Young Illustrator Workshop

Story 1: Mr Puff and Mini Puff

It was 1200 AD when the Easter Islanders worshipped the mini Easter Island statue. The Easter Island statue was a head that could answer any question you asked it. It could answer simple questions about today’s weather, or very complicated ones like what is the meaning of the universe? When you asked it a question it’s eyes lit up and it had a deep, gravelly voice. Everyone wanted its knowledge power.

It was a scorching, hot night when the Easter Island head was last seen during the annual questioning time. A blazing fire had started in the temple where the knowledgeable head was kept, destroying everything. The last thing the head said was “I will be found by a puffer fish”.

Fast forward to today, and Mr Puff and Mini Puff have just got out of their apartment, ready to go to work. Mr Puff and Mini Puff are both puffer fish and are curators of the local museum. As they arrived at the museum, Mr Puff asked the other workers if anyone had any more information on the Easter Island Head.

“We do, it’s on Easter island,” said Grossi, one of the museum workers, “but our rival museum has already landed there.”

“The only way there is underwater,” added Cris. P. Bacon, one of the museum workers “because the island is guarded by cats.”

A chill went down Mr Puff’s spine as he hates cats.

They all got inside a World War 1 submarine. Its interior was full of pipes and gadgets. As Mr Puff turned it on it hummed to life and all of the gauges turned saying 0 mile per hour and 0 meters under the sea level.

“Mini Puff, this is an important job,” said Mr Puff, “please keep a look out for any giant squid and keep checking the water pressure.”

As they pushed a few buttons the submarine dove into the murky water. The machine beeped, to let them know they were 100 metres underwater. “So what’s our plan?” asked Cris. P. Bacon. “Do we attack the cats or trick the cats?” Mr Puff wondered for a moment. BANG!!! There was a horrible metal sound and all the lights flickered off.

As Mr Puff opened his eyes slowly, he saw darkness and blurred shapes, and then finally his eyes focussed on the dark submarine. He glanced out of the window and saw a grey, damp rock. The submarine was wedged awkwardly between rocks. He checked the mirror and found that he had a black eye and his forehead was purple and swollen.

“Cris?” asked Mr Puff, “you there?”

He found Cris. P. Bacon and Grossi both lying on the floor.

“Mini Puff” yelled Mr Puff.

Mr Puff realised that the emergency exit was open and an air tank was missing. He grabbed a tank and dived into the murky water.

“Mini Puff!” Called Mr Puff.

He found Mini Puff trying to break the rocks.

“Mini Puff! It’s dangerous waters out here and we have to get back in the submarine” shouted Mr Puff.

Suddenly a shark started to swim at Mini Puff. It was light grey and white and it was twice the size of a normal shark. Mr Puff grabbed Mini Puff and shoved him in his mouth to protect them and got his poisonous spikes ready and waited for the pain. He felt a pain all over and he could feel his poison leaving his body. The shark went white all over before floating away.

The submarine was still wedged tight between the rocks. Mr Puff went into the the submarine and searched relentlessly until he found a under water drill. He loosened both the rocks to free the submarine. They set off for the island again. Grossi and Cris were both still drowsy when they arrived. Mr Puff and Mini Puff got in their black wet suits to camouflage while they swam to the island.

While they were swimming to the island they noticed that the cats weren’t like ordinary cats. They had teeth of a sabre tooth tiger, bigger claws and they were humongous. When they got to the island they ignited a smoke bomb and threw it. Everything was covered in smoke.

As Mr Puff and Mini Puff snuck past the cats, a cat spotted them. “MEOW MEOW MEOW” it meowed to let the other cats know there are intruders. “Oh No! we were spotted by those disgusting flea infested fish eating savages” Mr Puff Gasps in disgust. A cat came up to them. It was orange and black and wore a crown.

“My name is Doctor von Fluffball” meowed King of Cats and you shall not pass” It meowed.

It pounced on Mr Puff digging its claws into his forehead. Mr Puff got out a laser pointer from his bag and pointed it at the ground. All the cats stopped doing what they were doing and pounced at the light and chased it like crazy. Mr Puff chucked it away and all the cats followed it, they started digging when they found the head. It was cracked and broken.

They took it to the submarine. Mr Puff kneeled down and said “Mini Easter Island Head what is the meaning of life?” Its eyes glowed and its mouth opened and replied to his question “The meaning of life is 42.”

The Giant Teuthida hunt

Day 1

7:00 pm

This is it, the crew and I board the submarine and begin our journey to the deep blue ocean in search of the new species of squid, the giant teuthida. It is going to be a long hard journey, so we prepare ourselves well for the upcoming events, who knows what will happen?

8:30 am

We have reached our destination at the deepest point of the ocean, the bottom of the mariana trench, we are now focusing on finding the giant teuthida, there is only 2 in the whole ocean, and we must find them, but they have only been seen on waterproof cameras, we’re not sure exactly how big they are, but we have a pretty good idea, that's when the submarine starts to shake rapidly, the whole crew falls to the ground of the vehicle and the submarine begins roll towards a nearby cave.

Day 2

9:00 am

We are all woken at the same time by the rumbling of rocks falling and blocking the entrance of the cave, destroying the submarine in the process. We are stuck in this cave underwater until we can find a way out and to the surface. We sit down and accidentally activate some sort of mechanism, making a huge boulder roll away and reveal a dark tunnel. Half of the crew says we shouldn’t go and the other half says we should, it is down to me, and I say we should take our chances.

10:30

We gather the small remainders of our stuff and head for the tunnel. We are crawling in the darkness for several minutes until we stumble into a room lit with flaming torches,there are 3 paths and 9 of us in the crew. We decide to split into 3 groups and rejoin the others later.

12:06 pm

Me and my 2 companions from the crew have been crawling through the tunnel for 1 and a half hours, when we finally come into the next room, though this looks like more of an obstacle. We know we have found the way out, or at least one of the ways out so we all agree to turn back and call the rest of the group, so we can all go through the tunnel and get out of here.

1:31 pm

We return to the last room and call down the hallways, it turns out that the other 2 groups found a way out as well and were all coming back to tell the rest of us.now we just have to decide which tunnel to take. After 5 minutes of straight up arguing and we all end up going our own ways. I have a feeling that this is not going to go well.

3:11 pm

By the time we get to the end of the tunnel again we are exhausted and our hands and knees are aching but if we want to get out of this cave, we must do it now. We begin the course by jumping up several stone pillars, leading up to a platform in front of a huge pit as deep as an abyss with razor sharp spikes at the bottom, across the pit are 3 bridges, just before we step onto one of the bridges, one of the crew members pints out a piece of rope holding up the bridge, it takes a few seconds before we notice it is almost broken, we check the other bridges and notice that the bridge on the left is missing several steps at the end, making it impossible to cross. We cross the undamaged bridge and make it to the other side safely.

3:24

We assume that the next obstacle is the last, by how close the next tunnel is, but this being the last obstacle, it is probably the hardest. In the middle of the platform is a small table with a little box sitting on the end and a tray, it looks like some sort of puzzle. I am the best at puzzles out of the 3 of us so I step up to the platform, and as soon as I pick up a piece to examine it, a number 3 shows up on the top of the table. I think it means 3 lives, 3 chances to get this right. I look at the pieces closer and notice that a piece with and eye on looks very familiar, then i realise what it is and i rapidly grab the pieces and put them into their places on the tray, I can feel the others are looking at eachother like i am some sort of mad scientist, but when i am finished with the puzzle, they are relieved i knew what i was doing. We step back and look at the picture I made, it is the very thing that got us here in the first place, the Giant Teuthida. We were so determined in escaping this cave we forgot our mission.

3:42 pm

Startled by the bridge lifting, granting our exit we are put out of our daze, we cross the bridge with a new goal set in mind. We escape the cave and find our scuba diving equipment floating in the water along with parts of the submarine. We swim around for no longer than 2 minutes and come face to face with the giant teuthida. We did it! We completed our mission. We grab a tiny fish that we know it likes from the way it looks at it and we swim up to the surface and find the rest of the crew sitting on the boat, soaking wet. As soon as they see the giant teuthida, they add faces of shock to their outfits.

THE END

The Key

Coral draped from one side of the reef to the other in this strange underwater city. Little children fast asleep did not know how great it was to have a superhero in their town.

Meanwhile Cackle the evil witch was planning to steal a key. Cackle did some horrible things over the years but they are too horrible to talk about. So one night she decided to put her nastiest plan to the test. All she had to do was get the key…the key guarded by sharks and sea monsters. Only the holder knew how to get past these guards.

As light filled the reef more animals went out into the open and were going places like school, kinder and the movies, but not Cackle. She stayed hunched over her plan and waited till dusk.

So as night fell she left. This was her first time in the open. People frowned at her as she passed in the streets. But there was something especially weird about Bubble Street – everyone seemed so happy. Cackle had always felt out of place but never this much. She was the only one that had black hair and clothes and she also had a naughty flicker in her eye. She kept walking past people smiling and people playing. Nevertheless she thought she had to keep going.

When she had arrived she went into top secret mode and started sneaking around the guards. Little did she know someone was watching her. A superhero called Monia. She was the most famous superhero in the world and she had come to stop Cackle getting the key. She continued to watch Cackle with pleasure until she thought it was time to let her know she was here. She jumped out from behind and yelled ‘gotcha’. Cackle jumped in fear then after she recovered from the scare she said ‘let’s race to the key’. They shook hands and the race began. After scrambling around at least 100 corridors Cackle sat down. But Monia was off and took this as an opportunity to keep going and to get the key first.

But soon she realized Cackle had the right idea to sit down and take a break. So she sat down but just as she did she spotted Cackle about to slot the key in the hole. Monia gathered up all her strength and lunged at the witch and grabbed the key just in time before Cackle could put the key in its spot.

‘YES I DID IT I DID IT’!!!! She shouted in glee. Cackle scowled; she would have liked to control the world with the key. But she was not going to give up. She disappeared into the night to think up another plan.

The reef was peaceful once again as coral draped from one side reef to the other in this strange underwater city.