The Green Creature on the Tower

A crazy school field trip soon turns into an unusual fantasy story...

Vanessa and I got off the bus and admired the stunning view of Madrona Nature Center. I expected the sun to be out and the air to feel warm and humid like a regular Florida day but it didn’t. Icy, cold air bit my toes and chilled my arms. The gloomy clouds concealed the sun and the warmth. This was just great.

                Ignoring the cold, I waited for one of the teachers to give me my bag and pillow. Vanessa eventually received her bag. My bag was one of the last ones out of the bus. “Vanessa, wait!” I called to her. She was already walking up the trail to our cabin and so was my other friend Jade. She had soft brown hair and she was so short, yet carried so many things. A big garbage bag with her name plastered across it and a large suitcase is what she carried. We all lugged our stuff into up to the dorms. Each dorm had two cabins. Vanessa and I went to see if we were in the same cabin as each other. Sure enough we were and so was just about every one of my friends.

                After checking which cabin we were in, Vanessa and I walked inside and saw hardly anything. The only thing we saw was a bathroom and many bunk beds. The bunk beds had very thin mattresses and bare cement floors. I could tell we would be wearing shoes a lot. There were two wooden dressers with four drawers. I used the top drawer on the one closest to my bed. My bed was the top bunk near the door, one of the closest beds to the cabin supervisor. The cabin supervisor was mainly just someone’s parent.

                The first day and a half went by so fast and so much happened in thirty-six hours. The main teacher, Mr. Richard, had no patience with us, and yelled very many times. Most of the issues had to do with complaining about when dinner was ready. The teacher cooking the meals was the type of person who took his time and went past the schedule of when we were supposed to be eating. At four p.m. every day we were there, we had free time for two hours and we could practically do anything. We could run around on the obstacle course, play games, and just talk with friends. On the second day of our field trip to Madrona, Mr. Richard was fed up and I didn’t think I had ever seen him this angry.

                For a while he lectured us and accused us. Even if I didn’t do anything at all he made me feel so terrible for the drama that went on when we were there. After giving a twenty minute speech about how disappointed he was, he sent us off to go have free time.

                Anyway on the second day and the second time of having free time, we mainly hung around the cabins for a while and a few of the girls took showers. “We should go out and do something!” declared Sandra. She was the type of person who got bored easily and sitting around in the cabin didn’t really appeal to her, I guess. I followed her and some of her friends outside to take some pictures of the views and places at Madrona. My camera was tucked away in my pocket even though I took it out several times. With the chilly weather there, it felt safer to keep it in my pocket.

                Once Sandra and her friends started messing around and acting crazy, I left and headed back to the cabin. On my way back I laughed silently to myself and immediately shut up when I saw Vanessa in standing by the entrance to the obstacle course. I had forgotten about how I promised her I would do the obstacle course with her. Now she probably had hated me. She looked like she was about to cry as she took pictures alone out there.

                I went up to her and said hi nonchalantly and she didn’t respond. We just silently glanced at each other. I tried to apologize and ask what I did wrong even though I kind of already knew. She never responded. “Okay,” I whispered my voice cracking. “Then I’ll just do it myself.” And I stormed off into the woods where the obstacle course was. At about one fourth of the way through, near some balance beam logs, I broke down and started sobbing. I looked around me and I was alone. I was glad I didn’t want anyone to see me crying. But it was a big deal. Vanessa was my best friend and we had never had a fight before once. Maybe a little argument but we had never ever been mad at each other before.

                As I kept walking, I got deeper in my thoughts �" and deeper into the woods. Eventually, my cheeks weren’t tearstained anymore and I had stopped crying. I stumbled through the woods and for a long time. I was really thirsty and hungry. When I saw a tiny body walking along the paths too I thought the dehydration was making me hallucinate. But it was no hallucination. It was tiny little Jade.

                “Jade, what are you doing here?” I shouted. She looked up at me and then ran over.

She was shaking and her teeth were chattering. For a second I thought she was cold but I changed my mind about that when I heard her utter the words, “Evil creature.” At first I didn’t believe her but to prove her point she squeezed my arm and pulled me in the opposite direction. She pulled along the skinny trails that seemed to get thinner and thinner as we went, for ten minutes. We finally came to an opening and a tall tower stood there. It creaked as the chilly winds whistled through the trees. When we got a little closer to the tower, she slowed down and we gradually made our way over to the entrance to the tower. My bare pointer finger stroked the cold metal railing. Jade slapped my hand away and we went up.

I had felt so good and so free. All my sad thoughts about Vanessa faded away. Jade was half way up the tower and she pointed up. A green creature with pointed needle-like things on its back. It swerved back and forth around the top of the tower. “Don’t look at it!” Jade warned me. I ignored her and looked into the creature’s eyes. Its eyes were a jasmine blue color that was so pretty I forgot where we were for a minute.

Suddenly, its eyes locked into mine and it growled. “Run!” Jade screamed and we both hurried down the tower. For what seemed like hours we ran through the forest but it was probably only twenty minutes. We didn’t stop until we didn’t hear vicious growling coming from behind us. The only reason we stopped was because we ran into a human body. It was Vanessa. She was standing in the trail taking more pictures. When we ran into her, we couldn’t hear the creature growling anymore.

“Hey, Vanessa,” I whispered solemnly. “Never go any further than you are now down this path,” and we somehow became best friends again. I think she was pretty scared, too even if she wasn’t the one who saw the green creature on the tower.