Animal Kingdom Stories
During January to February 2024, Grimm & Co’s Saturday Club (Morning Group) focussed their attention on The Animal Kingdom Project. The young people were placed into one of four habitats: arctic, ocean, jungle or desert, and were asked to use their creativity and imagination to write a story set in their habitat.
In this book, you will find the finished stories written by our young people. From the quality of the stories, it is clear that we have some extremely talented writers in the group. I am very proud in how they've worked together to create some absolutely fantastic work and even performed it to the rest of the group! Well done Saturday Club team!
Team Arctic: THE BATTLE FOR THE KITCHEN
Written by Harry, Isabelle T and Joey Illustrated by Chris Bilton
Team
Desert:
KADEN AND THE SANDSTONES
Written by Aisha, Caleb, Isabelle M and Ruben Illustrated by Rachael Burden
Team Jungle: THE TALE OF THE PLATHY MONK AND THE JUNGLE OF GOO
Written by Adam, Isaac, Leo and Mia
Illustrated by Caroline Lee
Team Ocean:
THE SECRET LIFE OF THE SINK
Written by Joss, Muhammad Ali, Noah and Violet
Illustrated by Ayesha Heaton
Team Arctic: THE BATTLE FOR THE KITCHEN
Pengmilk, Queen Isabelle, Joey, Harry, Dave, Frank and Perry were in the fridge. Pickin Nugget, who was evil, lived in the freezer. The fridge and freezer had a grand war which got very out of hand, and so the fridge and freezer compartments were separated to make sure that there was no more fighting. Everyone who lived in the freezer was evil. Especially the Pickin Nuggets, they were very, very, very evil.
The Pickin Nuggets and the rest of the creatures who lived in the freezer plotted to escape from the freezer and find the oven in the kitchen. Because they lost the grand war, the Pickin Nuggets had been locked in the freezer as punishment for seventeen years which was snowy and stormy. The Pickin Nuggets’ master plan was to heat up the fridge and make everything and everyone melt!
The only thing that would be safe and not melt was the fridge! All the loyal friends, Pengmilk, Queen Isabelle, Joey, Harry, Dave, Frank and Perry, worked together to conquer the Evil Freezer Gang or EFG for short.
The humans came into the kitchen to get some ice-cream because it was a hot and sunny day. When the freezer door opened, the Evil Freezer Gang escaped! The humans did not know that the creatures in the fridge or freezer were alive.
Instantly, the EFG threw mouldy mushed up peas into the fridge to annoy everyone inside it. All the good and loyal creatures, who were called the United Fridge Nation (or UFN for short), were annoyed. They decided to have a big, important meeting and agreed that they must evacuate the fridge because it was no longer safe. The UFN used pipe cleaners as swords to protect themselves from the Evil
Freezer Gang. They used feathers to tickle them if they get too close. The EFG came to attack the UFN.
Pengmilk sacrificed himself by spilling milk from his carton to distract the EFG. The EFG came over and started to drink some of the spilt milk. However, they left some of it and it then turned into mouldy peng cheese. Due to Pengmilk’s bravery, the UFN had the courage to escape the fridge and ran onto the battlefield.
The Battle of The Kitchen started in the year –1 Celsius and had been happening for 2023 years.
Before the battle started, a giant Shaun the Sheep randomly entered the battlefield and ate some carrots. Both the creatures from the fridge and freezer had to work together to move Shaun the Sheep. Then Shaun ate the pengcarrots.
Pogurt exploded himself, the stench which was a mouldy smell made Shaun the Sheep run away in fear and swear vengeance. (But in reality, he was never seen again!).
Now that the battle could continue, Paghetti from EFG (but he was secretly a wuss) attempted to go and turn on the oven with his extremely wobbly arms because he wanted to kill all of the UFN.
The entire battlefield caught on fire because Paghetti accidentally caused the oven to explode because he didn’t know how to work it. Everyone from the EFG ran away out of cowardice apart from the powerful Pickin Nugget.
The dynamic duo, Dave and Perry worked together. Because the freezer was empty, Dave and Perry pecked their way into the freezer. They froze themselves and because they had turned into ice, they began to melt into slippy water. They then used this water to put out the fire and saved everyone in the UFN. All they had to do now was defeat the evil Pickin Nugget...
The Pickin Nugget got angry and burst into flames. The Pengmilks all united and flew into the sky together and crashed into Pickin Nugget killing him. The Pengmilks were the real heroes in this story.
Everyone in the United Fridge Nation went back safely to their fridge and danced to Shaun the Sheep the theme song. Pengmilk, Queen Isabelle, Joey, Harry, Dave, Frank and Perry and the rest of the royalties decided to ban mushy peas forever.
Team Desert: KADEN AND THE SANDSTONES
Kaden the Cactus has a friend, but he’s not really real, and he’s called Mr Catapult. Kaden thought he was real because he drew a face on him. Tiggi was his friend and helped Kaden train his catapult which was Kaden’s deadly weapon. Kaden is the main character of this story, and he is very adventurous and brave. He also lives in a sandcastle. The sandcastle has a slide that leads to an oasis so that they can drink whatever they want.
Tiggi had a friend called Snowtop who was a mountain lion that lived in the desert. Tiggi went on adventures with Kaden and Mr Catapult. They had to fight an army of scorpions and real-life gargoyles that hung off the sandcastles. The scorpions and gargoyles had sandstones.
The sandstones produced a map. A tarantula called Webs tried to take the sandstones off Kaden and his friends, so they wouldn’t get a map to get to the temple where they would place all the sandstones.
Kaden and his friends trudged through the sand to try and get to Sandcastle Temple which was as big as Buckingham Palace. Some of the sandstones needed to be replaced.
A trap was triggered and Snowtop got sucked in like quicksand. Then, the scorpions and gargoyles wanted revenge, so they decided to team up with Web, the tarantula. They wanted revenge because they wanted the sandstones back to release all the power and take over the desert. Snowtop fell into the gargoyles’ layer. Kaden and his friends tried to dig through the sand, but they came across Scales the Snake. He helped them dig deeper until they saw some grey bars that pushed out the ears of the gargoyle! Scales saw the ears and he bit into them with his venomous fangs. The gargoyle let out a scream and jumped into service. The gargoyle raised his claws to Scales who dodged the attack with ease and he slithered away. Kaden and his friends followed.
The gargoyles swam below the sand and flew him and his friends for the rest of the journey to get to Sandcastle Temple. They all felt relieved and took a deep breath.
They trudged their way into the temple. On the way, they faced many traps; big boulders dashed towards them, and they had to jump to get away. The next trap was a crashing spike wall, and they had to find a door to escape. Then they had to run from a boulder, and they needed to run to the
door and close it and place the sandstones. They were scared because they thought they would get caught.
“Wait a second,” said Kaden. “WE’RE MISSING THE OTHER SANDSTONES!”
Scales smirked.
“I’ve got the other sandstones” chuckled Scales. They all cheered and placed all the sandstones, and a flash blasted them out of the temple. Suddenly, the gargoyles, the
scorpions and Webs melted to death and the desert was saved.
Team Jungle: THE TALE OF THE PLATHY MONK AND THE JUNGLE OF GOO
The Plathy Monk was swinging on a vine, and it broke whilst the Spilagian was swimming. The Plathy Monk fell into the Spilagian and almost drowned. Suddenly, a mysterious animal saved it.
The mysterious animal dragged the Plathy Monk and the Spilagian into a cave where they were dry and safe.
There was a poof of blue smoke and the Plathy Monk woke up afraid and confused.
Where is he? The mysterious creature had disappeared. Seconds later, the Spilagian woke up. A tall, bearded man with a big belly and clothes made up of animal skin arose from the shadows.
He said, “If you don’t get out of my cave your skull will be on my clothes like all of these animals.”
They stood there for a few minutes - curious but also annoyed.
The Cave Man got closer to them. Suddenly, there was a flash. It was like lightning but from the ground. The mysterious creature returned. Its teeth were dripping with drool.
But it said, “Don’t worry I will look after you.”
He had come through a portal, and he took them back to the jungle where he lived too.
When they left the jungle, it was lovely and bright. When they got back it was all dark, there was lots of goo, and the houses had fallen down because of the goo.
While they were looking at the jungle, another monster appeared. This time it was an evil monster. It looked like it had too much plastic surgery for an animal.
The evil monster turned everything into quicksand. They sank into the quicksand. There was lots of goo on top. They were stuck! How would they escape the evil monster?
The Plathy Monk thought and said, “Oh my gosh, what shall we do? I think I need a stick. A very big stick!”
He had a magic flute to use and he said, “Caboom Cabee. Come to me.”
The stick appeared. It was brown with lots of moss on it. The Plathy Monk gave it to the Spilagian but it was too heavy for the Spilagian so he gave it back.
The Plathy Monk thought of another idea. He used TNT to make an explosion. The quicksand exploded and went hard like concrete and they escaped through a gap in the concrete.
The evil monster blew up into the blue flames which showed that it was very hot. It was very hot and so it sent him to Brazil, South America.
The Plathy Monk and the Spilagian now knew they had magic powers and so they used them to put the jungle back together and make it safe.
And then... – THE END (Or is it?) –
Team Ocean: THE SECRET LIFE OF THE SINK
A long, long, long time ago, the freezer was melting and so the penguins put all the melting ice in the sink for it to melt into water.
A couple of years later, the animals who lived in the freezer (aka, everyone's enemies) programmed the vehicle, The Sloth Mobile, with Swimming Sloth driving inside to crash into Sushi-N and the Sushi Shop. (Five years in sink time is five hours in human time.)
Everyone in the Sushi Shop was scared and surprised because Swimming Sloth was trying to steer the Sloth Mobile, but the steering wheel wouldn’t budge!
Wait a sec, we haven’t introduced ourselves...
First off, we’ve got Swimming Sloth. He was a friendly sloth with scales. He thought all sloths were really fast like him but they’re actually really slow!
Next up we have Neola, who was a swimming unicorn with a rainbow mane and tail and most importantly they were really kind.
We also have Lila, the underwater dragon, the only one of her kind. She really enjoyed helping other people.
Finally, we have Sushi-N, he enjoyed eating baby whales, but his insides were a play area.
Right, let’s get back to the story now.
Luckily, Swimming Sloth, only crashed into a table, but Neola and Lila bumped into each other avoiding the car and they all landed in a big heap. At that moment, Sushi-N walked in with a plate of sushi, dropped it and also landed in the big heap.
Neola, Lila, Sushi N and Swimming Sloth had to rebuild the Sloth Mobile, using drift glass for the windows, drift wood for the outside and seaweed from Sushi-N's sushi shop for the seats.
Suddenly the Sloth Mobile’s headlights started blinking and a grin spread across the front.
“Hi, I’m Bob,” the Sloth Mobile said.
“Hello,” gawped Lila, Neola, Sushi-N and Swimming Sloth.
“Get in,” said Bob. “Let’s go and see our friends Pengmilk, Pake, Pencumber and Dave in the fridge.”
When they arrived Pengmilk, Neola, Lila, Sushi-N and Swimming Sloth gave them a shell, some sea glass and some very fashionable sea glasses.
THE END –
Note to reader:
Find out what happens next in The Secret Life of the Sandcastle by Sophie Scales!