Scene 1
One sunny morning, while the jungle stretched awake beneath a warm golden sky, Boba was still curled up inside his cozy den.
He was dreaming of mangoes as big as drums when—THUMP, THUMP, THUMP!—the ground began to tremble.
“Boba! Wake up!” called Fantu, rushing through the ferns with his floppy ears flying. He skidded to a stop at the den and sent a puff of leaves dancing into the air.
Boba opened one sleepy eye. “Is breakfast chasing us?” he mumbled.
Scene 2
Fantu leaned close, his eyes sparkling. “I heard the hornbills talking about a mysterious waterfall at the other end of the jungle.”
“They say its water glows when the moon rises—blue and silver, like a river made of stars!”
Boba sprang to his paws so quickly that his leafy blanket landed on his head. “A glowing waterfall?” he cried. “We have to see it!”
Fantu grinned. This would be their very first adventure together.
Scene 3
Boba packed two mangoes, a coil of vine, and his bravest roar. Fantu packed bananas, a broad leaf for shade, and three extra bananas in case the first bananas felt lonely.
They followed an old jungle trail toward the distant hills—Boba bounding over roots and Fantu making every wooden bridge wobble like jelly.
Above them, parrots flashed between emerald leaves. On either side, two sparkling streams curled over smooth stones like silver-blue ribbons, quietly guiding the friends deeper into the jungle.
Scene 4
By midday, the friends reached a tall bamboo grove. The stalks knocked gently together: tok-tik, tok-tik, tok-tik.
“This path sounds like it is whispering,” said Boba.
A gust rushed through the grove, bending every bamboo stem toward a narrow opening. Fantu raised his trunk. “Maybe it is showing us the way.”
They squeezed through the leafy doorway and found a trail sprinkled with smooth, pale-blue stones.
Scene 5
Soon a wide river blocked their path. Its old stepping-stones were slippery, and the sleepy crocodiles nearby looked far too much like logs.
Boba tested each stone with a careful paw while Fantu stretched his trunk across the deepest gap. “Hold on!” he said.
Step by step, splash by splash, they helped each other across. When Boba slipped, Fantu caught him. When Fantu got stuck in the mud, Boba tugged his tail free.
On the far bank they bumped paw to trunk. Their first adventure was already teaching them something important: brave friends never had to be brave alone.
Scene 6
The afternoon shadows grew long. Then Boba’s ears twitched. Somewhere ahead came a low, rolling rumble.
Rrrrrrrush. Rrrrrrrush. Rrrrrrrush.
“The waterfall!” shouted Fantu.
They raced up a mossy hill, ducked beneath curtains of vines, and burst into a hidden valley. Before them, water tumbled from a silver cliff into a round, glassy pool.
It was beautiful—but it was not glowing.
Scene 7
“Perhaps the story was only a story,” said Fantu softly. The waterfall was beautiful, but its water looked perfectly ordinary.
Boba looked at the fading sky. “You said it glows at night. We only have to wait for the moon.”
So they shared their fruit beneath a giant fern while sunset painted the valley peach, pink, and purple. Fireflies blinked awake. Frogs began their evening song. Still, no moon appeared.
The jungle grew dark. Fantu yawned. Boba’s eyelids drooped. Then a silver glow crept over the top of the cliff.
At last, the moon had come.
Scene 8
The first moonbeam touched the waterfall—and the valley burst into light.
Thousands of shining rays bounced from drop to drop. Blue, violet, green, gold, and colors Boba had never seen danced across the rocks. The pool glittered as though a rainbow had shattered into a million stars.
Fantu’s ears lifted in wonder. “It is even better than the hornbills said.”
But Boba was staring beneath the water. The brightest rays were not coming from the moon. They were shining up from the bottom of the pool.
Something down there was glowing.
Scene 9
Before Fantu could say a word, Boba leaped—SPLOOOSH!—straight into the glowing pool.
Fantu gasped. “Boba!”
For one long moment, only ripples and rainbow light filled the water. Then Boba popped up, spluttering and grinning. Between his paws was a crystal that shone like a tiny captured moon.
“Look what I found!” he cried. When he turned it, beams of red, blue, and gold raced around the valley.
Fantu forgot to be worried. He cannonballed into the pool and soon lifted a green crystal in his trunk. Laughing, the friends dived again and again, gathering smooth shining stones without a second thought.
Scene 10
At last, Boba and Fantu carried their treasures onto the bank. “Seven crystals,” said Boba, placing them in a sparkling row. “I found four, and you found three.”
Fantu counted them with his trunk. “One, two, three, four, five, six, seven… eight.”
They froze.
Between the green and golden stones lay a small black crystal neither of them had found. It swallowed every ray that touched it. Then it began to beat with a slow purple light—thum… thum… thum—like a tiny heart.
The seven bright crystals suddenly rose into the air. Their beams joined above the pool and drew a glowing map of the jungle. At its very edge appeared a place no animal had ever mentioned: a mountain shaped like an enormous sleeping serpent.
The black crystal cracked open. From inside came a whisper so faint that Boba and Fantu had to lean close.
“You found the first seven,” it said. “Now find the last one… before he wakes.”
Far beyond the jungle, something enormous opened one golden eye.
Up next
Story 3
A glowing map leads two friends into crocodile waters, a dark forest, and the land of snakes.
Start next story