Living in the lava

When I went on my very first photography trip on my very first assignment, a new journalist to write about the place came with me. Her name was Taliya. She wore her dark hair in long wavy pigtails and carried a notepad everywhere. We were sent to do a report on a volcano that had risen near a lake in a country really close to the equator.

“I’ll pick you up at your house, and then we’ll catch the plane together. Get ready. I’ll be there in ten minutes,” Taliya told me on the phone. I said bye and put down the telephone. Almost finished packing, I remembered that I still needed to bring three spare cameras plus one old fashioned instant camera and twenty spare rolls of film. Because I’m known for snapping pictures nonstop, I tend to need extra rolls of film. By the time I closed my suitcase and pulled my luggage to the front door, Taliya’s car was already in the driveway.

“Hi, Taliya! Are you ready?” I asked. Taliya nodded enthusiastically, and gave me thumbs up. She opened the trunk and took my luggage from me, placing it inside.

 “The car door is open. You can make yourself comfortable,” she told me. I grinned and opened the door. I was shocked when I saw what was inside. Sure, it was a luxurious car, but something was wrong. There was a car seat inside, and a five year old was sitting in it.

“This is my little sister, Ginesca. She likes being called just Ginny, like the Ginny in Harry Potter. You know, Ron’s little sister? Anyway, she’s coming with us because our parents are on a trip somewhere else and she’s not old enough to go with them. Okay, let’s go!” Taliya told me. She revved up the engine and we got to the airport in no time.

The trip to our destination was comfortable and luxurious as well, so it was easy to have a snooze. But Ginny was complaining that the window wouldn’t open so there was no point in sitting in the window seat. Finally, Taliya switched seats with her. But then Ginny came down with chicken pox, so at the next stop, we brought her to Taliya’s grandparents’ house. So that held us up for an extra day. When we finally reached our destination, we were worn out and stressed. We went to the hotel, and got our key card. Then we unlocked our door and flopped on the beds.

The next day, we went out to start our report. First, I snapped six close-ups and three distant shots of the rocky volcano to get us started. Taliya picked up her pad and a pencil and jotted down a few notes. I watched as she scrawled down her ideas, stopping once in a while to push back a lock of her long dark hair. Suddenly I had an idea.

“Taliya! I just thought of something! Let’s climb the volcano and take a peek inside! It’ll be an excellent subject for your report, and I can get the best photo ever! Do you want to?” I asked. Taliya hesitated, then said,

“Are you sure it’s safe? Maybe it’s not a good idea. But if you really want, we can.”

“Then what are you waiting for, Taliya? Let’s go!” I said, as I grabbed her hand and pulled her onto a rock that jutted out of the bottom of the towering volcano. We climbed halfway up, then stopped for water. The volcano hadn’t completely risen yet, so there wasn’t actually very much to climb, making the trip easier. But the inside of the volcano was two times deeper than it looked, so it was pretty scary when we reached the top and peered in. But I slipped on a bit of frost that was left over from the wintertime, which had ended two weeks ago. I tried to press the tips of my boots into the volcano rock, trying to prevent myself falling. But the bit of rock broke and left me hanging on by only the tips of my fingers.

Taliya! Help!” I screamed. She grabbed my hand at the nick of time but her small hands couldn’t keep my body weight up, so I fell, down into the deep volcano…

Fortunately, Taliya had a sack full of emergency utilities, so she found a rope, and threw it down. I’m glad to say, I caught the rope. But as I said before, Taliya isn’t strong enough to hold me, so as she struggled to keep the rope up, it made me swing dangerously left to right. I was very happy to see a ledge in the wall of the volcano, so I kept the rope going, until I saw my chance. I let go of the rope, letting it fling me smack down on the ledge. I prayed the ledge wouldn’t fall and drop me again as soon as I landed, making me fall into the churning lava below. Good thing is, the ledge didn’t break, and I didn’t fall.

“Hey, Jenna! Are you fine down there? Should I do something?” Taliya yelled down to me.

“I’m okay, Taliya! Don’t worry! But I’m not sure how I’ll get out,” I called up to my partner.

“You’re alright? Are you sure? Should I come down there?” she replied. I could see her bending down over the edge of the stone, being careful not to let go of a sharp rock that was holding her up. But we’d had a BBQ for lunch, and her hands were still greasy. The rock was still wet from the morning dew, so combine grease with dew, and you get fall. Taliya fell into the volcano with me. I reached out and caught her with my hand, making sure that my foot was firmly gripping the ledge’s rock. Taliya is really skinny, so of course she is as light of a feather. I helped her onto the rock I was standing on.

“Thanks, Jenna. So how do we plan to get out?” Taliya asked.

“Well, my Uncle Ian always told me to think simple, and avoid thinking hard. Does that help?”

“Unfortunately, Jenna, no. I guess we’ll be stuck living in the lava until someone rescues us. Wait, is that a cell phone I see?” Taliya jabbed her finger at my pocket. I spotted it too and saw that I had a new text message.

“Hey! Check it out! My cousin Bob just met Johnny Depp!” I said, as I texted him back.     

“Who cares about freakin’ Bob? Let’s get to my point. We’ve got to call for help! Give me that!” Taliya screeched grabbing for my phone.

“Gimme, gimme, never get; don’t you know your manners yet?” I retorted.

“Yes I do, but not today, so gimme, gimme anyway!” Taliya replied, reaching for my phone and successfully grabbing it from me.

“Hey! That wasn’t nice!” I told Taliya, who ignored me and frantically dialed 911.

‘Help, help! My friend Jenna Roscwalitz and I, Taliya Scarlett, are trapped in a volcano down near the equator. Can you send search helicopters?” she asked. Then, she realized that nobody had actually picked up the phone yet.

“I can’t get a signal! What do we do?” she asked me. I shrugged and said,

“I don’t know, lean out?”

“Are you crazy, Jenna? I’ll fall into the hot magma! Who knows? Maybe magma (lava) is just like acid! It could possibly burn off my flesh! What do we do?” Taliya screamed

“Calm down, Taliya! It won’t hurt us if we live in the lava for a few days! Or maybe weeks. Wait, make that months… No! Make it years, or centuries or…”

“Shut up! If you don’t stop babbling your darned head off, I’ll… I’ll… push you off the ledge and into the lava! Then you’ll be sorry!” Taliya shouted at me. She stormed off onto the far end of the ledge

“Taliya, stop doing that! You could break the ledge!” I reminded her.

“Who cares about the stupid ledge?! I don’t even care if it makes us fall! I have an idea! Why don’t we just jump off and no one is going to care!” Taliya shrieked, stamping her foot angrily. Suddenly, the ledge broke off the hard volcano wall, and down we went. As our ledge fell, it pushed other large pieces of stone into the lava with us. Thank goodness, the volcano rock was buoyant, and we floated above the lava. I was afraid that the lava might actually burn the rock, and we’d still end up in the lava. But it turns out; volcano rock is also lava/magma-proof, so Taliya and I had nothing to worry about. I was sure Taliya was still mad at me for talking negative, so I hopped onto another broken ledge that had fallen. Taliya looked at me, wide eyed.

“You’re making a game out of this? Cool, can I play?” she asked. I nodded, puzzled. We hopped about, landing on different rocks as we went, until I slipped and almost fell in the lava. Then, we sat on separate slabs of rock and looked up, wondering if we’d ever get out of this volcano.

“Do you have an idea to get out, Scarlett?” I asked Taliya, calling her by her last name to see what would happen. She looked at me and laughed,

“No, I don’t. Do you, Roscwalitz?”  I pouted. I was thinking that I’d had her under a trap and she probably wouldn’t think of calling me by my own surname.

“You’re good, Scarlett!” I told my partner

“So are you, Roscwalitz!” she replied. We smiled and laughed together, until we saw the lava. It was churning like my seven brothers’ bellies when they’ve skipped lunch and dinner. Taliya told me that it sounded like her cousin Zachary when he was burping the alphabet.

“Zachary can’t actually burp the alphabet, so he goes on and on forever!” Taliya told me.

“Why is the lava churning? Is it going to erupt? Go undercover!” I screamed.

“First of all, I don’t know why the lava is churning. Second of all, how are we supposed to go undercover? We’ve got nothing with us!” Taliya replied.

“For once, Taliya, you are definitely wrong. Look, remember your sack of emergency utilities? I don’t know why, but I see an umbrella in there! Give me that! We’ll use it as a shield!” I told my partner.

“Jenna, that wouldn’t work! The lava is going to come from under us!” Taliya told me.

“Yeah, but the lava will rain back down, right?” I replied. Taliya rolled her eyes, but handed me the umbrella anyway. I was right, the lava went straight up, but we went with it!

“Aaaaaaahhhhhhh!” I screamed.

“Yikes!” Taliya shrieked. We clung to the edges of our rock slabs, just hoping for the best. I held up the umbrella, but it did nothing, like Taliya had expected. But the lava didn’t actually go OUT of the volcano. It stopped rising around the rim.

“Jenna! Grab the edge and pull yourself up!” Taliya called, doing it herself. I did it with no trouble and helped Taliya up. But we slipped on more frost! Down we fell, and at one point, the strong wind blew us in a different direction. And we landed in a safe net. Well, at least I did. Taliya fell on a trampoline.

“You had the right idea to call this rescue team, Tally!” I complemented Taliya, using a new nickname that I just made up. She glared when I said Tally, but then yelled Yippee when she bounced up and down on the trampoline.

“How come she gets a trampoline but I only get this stinky rope net? And now I have rope burns!” I complained. But the rescue team ignored my complaints because they were just happy that they’d saved us.

“Jenna, if you’re going to take a picture of the inside of the volcano again, just use a helicopter and wear a harness so you don’t fall out, okay? And Jenna, that was quite the adventure we had in that steaming place. Plus, I’m sorry I got mad at you, but I still think everything was your fault!” Taliya giggled when we were heading back home on the plane.

“Well you’re the one that agreed when I asked you if you wanted to go up!” I argued.

“I said nothing, Jenna, nothing!” Taliya said.

THE END