A Day in the Life of a Toucan.

by

Tiffany Aslam

One summer, my three friends and I decided to go on a desert trekking holiday in South America. We had all packed our suitcases and ready to hit the road. We grabbed our tickets passports and left. While we were in a taxi to the airport, I felt a shudder of excitement – I knew that something special was going to happen…

A few hours later, we were all jetting off to the scorching western border of South America. The plane journey seemed to last days, but when we arrived there the sights were well worth it. You could see for miles, and as we had arrived mid-morning, there was a fresh, crisp breeze in the air. The sun was tepid and bright, but not too hot. It was amazing!

We travelled on the coach for about an hour. Two of my friends, Sam and Liz, started to get restless and began twisting and turning. Saffy and I started to do an animal crossword, but my mind seemed to be on other things.

When we entered the small town of Bermuda, Cameroon, everyone was silent. It was beautiful. The coach pulled up just outside out hut, which slept four people – very convenient!

After we had booked ourselves in and unpacked, we decided had lunch. The sun had got far too hot, so Saffy and I decided that it would be a good idea to take our food to our little hut. So we thought …..

We had brought up a lot of food and were busy spreading it out on the floor. Sam was complaining that she was hungry, so she started to eat a sandwich. Suddenly, there was a strange, jerking sound and it seemed to be coming from Sam At first, we had thought she was choking a little, but then she rapidly evolved from a human into a SLOTH!

Everyone started screaming – Sam had changed into a sloth! For a bit of fun, I tried one of these watercress sandwiches. I started to make the same funny noises, but I started to evolve into a TOUCAN! Now we had ‘Sam the Sloth’ and ‘Tiff the toucan’! The other two ate one of these sandwiches, and Saffy turned into a SPIDER MONKEY, and Liz changed into a LLAMA! It was unbelievable!

We quickly got used to our new ‘outfits’ and decided to venture outside. It was hard, because we didn’t want to scare people that saw a jungle coming out of a camping hut! We all somehow managed to sneak past everyone without them catching sight of us, and crept down a few dusty roads. It was hard for Liz, because she had such a long neck, and me for I had to fly!

Sam soon got tired so she hung upside down on the branch of a tree – a bit too unsteadily as she fell off twice before she got the ‘hang’ of it! On our way to wherever the track led us, Liz and I left Saffy with a group of mad monkeys who suddenly seemed to take a liking to her. So Liz and I were left to wander the streets alone.

That was until we found a lost map. We followed a path that we assumed was the one leading off the road we were already on. Our eyes started to sting from the blazing sun and the dusty red sand on the paths. I few up high, straight above of Liz the llama. Occasionally, when we stopped to rest, I nested myself on top of Liz’s head.

We carried on following the path until we came to a gleaming, crystal clear stream. We were now desperate to become human again. All of a sudden, I heard a voice. And again. And again. It seemed to be coming from the bottom of the stream.. Now Liz had started to hear it too. We listened carefully and figured out that it was trying to tell us something. I swept down the very top of the water and saw something. I stayed there – shocked, and began to wonder what this creature was.

It seemed to read my mind, as the sea-creature started to introduce itself to me. It told me that it had been changed from a human to a sea monster four years ago – just like us. After a long conversation, I had found out some very interesting facts, so I flew up again to tell Liz. Apparently, you needed to find a hidden treasure map, follow the path in gold, and release yourself. Surely this could not be the map that we had?

I thanked the sea monster and we carried on with our journey. Sure enough, after we followed the gold path, we cam to a dead end. A voice welcomed us. “What are you doing here?” said the voice. After explaining, he told us to fetch our friends. We told Sam, but she wanted to stay a sloth and sleep all day, every day. We told Saffy, but she wanted to stay a spider monkey and play and swing around in the jungle all day, every day. “Looks like it’s just me and you then” I said.“Sure is I suppose we’d better go and tell the voice” replied Liz, a worried look on her face.

We explained what had happened, and agreed to the conditions that he gave us to re-evolve back to humans again. Suddenly Liz and I both made strange, jerking noises and we were human again!

We explained what had happened, and agreed to the conditions that he gave us to re-evolve back to humans again. Suddenly Liz and I both made strange, jerking noises and we were humans again!

I had never run so fast in my life when we returned to our hut. It was great being Tiff the toucan, but I definitely prefer being a human again.