didn’t know where James had gone in the outside world. Norman knew that James didn’t know anything about the outside world. He took out his magic mirror and asked the mirror to show him what James was doing. The mirror showed James surrounded by people and eating donuts very fast.
The shop owner finds out that James hasn’t been serving the customers and has just been eating donuts. The shop owner becomes very angry and fires James. James is shocked and he keeps thinking what did I do wrong? The manager told me that if I worked for him I could eat as many donuts as my heart could desire. Sadly he turned to leave the store with his head turned down. As he was walking out the donut shop James decided to go to the shoe shop.
When he reached the shoe store James was astonished! He had never seen so many shoes in his entire life! So he started to try all the shoes he could find. But he really didn’t like any of them. He even tried on a pair of girls’ pink Barbie shoes. Everyone in the shoe store was staring at him and a few were even doing small giggles. James was confused. Why is everyone staring at me? What did I do wrong? James was feeling a bit tired. He went out of the shoe store and decided to sleep. So he went to somebody’s house and went up the stairs. The father of the house asked.” What are you doing? Why are you going up the stairs of my house?!”
James ignored him and climbed up the stairs and went into the bedroom. He went to sleep in the mother’s big fluffy bed. James felt uncomfortable so he decided to sleep in the fathers’ bed. His bed was big and firm, just how James likes it. The father went into the bedroom. His eyes popped out when he saw that a stranger was sleeping in his bed! The father fainted immediately. James woke up a couple of hours later.
Meanwhile, in the middle of the forest Norman was very worried. He was wondering how James was. What if he had gotten kidnapped? He took out his ‘child sensing device’ and typed in James Faraway. He found out his location and how he was doing. He instantly took his magic wand and vanished into thin air. He reappeared in Nashville, in a place far away from where James was. None of his devices had any use now to find James. So there was only one way to find James… he had to look for him on foot.
James was getting a bit bored of the outside world. One of the reasons was, he was very lonely. James started searching for his grandfather. A few minutes later he realized that he was the only one. He had remembered that it was a wish that allowed him to get here. James was starting to feel sad. He was missing his grandfather. James left the house and started wandering on a busy street. He looked around. When he turned to his right he saw a tornado coming towards him. James started running, but it didn’t help at all. The tornado sucked James up and James went flying. He landed in the middle of a desert.” Where am I?” James asked to himself. He was stranded in the middle of a desert!
Norman had been looking for James everywhere. He thought about using his child sensing device. He tried and the response from the child sensing device made Norman faint immediately.
James was very hungry. He was also very scared. He looked around. He saw nothing except for desert plants like cactus and prickly pear. James saw an object coming towards him at great speed. It looked like an animal, but he had never seen an animal of that sort. As it came closer James saw that it was a human riding on a camel. James shouted,” Help, help!”
The camel came towards James and stopped at his feet. James starting talking to the man. He had white skin with curly brown hair and wore sunglasses. He had three piercings in each of his ears and was very tall. His name was Wallace. James had asked if Wallace could help him get out of the desert. Wallace nodded. James climbed onto the camel and they started off with a smile.
Norman had been looking for James everywhere. He called his black dragon called Razor. The dragon wasn’t that tall but was strong enough to fly to the Sahara Desert without any rest. Norman climbed onto the dragon and took off all full speed.
Meanwhile, James and Wallace were feeling tired. They had already traveled one hundred miles. James was wondering, is my grandfather coming here to rescue me and bring me back home? Wallace started asking James questions like, where do you live? What are your hobbies? Do you like your home? James was daydreaming. He decided to go to sleep. But he would be uncomfortable. He started thinking; there are all these animals like snakes and scorpions living down there. What if I fell off while sleeping and got eaten alive? He decided to stay awake.
Norman was about three thousand feet high. He was looking for a desert. He was right next to the Atlantic Ocean when he heard a BOOM! He went back to see what was going on and guess what he saw…
A three headed snake that was black with yellow polka dots, about forty feet tall was invading a town! The snake was chewing on a building. Norman had to do something about this. He took out his wand and chanted a few words in a secret ancient language. Then he said abra- kadabra- alakazam and then… the snake started floating in mid air and smash! The snake went flying across the sky. Norman was getting a bit weary and exhausted. He decided to stop at a city nearby. Norman went to the store and bought a few things like food and water. Norman looked at his watch. He had wasted two whole hours, saving the town from the forty feet tall snake. He called Razor and climbed onto him in a hurry and took of to find James. They took off and soon were on top of the Atlantic Ocean.
James had become very tired. He asked Wallace if they could stop for a few minutes and have a snack but Wallace replied with a frown. He had not had any food with him so they would just have to starve. Half their journey was over and they were both very tired, were starving, and were burning up. They decided to stop near a small lake and filled their stomachs with as much water as they could drink. The camel, who was also very tired, ate a few desert plants.
Norman was having a rough time. It had been almost a week since James had made that wish. Norman looked ahead. He saw a few buildings as they came closer and soon landed in the city. It was a city near the Sahara Desert. It looked much different than the United States. Norman thought that one of these people would know where James is, since this city was next to the Sahara Desert.
James and Wallace had no food to eat. Wallace saw a city ahead said to James,” wait here with the camel, I’ll go to that city and buy food.”
James was confused. What does he mean by “buy”? He was okay with waiting with the camel for about half an hour. Wallace started heading toward the city.
Norman took out a picture of James and started showing it to people. Hundred percent of the people responded by shaking their heads. Then as Norman was about to turn SMASH! Norman bumped into… Wallace. Norman got up and said sorry. Then he moved on. Then Norman realized,” Wait!” he said to Wallace. Wallace stopped in his tracks and turned around.” Have you seen this boy anywhere?” Norman said showing him a picture of James,” he is my grandson and I have been looking for him for days.”
Wallace’s mouth dropped open. Then suddenly he went crazy. He started jumping around and said,” I know him! I met him in the desert a few days ago! He has been with me all this time! I just came here to buy food for us! Follow me! I’ll take you to your grandson!”
Norman was feeling a lot happier now. He followed Wallace all that way. It was about ten miles from the desert. James was getting worried.” Where did Wallace go? He said it would just be half an hour! First it was grandpa, now it’s Wallace!”
James started to hear footsteps. James walked toward the sound. He saw two objects coming towards him. He could hear voices now,” James, James!” he heard. James gazed ahead of him into the distance. He noticed the first person. It was Wallace! James started running toward Wallace. He still couldn’t identify the second human running toward him! As they got closer James saw reading glasses, gray hair, checked shirt, it’s, it’s,” Grandpa!” James ran and hugged his grandfather. Then all three of them James, Wallace and Norman gathered and had a talk. Then Norman and James waved goodbye to Wallace and climbed onto Razor. Then Razor took off at full speed into the vast distance.

Rohan Desai
Grade 8 IGCSE