“Don’t wander away from the path!” her mother told Putri.
Strolling away from the dense, random arrangement of the longhouses in the village, the sound of the jungle nymphs and calls of male insects showing off their sounds to attract the attention of females suddenly overtook the music and chatter in the village. It was a gentle slope up to her grandmother’s house, with quite a rewarding view over the forest after climbing up. Her mother always warned her of wild boars in the jungle, found in groups of 20, the size of a small elephant. They won’t attack you out of nowhere, she said, but if they feel threatened, you won’t stand a chance.
Suddenly, behind her, Putri thought she heard a rustle of leaves, and not long after that, an entire tree branch snapped off and narrowly missed her head, alerting the birds and flapping their wings off to the distant trees. Thinking it was just some monkeys playing in the trees, she dismissed it and carried on trekking through the jungle. After walking a few more minutes, Putri came across a patch of flowers that looked somewhat like the jejarum flower - translating to ‘needle flower’, but somehow standing out from the other flowers and leaves with its colour. Grandmother loves flowers, she thought. Wouldn’t it be nice if she could have something to add to her flower pot? Setting her basket aside, she made a hole in the soil below the flower, grabbing the roots so that her grandmother could grow them in her house.
“Hi, Putri.”
Startled, Putri knocked over the basket of rice and turned around, seeing a wild boar staring at her, moving its mouth in a way that looked like it was smiling.
“How do you know my name?” Putri blurted, remembering what her mother told her about not running away or making any sudden movements.
“I think that is the least of your worries now,” the boar replied, “you’re not about to touch these flowers, are you? After all, they are poisonous.”
“Oh… well thank you for that.” she mumbled, trying her best to stay calm, ignoring the fact that a fully grown wild boar, capable of knocking out men with their huge tusks.
“Where are you headed to? That sure smells nice,” moving his head to face the direction of the basket of rice, “I haven’t eaten in days!”
“Well, I’m heading to my grandmother’s house, on the top of the hill over there. I better start heading there now,” gesturing towards the basket, “the food’s getting cold.”
After saying that, the boar let out a grunt and trotted away into the mist.
Putri frantically picked up the basket, and ran like never before, wanting to get to her grandmother’s cottage as soon as she possibly could. Her heart was racing and suddenly felt a sharp pain in her knee. She figured that it must have been a thorn that was lying on the ground, but nevertheless Putri kept running. She felt that her throat was closing up and gasping for air, while sweating all over the place, and in the middle of all this she felt a trickle of rain on her head. The people in the village always warned about how there could be a flash flood suddenly overflowing the river, and how with even a little bit of rain it could mean that meanwhile there would be a thunderstorm and raining heavily a few miles away, sending tree branches and mud down the slope.
Soon after, Putri arrived at her grandmother’s cottage at the top of the hill, and breathed a sigh of relief. Going through the door, she saw her grandmother sitting on a wooden log looking out the window at the trees below, with a blanket over her. The view sure was beautiful, with the hundreds of thousands of dense deciduous trees rustling with the wind.
“Who is it?”
“It’s me, grandma, I’ve come to bring you your breakfast,” said Putri.
But when the grandmother turned to look at her, she could scarcely recognise her.
“What’s wrong with your voice? It sounds so odd. Is something wrong?” asked Putri.
“Oh, it’s nothing. Don’t you worry about me! Come, have a seat.”
“Grandmother, why do you have a blanket over you? Are you sick? Father says that he has some herbs in the village that might make you feel better.”
“It’s okay Putri. I think I just might have a bit of a cold,” adding a sneeze, “why don’t you come closer to me so that I can eat… the food. I’m so hungry!”
But upon taking a closer look at her grandmother, she noticed something peculiar.
“What’s that under your blanket, grandma?” asked Putri.
It was at this point that the blanket fell on the floor to reveal two large tusks that belonged to the wild boar that she saw earlier! The boar pounced towards Putri and was just about to grab her, when suddenly her real grandmother came from inside the closet and hit the boar with a stone. But it was not enough. It charged through the room, having had enough of all this and famished, deciding to finally have a decent meal after having days without food. Suddenly, a man came inside the room, busting open the door and knocking out the boar with a sharp tree branch.
Turns out, the man that knocked out the boar happened to be passing by her grandma’s house, heading to the stream to fill up his bucket with water. He couldn’t believe his eyes when he saw a wild boar charging towards the house, and called to the woman inside to hide. Knowing that Putri was no match for the boar, he took his grandfather’s knowledge and snapped off a tree branch. His grandfather told him, “Wild boars are the most aggressive creatures in the forest. Whatever you do, aim for the head. It’s not going to kill it, but knocking it out for a few minutes is enough time to run away before you become its dinner.”
The End
Www.
- A creative twist on the traditional tale
- Some effective descriptive detail and precise world choice to create imagery for the reader.
- A range of sentence starters to engage the reader
- Include character thought to help the reader build an even greater picture
- Use a range of paragraph and sentence lengths to further engage the reader
good detail here to create imagery
good use of show not tell
good explanation of events