Danvan in South Africa The Big Green Monster A collaborative story between three nations Part 1: Danvan in South Africa Part 2: Alexis in Canada Part 3: Eleonora and Martina in Argentina

Part 1: The green monster

Once upon a time Bob was walking along the pavement to get home from school when he saw a big, scary monster on the road. The monster looked at him curiously.

Bob was wondering what the monster would do to him when he tried to pass it. He  was also thinking about going a different way to avoid the monster, but the only way home was to pass the monster. Bob was scared to pass the monster, but he knew if he wanted to get home he would have to gather up all of his courage and then take a deep breath and just keep walking. It took him about forty steps when he could have gotten there in ten. But he finally reached the monster. The closer Bob got ,the more he realized the monster wasn't scary at all. It even had a name tag and it said Fred.

Part 2: Is the green monster friendly?

Fred was green, had two big blue eyes, and a purple nose that looked like a button. He was a bit bigger than Bob (and Bob was tall for a 9 year old boy). When Bob finally came to where he had to pass the monster his heart Was pounding. The monster, to Bob's surprise, said a friendly hello to him. Bob wondered if he should reply, but as soon as he did he wished he hadn't, because the monster grabbed him and had his arms wrapped around him tightly. Bob thought the monster was trying to crush him, but he was wrong. It turns out that the monster was hugging him. When the monster put Bob down he had a big smile on his face, and that's when the friendship started....

For the next couple of days, each time Bob would walk home, he would stop and see Fred. The two became the best of friends. They would do everything together. Their favourite thing to do was to go to an ice-cream store called Sally's Ice cream Parlour. Bob would always get one scoop of Choco Mocho, and Fred would get eleven scoops of Little Farmer Boy's Chocolate. Things were going great, until a cloudy day came.

Bob was walking home from school like usual and was all happy because today Fred said he had somthing special planned for them. When Bob got to their meeting spot, he discovered that Fred was not there. Bob wondered if this was some part of the surprise. He looked everywhere, but Fred was nowhere to be seen. Bob was getting worried, but he thought the best idea would be to go home because it was getting late. Bob crossed his fingers in  the hope that Fred would be there tomorrow.

The next day came and he still wasn't there. For the next week Fred still wasn't anywhere to be found. Bob was losing hope.

Then one day, to his surprise, he heard someone say “Hello!” in a funny voice. Bob knew it was Fred because he was the only one who talked like that. Bob was so happy that he almost started crying. Bob then asked Fred where he had been for the last week. Fred told him that  he had one to see his family. Bob thought that Fred was the only monster that existed, but he was wrong. It turned out that there was a whole other world of monsters.  Some are big, scary and mean, and only people with good imaginations can see them.

Bob asked Fred if he could show him the monster world. Fred looked worried. It was a hard trip for a human and his parents didn’t like humans. The law was that “Any monster can take humans to the monster world and can't have any sort of contact with them. If not, he can never come back to the monster world or stay in jail for 39867 years.” Fred was afraid Anyone could realize that Bob was a human. He didn’t want to be taken out of the city or go to jail.

Part 3: Monster World

Bob suddenly had an idea. He thought of dressing himself up as a monster so that nobody could realize he was a human. Fred looked at him with a face that Bob couldn't describe. They kept on thinking until they gave up. There was no idea that could be better than the one Bob had thought about at first.

The next day, Bob went to the shop to buy the costume while Fred stayed inside the trash can beside his house. It wasn’t very cheap so Bob had to ask for money to his parents. They gave him twenty dollars on condition that he had to tidy up his room.

Fred was sort of excited but worried at the same time. To be sure of what they were doing, Bob told him to repeat the procedure on how to get there. First, they both had to follow a long and narrow path till they got to a house. Next, they had to pick up ten blue roses from the strange garden and enter the house. Then, they had to get the key that was on the floating cupboard in the kitchen, open a door and follow another path into a hole. Finally they would get to Monster World.

Bob was very excited. They followed the steps and finally got to monster world. When Bob looked at the street, he saw something that was so strange and so crazy that left him astonished… There were monsters riding on monkeys, the sky was purple, there were light blue trees which had balloons instead of fruits and cars that had triangle shaped wheels instead of rounded ones. It was very strange!

Nobody noticed that Bob was there except for Fred’s brother who was the smartest monster in all the town. Fred started to sweat and to breathe hard. He was turning into red and he was about to cry. Then Bob remembered that he didn't have to be there and that maybe he should go somewhere else. And then Fred's brother shouted…..

Suddenly Bob woke up crying. His parents woke up and tried to calm him down. Bob couldn't explain what had happened but he was relieved that it was only a bad dream.