Kiwi Wars

 KIWI WARS - narrated by Regan Gifford

It was a long stormy night as we marched out into the trembling forest.  You could hear rustling everywhere.  You didn’t know when or what was going to pounce.  We prepared ourselves for the worst, writing to our loved ones, as we marched into a suicide mission. But we knew we were doing it for a good cause.  Our lives and others lives.

The pounding of our feet hit the forest floor.  The rain trembled down, leaving puddles in our footprints.  Marching everywhere trying to find…the thing.   That one thing that we needed.  The most foulest of beasts, the wolves, had got it!  We had to get it back. And that one thing was…..the kiwi egg. 

If we didn’t get that kiwi egg back….ohhhhh… we would be in trouble.  Then they’d sell it off. They’d sell the kiwi off to the stoats and who knows what would happen.  Would they eat it?  Would they turn it into a slave?  Who knows?  But the search had to go on with no interruptions.

BOOM!!!BOOM!!!!  Oh no!  The thought in my head was…it’s the wolves…it’s the great beast… the dog thumped out of a hole under a hollow tree.  As the storm went on, you could see at twilight, the sparkle of its teeth.  This was only a diversion so they could get the egg out.  The owls were also on our team.  They gave us the signal that it was a distraction. A couple of kiwis were trying to defend themselves, getting the wolf out of the way as we charged for the kiwi egg.  It dropped! Oh no!  I dived. I didn’t make…I wasn’t a very good catcher.

It smashed on the ground.  The yolk….the baby chick came out.  When the news reached The King, tears came into his eyes…for his son…was murdered that very night.  He ordered all allies to fight and destroy all those that linger with the Wolves!  As we marched out of the gate once again the lady kiwis threw flowers to us. 

Then bursting through the gate came two kiwis. With a stoat?! With ragged clothes on. 

The first kiwi said “We have found a prisoner”. 

 “Also the egg was a fake. A chicken egg.”

“How could I have mistaken an egg?” I said that to him.  “I know kiwi eggs”.

“It was a large chicken, you could say.”

“Oh well then, better get my eyes checked again.”

“That’s not important now.  We need to get the kiwi egg”.

The second kiwi said “Yes, it’s more important to get the kiwi egg than get your eyes checked.  Go! GO!

The armies of kiwis and allies marched out.  Many thousands.  Searching through the whole forest.  Then I realised, we’ve searched the whole forest.  No tracks.  Not even a trace of the kiwi egg. 

“Maybe it is out of this forest,” I told the others.  

We sent a party of kiwis out into the open world.  It was amazing.

But to our surprise, it was bigger than we thought it was.  We could not search everywhere.  It’s just physically impossible.

Each plan we had – it kept failing.  As we marched back home, the trees were coming down.  You could hear a large chopping sound, then cracks.  The wolves came rushing out screaming, then there were large dark glowing figures, moving with circling blades that were cutting down our home.  Men kiwis charged at them but we were told to hang back.  The dogs got us, we were kicked back by the men.  We were treated like vermin, rubbish.  The owls came ahead – dropped bombs – that didn’t work.  We had to get our home back!

We just didn’t know what to do though.  We slowly marched away.  Then a mouse came up with a Toothpick.   “Don’t worry. I am not one of them.  Come!  I will show you where you are evacuating too”. Some kiwis grabbed his arm and said “How can we trust him?”

 “Good luck going with him.  He might even eat us!”

“I guess he might.  But he is our only chance”, I said in a very calm voice.

We followed him up, up, up.  He wasn’t lying.  To our surprise, thousands of kiwis were up on the edge of Dawson Falls.  Each one jumping down, then going under the waterfall and not coming back up.  I got shoved down as well.  Under the waterfall was a cave!  I’d heard of this cave but I heard that it was blocked up.  It wasn’t.  It was free! 

We were all inside, keeping warm, talking to each other.  Then I heard a howl.  I realised there was one place we hadn’t checked.  Inside this cave.  The kiwi egg could be here.  It could be.

Hold on!  Was The King on our team?   He had been acting abit strange and disappearing.  But maybe that’s his way of dealing with death. I walked around the cave.  I heard howling, then whispering.  They were saying something about The King.

“….the egg.”  .  I got closer and heard properly.  The egg had hatched!  But The King was going to be….

”What?” I said quickly covering my mouth.  A strange sudden look came across the wolves face.

“Quickly send a message to him”, the wolf said.  “Tell him to leave none alive”.

The wolf!  I recognised the voice.  I just couldn’t place it.  I knew I had heard that voice somewhere before I stopped and thought for awhile.   It kept repeating in my brain.  Where had I heard it?  Whose voice was that?  I just couldn’t recognise that voice.

 As I wandered on, I heard footsteps behind me.  I turned back. But every time I turned back there was no one there.  I got frustrated so I walked back to the kiwis. They weren’t there.  Had they ran off without me?  That’s not how kiwis worked.  We’re…we’re friends.

Then I heard a snarl.  That same voice again.  Then it came to me.  It wasn’t a wolf.  That wolf wasn’t talking. That wolf had been told something.  It was Crikey the insect.  The one who had betrayed my Dad.  I got mad and ran towards the voice.  But then a massive kiwi thumped me against the wall and said “If “You run out, you’ll blow my cover and then I won’t like you.  Got that straight big boy?”

“Ahh..” I mumbled. “Ahhhh, Ummmmm. , I stuttered.  “mmmmm…..well” then I had a thought in my head but I didn’t want to say it. But it just popped out.  “Well, I am not as fat as you Big Boy”.

“Oh. Don’t you annoy me”, he said.  “Oh. Don’t you dare go there”.  Then he poked his head around the corner, the wolves were patrolling up and down the cave floor. 

“Ok listen here little man.  We’re gunna save those kiwis.  Ok?”

I said to him “You’re not the smartest guy.  I know something that no one else knows.  The King’s a betrayer”.

“I knew. I already knew that”, he said in an unsure voice.

“How did you know that then?”

“Ahhhhh….” he stammered.

Then he gripped his hands around my neck, tighter and tighter.  As my face started to turn blue he let go.

“Now, do we have a deal?” he asked me.  I nodded. 

He chucked me out and said “See ya later little man!”

I looked worried as two humungous wolves came up and grabbed my arms and took me away.

From behind the corner, the big kiwi watched and winked at me.  But what was he doing?  He was coming up behind them. He bashed their two heads together, they fell down to the ground.  I said “Are they dead?”

The humungous muscled kiwi said “No, just knocked out”.

 Suddenly, a great chanting sound  came over us.  It sounded like this.

“Kiwi King! Kiwi King! Kiwi King!” they were chanting.

I slowly walked over, and then the kiwi called me back and said. “See these wolves, they have face masks”. “C’mon, let’s dress up as one of them”.

“I’m not sure that’s gunna..eekkkkk…arggggg” I spoke as he grabbed onto my throat.

“It’s’ gunna work.  Trust me.”

 In these ridiculous costumes we walked down to the cave.  The Kiwi King came up and spoke.  “Don’t worry my wolf friends.  All the kiwi shall be dead soon enough“.

The kiwi, who was a prisoner, reached his hands down and chucked a rocket at the Kiwi King. The Kiwi King stuttered “arrggggggghhhhhhh…”

Some kind of lightning bolt was coming out of him. The wolves went “Ohhh……. the power of the Kiwi King is growing!”

“Kiwi King!” they started to chant once again.

The Kiwi prisoner was taken away, put on a table, tied down and then left there.  Interesting, I thought. What’s that table gunna do then?  There was a whole lot of Kiwis on the table.  The Kiwi King came out of the electrical chant he was in or so I thought.  He pulled a lever, something blew part of the cave out.  The great stalactites on top of the cave started shooting down.  The wolves were being pinned down to the ground.

I noticed the Kiwi King was pinned down by a stalactite as I ran to get out.

“Friend…save me” he said.

I said to him “Why should I save you? You tried killing me and everyone else in the cave.”

“I did it for the kiwis”.

“You’re killing the kiwis”.

“Please….don’t let an old kiwi die.”

I pulled the stalactite off him but he grabbed my throat and said  “Ohhhh….how dumb of you.”

I punched him on the beak. His beak shattered. I didn’t know I had that kind of power.  As I ran out, I saw….his beak wasn’t real.  It was made of some kind of eggshell or something. Then when another stone hit him, he shattered.  It was plain wood.  Inside, there was a speaker and wooden levers that some little insect was pulling.   It was Crikey the cricket again. He was controlling the Kiwi Robot King!

I ran back to squish him like a bug but another kiwi pulled me back and we got out of the cave. The cave collapsed. I wondered to myself was that…was that ….was that kiwi egg real?  Or not?   Hmmmm.

Then there was a little young kiwi that came out. I wondered how he got produced by an insect. Was the Queen a fake?  As we returned back to the palace, people were hitting the Queen. They were taken back and put in prison. The Queen was not a fake.  There was a kiwi egg produced.

 Then The Queen admitted “I was….. sort of cheating on the King and had a baby with someone else. And the King found out but raised it as his own.”

 Then the big muscly kiwi came and said “Well, I’ll tell you one thing. The King was definitely a fake”.

Then the baby walked out. “Oh na….Mama…Dada…Mama…Dada”.

The big kiwis' face cheeks went red.

“Hello Dada……I want you and Mama”, the baby said.

Everyone gasped. The big muscly mean guy had an egg with the Queen?! That didn’t make sense. 

But….we lived you could say, happily ever after.

That is the end of Kiwi Wars.