The Silver Elephant, part 3

It is wrong to steal, and know one likes a thief… but as my uncle always says,’ treasure is treasure.’

That little elephant became mine, and I was wondering what was so special about it… when the Ninja struck.

She swung up from the trees and landed- katana at the ready.

She lept towards me and I dodged aside.

She stabbed at me and I jumped away.

Then the cage began to rock.

As the floor swung under us, I fell. The Ninja fell on top of me.

With on hand she begun to strangle ne, with the other she reached for the elephant.

The cage swung again and we fell apart. I rolled out and fell down into the lagoon. As I fell, I lost my grip on the silver elephant.

A moment later, I heard the silver elephant singing to me.

Immediately, I dived down for it..

Through that clear water, past those strange fish, i saw to the elephant. I grasped it, and swam up again.

There was no sign of the Ninja, so I swam to shore where my family were waiting.

It was a pretty little thing, that elephant. It was a bit bigger than my thumb and beautifully carved, but I could not see why it was a ‘Great Treasure.’

‘This is not THE Silver Elephant, lad,’ Uncle bloodbeard explained,’ but it will lead us to the real one.’

Back on ship, Aunty June put the elephant on our map of ‘Out East’ Then she began to sing a slow, sweet song in a language which i did not know.

That little elephant sang back to her and started walking across the map. It was- at that time- the strangest thing which I had ever seen..

The elephant did not have far to walk. It soon sat down on an island not far from us, and stopped singing.

‘We’ve got it!’ I shouted.

‘Only half lad,’ my uncle reminded me.

The name of the tiny island where the elephant sat was ‘Monkey Island. That was where we sailed. Castaway Island did not have real castaways, so I wondered if Monkey Island would have real monkeys.

It did.

As soon as we landed on the shore, a family of monkeys ran out of the tree line, showing their fangs and screaming.

My family easily eat them of with the spades they were carrying, but the monkeys were almost as big as me. I was wrestled to the sand. O held it by its neck and kept it at arm's length. Then a second monkey started scratching and biting at my leg.

Luckily, Johnny came to my rescue. He fired his pistol into the air and scared off the monkeys.

As my aunt bandaged my led, I looked around the island. It looked about a mile long, was covered in palm trees, and had a steep mountain in the middle. I hoped that my family did not plan to dig up the entire place.

Fortunately not.

Bloodbeard took the silver elephant out of his pocket and put it down on the sand. As soon as aunt june sang to it, it started walking. We followed. It had tiny legs, so we followed it for hours.

I hoped that we would find the treasure before the Ninja attacked again.

We followed it up to the top of the mountain, where it stopped singing and sat down. Then we dug.

It did not take long before we hit solid silver. We dug carefully around it.

Down and down we dug. Wider and deeper. Hour after sweaty hour.

Then it was finally there… in a pit, 3 yards deep and 9 yards wide…

A life sized silver elephant.

‘Wow!’ I gasped. ‘The greatest treasure on Earth!’

‘Yes, and we found it,’ aunty june smiled.

‘Quite an adventure, eh?’ Uncle bloodleard roared.

‘Aye, but how will we get it back to the ship?’ I asked.

‘What lad?’ Aunty June asked.

‘It must weigh 20 tons, how will we move it?’ said I.

‘Don’t be daft lad, what on earth would I want all that silver for?’ said Bloodbeard.

Johnny and Aunty June laughed.

I could not see the joke.

‘It’s all about the adventure, lad,’ Johnney told me.

‘What? Why did we go all this way? I could have died… Why?’

‘For the adventure,’ said loodbeard. ‘To find the treasure. We got the whole lot, not half! That can very be taken from us,’ said Bloodbeard.

Aunty Jane and Johnny nodded.

That was that. We went home.

I did not understand my family in those days.

We were different from other people.

The End.