The Bushfire Rescue
by Emely Weiler, age 11
A deafening boom filled the night, and a blazing light appeared. An immense wave of heat washed through the forest. Roo, a little kangaroo was cowering inside his mother’s pouch, shaking fearfully.
“Don’t you worry, Roo,” she soothed, “We´re going to be fine.”
There was no rain, just bolts of lightning slashed through the air. Due to one low strike of lightning, one of the tall eucalyptus trees had been struck and it was burning fiercely. Screeches of distressed birds echoed, as the burning tree collapsed, right onto the other trees. In less than a minute, half of Makepeace Island in Tewantin was engulfed in orange light.
Out of the smoke, Roo saw a dirty grey bundle crawling towards them.
“Mum,” Roo cried, “Look! There´s a koala crawling out of the flames! If we don’t save him, he´ll die! Please, Mum, take him into your pouch. We can both fit inside it! Oh, please, Mama.”
“Of course, we will take him to safety,” Mama agreed, “No one is allowed to die!”
They bounded to the poor koala and Mama lifted him inside her pouch.
“Thank God that you saved me,” he rasped, “I would have died otherwise. Many animals are in danger. We have to save them from the burning fire!”
The koala was a bit big, so there was a squish inside the pouch but neither of them complained. They jumped to every living thing they saw and picked it up to save it, and by the end of five scary minutes, there were ten animals inside Kanga´s pouch. Ouch!
Out of the smoke, came a mob of kangaroos that stopped short when they saw the walking zoo. Half of them had pouches and joeys, and when they saw what a load of animals one poor kangaroo was carrying, they all helped to carry some of the animals.
All except one. “I will not carry filthy animals that will make my pouch stink!” she protested, “I won´t do it!”
“Oh, come on, Columba,” the other kangaroos urged. “It would help us to get somewhere faster! Help us!”
“If I carry any animals, I won´t be fast enough to escape if the fire reaches me. Then my joey and I will die. Too dangerous.”
“Don’t be a snob, Columba,” the kangaroos sighed. “Please?”
“Oh, fine,” the rude kangaroo huffed, “I´ll carry some. But only light and little ones so my poor tiny joey won´t get squashed.”
There were only little animals left for her to carry, so it was perfect. The joey inside the pouch was as snobbish as her mum and it started to complain about being stuffed inside her with other animals, even though she only had two snakes inside it. Like mother like child. Everyone ignored the pair and Kanga took the lead to bring all the animals to the beach as quick as possible.
The complaining from the rude joey continued until the mother kangaroo saw a tiny joey crawling out of the flaming trees. “Stop!” she ordered, “I have to save that poor little joey!”
The scared joey barely had enough strength to hold itself upright, it was just pulling itself along the ground, crying softly.
“Here,” the mother said quietly, “I´ll carry you to the beach.” She lifted the poorly joey into her pouch and quickly followed the other nervous animals.
“Mum!” the little snobbish kangaroo whined. “The new one smells!”
“You behave yourself, Mitzi,” the kangaroo glared, “otherwise you can walk to the beach!”
That shut him up, and he was silent.
***
The trees around them were burning, so they had to move fast. The group rushed towards the beach, but the path they usually took was on fire! They couldn’t go that way! They stopped to catch some breath and then galloped towards the other part of the island. Luckily this way was still clear from any fire, so they arrived at the beach in a short time.
There was only one building on the island (it was a hotel), but at the moment no one lived there except the owners, and they could escape the fire with their helicopter. The beach was filled with birds and other animals that ran away from the fire. Suddenly, Kanga, the mother of Roo, had an idea.
“What if the birds all work together to bring us to the land?” she exclaimed, “They could save all the animals that are here!”
“What a good idea!” the others chimed, “Let´s get off this island!”
They called all the birds to them at once to hold a big meeting.
“Hello, feathery friends!” Kanga cried, “Could you help all the animals to escape from Makepeace Island? We would love it if you would, so could you think about it right now, if possible?”
“Of course we will help!” the birds squawked, “Let´s make a plan.”
They huddled together and started to tweet to each other.
After a few minutes, they came up with a plan to carry everyone over to the shore on palm leaves.
Everybody helped to find palm leaves and after some time, a huge pile of leaves was lying on the sand.
“Attention, everybody,” the eagle screeched, “I want every animal that is able to swim to the shore to stand over here!”
One-third of the animals went over to him.
“Now,” he ordered, “Everyone who is less than a year old come over here, and make a line next to the ones that can swim.”
Half of the animals that couldn’t swim went over and formed a line next to the swimmers. Roo kissed his mum and left for the line of the babies.
“See you soon, darling,” she whispered. “See you in a while!”
Roo bounded over to the line and sat down, waiting for what was going to happen next.
***
Two large paws lifted him up and popped him into a massive palm leaf. The animal patted him on the head and grabbed another baby and plopped it in beside Roo. It was Mitzi, the baby joey who had complained about having animals share his pouch for two minutes.
“What do you think is going to happen now?” Mitzi sounded so lost that Roo felt sorry for the little kangaroo, even though his complaining had annoyed everyone.
“Well,” Roo began, “I´m not really sure that I know.”
“Oh,” the joey pouted, “Are we going to survive this?”
“Of course we are!” Roo said briskly. “Unless you want to die?”
“No!” was the horrified reply.
While they had been talking, ten more animals had joined them in the palm. Twenty birds came over, and started to position themselves around the leaf, and then lifted it slowly into the air. With twelve animals on board, which weighed more than one kilogram each, they felt like they weren’t moving at all. Scared that they might get dropped, Roo and the other joey clung to the sides, watching the ground move in slow motion.
“Do you think we´re going to make it?” the joey whispered, “I´m scared!”
“We´ll be fine,” Roo comforted him, “What´s your name?”
“My name is Mitzi,” the joey said.
Time passed, and they floated over the river inside the palm.
“Land!” Roo shouted when he saw trees ahead, “I see land!”
The whole party of babies laughed excitedly and peered over the edges to see it too.
Splash! A baby possum leaned over too far and fell into the blue water.
“Oh no!” Roo cried in dismay, “It´s going to drown! Someone has to go and save it!”
Luckily, one bird saw the accident and squawked to the other birds to keep flying while he dove down and saved the poor possum that was looking like it was coming up for the last time. The birds kept flapping their wings and they made much more progress without the fat little possum. When the little animal was onboard the palm leaf again, all the babies sighed with deep relief.
“Can´t possums swim?” Mitzi questioned the tired mammal, “My mummy said all possums can swim.”
“Yes, adult possums can swim,” the brushtail possum explained, gasping for air, “but they don’t teach the babies to swim until they are two years old, because normally the babies are carried on their parents´ backs until we are one-and-a-half. It´s not normal to have to swim before that age. I have never experienced any kind of fire either. I don’t think I like it much. Can kangaroos swim when they are babies?”
“Kangaroos can swim, but only when they are in danger.” Roo replied, “My mum only had to swim once with me because we had to escape from a fox. She had to seal me inside the pouch so that I wouldn’t drown! It was awfully hot in there without the pouch open. But at least we got away from the fox.”
The sound of something scratching the bottom of the leaf made the newly made friends jump. The next second, a green vine slapped Mitzi right into his furry snout.
“Ouch!” he squeaked, “That hurt!”
“Can you lift us up a bit?” Roo requested to the birds. “I want to see if my mum is on her way.”
The birds flapped their wings hard, and the animals could see the other animals coming towards them, all on palm leaves. Kanga was floating towards him, together with three other kangaroos.
“Hi Mama!” Roo shouted, “Here we are!”
The birds were tired of their flight over the water, and the palm was sinking slowly towards the ground below them. When the group was a few feet over the grass, two birds accidently lost their grip on the slippery leaf and the whole troop tumbled off and fell through the air, screaming. The landing wasn’t a very good one, but all of the animals had thick fur so no-one got hurt, and when everyone was standing, they laughed about the interesting escape they had had.
One by one, the other animals arrived at the forest, and all the mothers came over to their babies and greeted them with a hug. Roo was also reunited with his mother, and he told her all about the adventure that they had had while flying over the river in a leaf. Then he showed her his new friends, and the mother of the possum invited them over for lunch, and thanked Roo again and again for helping to save her little baby.
Toot, toot!
A massive boat came chugging along the shore and stopped at the place where they were gathered. Out of the driver´s cabin, came two men and they walked over to the animals.
“Hello there!” one greeted them, “We are here to bring you back to the island. Some of our men went there and now there is no fire anymore.”
The animals could understand the humans well, but the humans couldn’t understand the animals.
Roo wanted to hop to the man, but Kanga grabbed his tail and pulled him back.
“Mum!” Roo turned. “Why can´t I go to that man? I´m sure he´s nice.”
“You can´t be too careful with strangers, Roo,” she said sternly. “Don’t go running to people if you have just seen them and think that they are kind. Wait until he says something again.”
The man had seen Kanga´s bristled reaction, so he tried to comfort her and make her feel safe. “Hello you,” he began softly, “I´m here to help.”
As he had thought, Roo went forward, and this time Kanga didn’t even try to stop him from going to the man. Chuckling softly, the man reached down and scratched Roo behind his left ear. Kanga tensed, but when she saw how Roo was loving it, she came over too.
***
After their ride in the boat back to the island, the animals ran to their homes to check if their houses were still intact. Kanga and little Roo went to have a lovely lunch with the possum family, who were forever grateful.
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Image: Lord Derby Kangaroo, Aroe Kangaroo, Parry’s Kangaroo, Woolly Kangaroo, Brush Tailed Kangaroo, Rat-Tailed Hypsiprymnus, and Rabbit-Eared Perameles. Digitally enhanced from our own original edition of A History of the Earth and Animated Nature (1820) by Oliver Goldsmith (1730-1774). Public domain.
