The biologists' adventure ... by Melisand, aged 8

"They could see land, they could see trees and plants but not much else. What would they find there? Finn suddenly remembered a favourite old picture book where a boy sailed to a place where wild things are. Would there be wild things here he wondered?"

The reason Finn (the grasshopper) is having this flashback thought is because Finn is an amazing biologist who is exploring a discovered, but unexplored, island accompanied by another biologist called Fionar (who is a ladybird)...

As Finn jumped, and Fionar flew, out of their boat onto the mysterious island they discovered that it was covered by craters from meteorites.

"Oh no!" cried out Fionar.

"Shhhh," whispered Finn. "There may be some animals sleeping you know. We are exploring at night."

"Oops," murmured Fionar.

Little did they know that nearby a mother field mouse was stuck in a dead-end meteorite tunnel. A mean clump of walking grass had blocked the tunnel with its roots and a kind-hearted talking tree was trying to persuade the horrid grass to mind its own business and go away and forget about the field mouse.

Then both Finn and Fionar heard the quarrel going on.

"Don't you respect that poor field mouse's feelings?"

"Do you really think that we care about a field mouse? Bla... bla..!" retorted the grass rudely.

They decided to investigate.

"After all we are here to explore," said Finn.

"Um... yes..." agreed Fionar nervously, and as they came closer, they decided to be on the side of who, or what, ever it was that wasn't swearing!

Meanwhile, underground the tiny field mouse whimpered for all it was worth. "Give me a chance!" she cried. "It's not my fault I'm stuck. The blades of grass tricked me into thinking this was my friend Rabbit's hole, who I was on my way to visit."

Up above the two biologists and the wonderful tree were discussing how they could get the grass to move. But they did not know that the grass was playing a game of 'stacks on' where the blades jump on top of each other. The bottom blade heard what the field mouse said and was so surprised that a silly field mouse would realize it had been tricked that it fell in. The courageous mouse only just managed to jump out of the way as the grumpy pile of grass fell down into the tunnel.

Mia, the field mouse, scampered happily out of the tunnel into the open air. Full of joy she started tugging on Finn's trousers (Finn being the only grasshopper who wears business trousers!). Finn turned around when he felt the tugging and looked down to see Mia smiling up at him.

"Yippee! Hulloa!" he shouted.

"Hello mousey! I'm so glad you got out of that tunnel," cheered Sienna the tree.

Finn and the talking tree shouted so loudly in their excitement that they alerted five other talking trees from the forest.

"Hey mates..." said one.

"That sounds like..." called another.

"Our old friend Sienna!" shouted a third. "Let's all go and see if she needs a hand."

Near the tunnel the three were still congratulating Mia on escaping. As the trees came stumbling awkwardly along (due to having to pull up their roots with every step), Sienna exclaimed "I'm so glad you came, I was just about to send for you!"

"The sneaky grass is still down there" said Fionar pointing to the tunnel. "Would you guard the tunnel to make sure that the grass doesn't get away? It needs to be taught a lesson."

"Of course we will" said the trees together.

"Thank you" said Finn. "Do you have any ideas on how the grass can be taught some manners?"

"Oh yes ... could we please borrow some rope, butter, a mini-megaphone and a spade from your boat? We'll use them as part of a prank," replied Sienna stroking her trunk thoughtfully. "We will return them by parrot mail if you give us your address ..."

"We've had quite an adventure" said Fionar.
"Yes," agreed Finn, thinking to himself, there ARE wild things here...