Traplandia Chapter 1: Paradise-a-l-a-l-a-l-a Hello, my name is Julia. I live with my younger brother on an island. Today is his birthday, so I have to gather sweet, ripe, and juicy fruits and vegetables from our garden so I can make him his favorite foods. “Julia, when will the cake be ready?” I hear Ian yell across the beach. The only thing Ian likes about his birthday is the cake. I think the rest of his birthday reminds him of when our parents disappeared. We live on our Island by ourselves. We have just one neighbor. Her name is Elizabeth. She is an orphan too. We are best friends. We go on adventures and do arts and crafts together. Even though we don’t go to school we still learn stuff. We both want to be artists when we grow up. We love living on our Island. We call it Paradise-a-l-a-l-a-l-a. Chapter 2: A Ship On The Horizon “I’m up, I’m up!” I say. Ian is punching my back and shrieking at the top of his lungs, “A ship! A ship!” “What?” I say, flummoxed by his words. “A ship on the horizon!” he shrieks again. In seconds I’m up on my feet. I sprint to Elizabeth’s hut. “Elizabeth!” I pant, “There’s a ship on the horizon!” “What?” Elizabeth says, confused. Ian catches up to me breathing heavily. There’s a ship outside, go see, he says, and points to the door. Elizabeth and I step outside. Sure enough, on the horizon there is a ship coming towards us. Elizabeth takes out her spyglass. I tenderly peek through it. I see a big ship. Riding on it are two men. They appear to be fishermen. “It’s OK guys,” I say, “Just some fishermen. They shouldn’t be any trouble.” Chapter 3: The Pirates “I am keeping a watchful eye.” I declare to Ian. “Don’t worry!” The ship has gotten closer overnight, so I go to the beach to look at it again. I take out my spyglass. I look through the hole. Then I notice somethings I didn’t see before: There are a skull and cross-bones on their flag, the two men have earrings and nose piercings, they are holding swords, and they look burly. “Elizabeth,” I say, my voice shaking, “you better come see this.” “What is it?” Elizabeth replies. “Pirates!” “Cool!” Ian shouts, “I want to be a pirate!” “No you don’t,” I tell him. “Pirates are bad. You can be a sailor.” “OK” he replies. “I’ll be a sailor.” “Guys,” Elizabeth proclaims “we have to booby trap our Island.” Chapter 4: The Booby Traps Elizabeth looked on our bookshelf for books on booby traps. She found multiple results. We set traps such as holes covered with leaves that once you step on, you fall into a deep pit, nets fall onto you if you trot through certain areas, and other traps like that. “Julia!” Ian announces. “The ship is here!” 2 “Get Elizabeth!” I shout. “There is one more thing I have to tell you...” I begin as Elizabeth enters. “The places I have painted blue are safe. We have to lure the pirates into the traps. The code word to start the booby trap is ‘what’.” “What?” Elizabeth asks. “’What’ is the code word.” I repeat. “I get it,” says Ian. “It’s meant to fool the pirates.” “Exactly!” I reply. “OK, guys, let’s do this.” Chapter 5: What? The pirates are coming on land. There are more than we thought. We thought 2 or 3. Ten come on land. One of the pirates snarls and sniffs the air. “Traps,” he mutters. He steps forward. “Ahhhh!” he screams as he falls into a random hole in the sand that wasn’t supposed to be a trap. Another pirate steps forward a little farther. “What!” screams Ian. We all jump somewhere painted blue and a boulder rolls down from a nearby hill and knocks out the pirate. The pirates now split up and one scouts the beach. He falls into a pit of quicksand. Two run up the hill but we meet them with another boulder. “Five down, five to go!” I yell. Three more pirates take off toward the forest. “What!” I yell jumping onto a blue patch of grass, and a big swinging log hits them. One pirate runs across the beach, the other dashes into the water by the ocean. “What!” Elizabeth hollers. We all jump onto a blue place. An animatronic shark jumps out at the pirate. “Ahh!” screams the pirate. 3 We have one more pirate left. Chapter 6: The Pirate We all target the last pirate, who appears to be the captain because he wears a long coat, has the biggest sword, and the droopiest mustache. Even with all our forces he is still hard to catch, that pirate runs super fast! He dodges our barrels and leaps over the quicksand pits. But we finally catch him with a bamboo cage. The pirate is struggling, but he won’t escape. If he did, we would catch him again. “What is it that you want?” Elizabeth questions the pirate trapped in a bamboo cage. “We want the Sea Gem” replies the pirate “It’s on this island.” “The what?” Ian says. “The Sea Gem.” the pirate repeats angrily. “Now give it to me or be destroyed.” “By who?” Elizabeth snickers. “Me crew.” says the pirate. “They’re all in booby traps, don’t be silly.” Ian replies. I feel someone breathing down my neck. “Guys,” I tremble “they’re right behind us.” Chapter 7: Sea Rascals The crew is tying us up. “Ouch!” I yelp. “Tell us where the Sea Gem is or die” the captain growls at us. “I don’t know where it is” I splutter, “In fact I’ve never heard of it.” “Liar!” exclaims the pirate, “of course you know where it is.” “No!” I say exasperated “I don’t know where it is. Besides, how do you even know it’s on the island?” 4 “I know it’s on the island because I have a map me father left me before he was slaughtered by two sea rascals.” says the pirate, wiping a tear from his face. “Sea rascals?” Ian questions. “Scientists” replies the captain. “But later I got me revenge. I killed ‘em!” whoops the captain, joyfully. “Served ‘em right, the sea rascals.” Suddenly the pieces of the puzzle are coming together in my head, this pirate had killed my parents! “Now down to business” says the pirate interrupting my thoughts. “Where is the Sea Gem?” I search my brain for anything about the Sea Gem. “If you don’t tell me then I will kill your friends” croaks one of the pirates, who is holding his sword to Ian’s throat. Another pirate is holding his sword to Elizabeth’s throat. “Ok” I announce, “Let’s go.” Chapter 8: The Sea Gem I lead the pirates to the main hut. “Where is the gem?!” asks a pirate “Right here” I proclaim. I pull out an extraordinarily large gem about the size of a golf ball. It is a dazzling shade of blue. I hand over the gem. “Now release them!” I command. The burly pirates holding Ian and Elizabeth release them. They hug me. “Now be gone pirates, vamoose!” The pirates reluctantly file back onto their ship and sail off into the distance. Chapter 9: Traplandia “Yay! Woohoo!” I shout as soon as the pirates are out of sight. “What are you happy about?” question Ian and Elizabeth. “We didn’t even know we had that thing and now you gave it to a pirate, it would have been worth a fortune.” 5 “That was a fake! The real thing is in a cave on the other side of the mountain!” I exclaim. “Guys, I think we have a problem,” says Elizabeth “The traps won’t turn off.” “I have a solution for that,” I declare. “We build new huts over the blue places.” “And if any pirates ever come here again we’ll be ready.” “I know” squeals Ian, “We can call our island Traplandia.” And we do. 6