By Kinza Siddiqui, Cypress, TX, grade 10
I had no idea why they were standing there and looking at me. I slowly walked toward them, but they didn’t even flinch; just stared directly ahead. Did they want some food? I slyly pulled out a banana from my backpack.
“Here monkeys”, I offered.
They all looked toward the banana and the smallest monkey quickly snatched it and then all of them ran.
What the-? I thought, until I heard the growl. I slowly turned around and saw why the monkeys ran. In front of me was a Bengal tiger. It’s black and orange stripes glowed in the sunlight and its eyes were looking at me.
“Good tiger, good tiger” I nervously said as I backed up slowly.
This tiger was going to have me for dinner if I didn’t getaway soon. I glanced around at my surrounding for a quick way to escape. All around me were emergent trees, “Maybe if I climbed them?” I thought to myself. As the tiger was approaching closer to me, I grabbed onto the nearest tree, and started up. “ROWR” the tiger growled. “Not today, sweetheart” I screamed as I climbed higher.
When I figured I had climbed enough, I rested on a tree branch. With the weight of my backpack and the fast climbing, I was sweating all over. I grabbed my water bottle out of my backpack and took a long gulp. Ah, refreshing, I thought. Looking down I saw that the tiger was still there, but sleeping.
“Well how about we both get some dreams?” I chuckled to myself. I rested my back against the bark of the tree and shut my eye.
I must have slept for a while, because when I woke up, I was in my room and on my bed. What had just happened? I recalled all the events of monkeys and tigers.
“May I come in?” called a voice at the door following a knock.
“Yeah,” I answered.
The door opened and my mom stepped in.
“Hey Jessica,” she greeted.
“Mom, what happened?” I asked.
“Are you feeling better now? You had a high fever last night and went to sleep early,” she responded as she combed her hands through my hair.
“Oh, that makes a lot more sense now,” I laughed.
Mom got a look of confusion on her face.
“Okay, Mom I had the craziest dream. Want to hear about it?” I asked.
She grinned and nodded her head.
“Alright, then. So, I was in a jungle and I had no idea why they were standing there…”
