—-----Chapter One—------

THE BREAKDOWN

    “This is so boring,” I groaned, taking off my headphones and pausing my Spotify playlist. “How much longer do we have to wait? It’s been, like, two million years!!!”

    “Kara, it’s been four and a half hours,” Hanna corrected me, popping another bubble on her Pop-It. She’d been using that annoying thing for two million ye-I mean, four and a half hours already, and the stupid, repetitive sound was driving me insane. Not only that, but she seemed to be using it with exactly ten seconds in between each pop. “The calming scenery of the rainforest would be a nice break from the up and down of the bus, though.” She pulled out her camera. “I can’t wait to snap some pics!”

    POP.

    POP.

    POP.

    POP.

    UGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!

    “You guys are so childish,” XuanJin laughed, snatching the Pop-It out of Hanna’s hands, despite Hanna’s protests. “Flying High Elementary is really generous to let us have such a nice field trip like this. Savor it!”

    “My gosh, you girls in the back are so loud!” Mrs. Thomas, our teacher, began to chew us out for yelling across the aisle for the twentieth time during the field trip. “Please, can we have a couple minutes of silence? Or I’ll have to separate you three!!!”

    I could feel twenty pairs of eyes staring at us as Mrs. Thomas droned on and on. I looked out the window to distract myself and watched the lush greenery of the rainforest pass by.

The rainforest that we were going to-or, we had already arrived in, was a tropical rainforest. There are two types of rainforests, tropical and temperate. 75% of the Earth’s population of species are indigenous to the tropical rainforest! I couldn’t wait!

    For some reason, though, we still hadn’t found the dang guide, even though, according to Mrs. Thomas, they were supposed to meet us here!

    As I looked out the window at the pouring rain tap-tapping on the window, I saw steam pouring out of the engine of the bus. The smoke became denser and denser until I couldn’t even see out of the window anymore. I tapped XuanJin, who was sitting next to me. “Um…is this supposed to happen?”

The other kids on the bus also began to notice, pointing out the window and hollering. I literally became half-deaf until Mrs. Thomas calmed everyone down, her brow furrowed nervously as she slowly raised her cell phone. There was one notification on it, but I couldn’t see it since I was all the way in the back. However, by the way everyone was hollering even louder now, I knew that it couldn’t be good. “Um, class,” she began as the bus driver pulled over a side of the road. “The bus has broken down. And our guide…is out sick.”

—-----Chapter Two—----

LOST IN THE RAINFOREST

    Immediately, my head began to shake. My world began to spin, but I corrected it quickly. I was having a panic attack. My stomach began to spring out butterflies, but my breathing grabbed a net and caught them. However, my head was still flooding with worries. What if we starved and never made it home? What would happen then? Who would tell Reggie, my poor doggie? My world began to spin again, until I felt a hand on my shoulder.

 “Kara, are you alright?” asked XuanJin, who always seems to keep calm in stressful situations. “We won’t starve, if that’s what you’re worried about. I have enough food in my knapsack to last us a couple of days, or until the bus is fixed.”
    “Really?!” Hanna sprang into action hungrily. “Whaddayahave?!”

    XuanJin peered inside the bag with a frown as everyone began to pour out of the bus’s open doors. “Chocolate chip granola bars, some bottled water, oranges, some apple slices, banana chips, avocado moisturizing

hand cream-wait, that’s not even food…oh, and my favorite: Cuckoo Kitten’s Coco Loco Coconutty Coconuto Coconut Cream Coco Coconut Chips!”

Everyone but Mrs. Thomas had already poured out of the bus. She looked back at us. “Girls, come on out of the bus!”

    We looked at each other. XuanJin returned Hanna’s Pop-It and we hopped out of the bus.

    Some chaperone parents had set up a little tent camp on the outskirts of the rainforest. The trees were so dense, behind it was just pure darkness.

    I sat down near one of the tents and sighed. This had been scary at first, but now it was just plain boring. I looked up again. This time, I saw a light glow coming from through the trees. The rain had dimmed down, and I was bored. The air was still moist…the perfect environment for a little…discovery.

    I grabbed Hanna and XuanJin and led them to behind a tent.

“You guys, can we go on a little walk? I mean, it would be fun, right?” I asked excitedly.

    “Um…Kara? I don’t really…” Hanna began, but I cut her off. “No! We have to! Please! It’s so boring here!”

    “Fine,” Hanna sighed, but XuanJin made her best momma face. “But you promise we won’t wander off the trail.”
    “Yeah, yeah, okay,” I shrugged. “C’mon, just grab your knapsack and go!”

    “But-shouldn’t we let Mrs. Thomas knOoOoOoOwWwWwW?!?!?!??!?!” XuanJin’s voice echoed as I dragged her deeper into the rainforest.

After wandering for some time, the rainforest had gotten…

    Variable.

    Sometimes we would wander into a spot where the sunlight pierced the forest floor and there were birds chirping and cool breezes blowing through the air, and sometimes we would wander into an area where it was dark, like a cave. Anyway, after a bit of wandering…

    We…maybe got off trail.

“KARA!!!” Hanna screamed before she froze up. She tends to do that in stressful situations. XuanJin just bit her nails.

    “You dragged me away so fast that you didn’t even give me time to get my knapsack with all the food in it! I only managed to take an empty one!” XuanJin sighed, shaking her head. “It’s alright, I guess. Apparently, 80% of the world’s food is found in tropical rainforests, like this one. You know what? Go climb a tree and try to locate camp again. I’ll go look for food.”

    And with that, XuanJin was gone.

    I grabbed Hanna and shook her free of her shock. We scaled a tall tree and began climbing upward. The bark gave us blisters and the thorns pierced our hands, but we ended up on a really tall branch. 

    “Owwwwwww…” Hanna groaned as we reached the branch and sat down. “I got a thorn in my hand…”

 I didn’t really pay much attention to her. I was searching our surroundings for the camp.

    Then I heard Hanna scream, and a thump, as if some kind of…

humanoid animal had just fallen onto a lower branch…

    No-HANNA!!!

—-----Chapter Three—-----

THE BATHROOM-BROWN SNAKE

    Hanna screamed again as she landed on a sharp branch below. I knew she hadn’t died because she kept screaming very loudly. At that moment, I also heard a terrible cracking noise as she hit the branch below, arms first. Then I heard an angry hiss resound from behind me. 

    A brown tree snake. And a rare one, too-I estimated it to be almost eleven feet long. I screamed as well as I crawled down the scratchy bark to where Hanna lay. I didn’t look back, but I swear I could hear the hissing get louder and louder until it was right on top of me.

Right as I was about to touch the ground, XuanJin returned with a knapsack full of coconuts and avocados. She screamed as she saw Hanna dangling from her one good arm. She helped Hanna off the branch, grabbed her, and began running, dragging Hanna and her knapsack of coconuts and avocados.

    Meanwhile, I was still shimmying down the tree. As soon as I got to around five feet from the bottom, I jumped and began running as well. My ankle twisted a bit, but I could still run, unlike Hanna, so I sprinted after them.

We ran for a while until Hanna couldn’t be dragged anymore, and she plopped her butt down onto the ground. We listened around for a short time and decided that the snake was gone. We were in a brighter part of the rainforest, with lots of sunlight and trees. Spider monkeys swung through the branches and birds sang as they flew through the trees. We all sat down and just admired the beauty of the rainforest for a while. Surprisingly, the rain had cleared up, and the air was moist and cool. I closed my eyes and just enjoyed my life for a bit, until Hanna spoke. “I’m really glad we’re out of there.” It was simple and quick, but it told all of us everything we needed to know about today.

    “Yeah,” I agreed softly, laying down on the ground. “Should we try heading back now? I'm ready to be done with this adventure."

“Let’s have dinner first,” XuanJin opened her knapsack and pulled out a coconut. She sliced a small hole in it with a pocket knife and stuck a purple straw into it. She repeated this process for another two coconuts. Hanna and I got teal straws.

    I sat up and we all just sipped coconut juice in silence for a while, until the coconut water was completely drained from all of the fruits. Then, XuanJin handed me the pocketknife, and I sliced open all the coconuts. We ate the fruit inside it, which was still sort of juicy, and then we began to set up camp. Well, not really. It was just a knapsack and a couple of picnic blankets.

    As the sky began to turn darker, we all slept. Tomorrow, though, we would start moving back towards the bus.

—------Chapter Four—------

SPIDER MONKEY SCOWER

    We had been camping and moving and camping and moving for a couple nights now. Our food supply was running low, and we had no idea where we were going. We were just trying to move towards a tall, climbable tree.