This story was written by Isabelle Gallacher, and was inspired by the 4 Elements of Nature, which is the Comenius Project of Gairloch High School.

1. Hannah’s Story
Floating alone on her raft in the water,
all Hannah could see for miles was the
still blue ocean, no land in sight.
Suddenly with no warning the sky went
extremely dark and bigger waves
shook her raft. It felt as if she had
been on the raft for weeks, or even
months. She was tired – she hadn’t
slept for days because of the noises
her boat was making before it sank a
couple of days ago. She lay on her
raft staring at the dark sky, wondering
if she would ever be found, and so,
reluctantly, Hannah fell asleep
She was wakened by the sound of
birds flying above her. She flopped her
arms off her raft, expecting her hands
to touch water, but she didn’t – it was
sand. Her raft had been washed up
onto a beach. Hannah wandered the
beach looking for food and some dry
sticks to attempt to make a fire,
but….nothing. She could tell it had
been raining a lot on this stretch of
land because everything was so wet.
Having no luck on the beach, she
decided to venture into the forest
which lay beyond it.
As Hannah was struggling through the
thick green foliage, she heard a
rustling sound and stopped. She didn’t
know where she was so she had no
clue what could have been lurking in
this place. Nevertheless, she made
the risky decision to carry on traipsing
through the forest.
She came to a clearing in the middle of
which were the remains of a clearly
man-made fire. That gave Hannah
some glimmer of hope that she might
be found.
Just then, a woman walked into the
clearing, then a man, then a little girl
and finally a little boy. They didn’t see
Hannah crouched behind one of the
trees. The family sat down on some
logs. Hannah took a deep breath and
slowly entered the clearing and said,
“Excuse me, can you help me?” They
looked up. They were shocked that
there was actually somebody else
here.
The mother spoke in a high-pitched
voice: “Oh, hello! Who are you? And
how did you get here?”
Hannah explained. “My name is
Hannah, and my boat sank. I’ve been
floating on my emergency raft for two

2. days. It only washed up on the shore
about an hour ago.”
She was frightened, not of the people,
but of the situation. But she was also
kind of excited too, because she had
watched all the survival programmes
on tv and always imagined herself
being in such a survival situation,
rising to the challenge and building an
amazing treehouse and living there for
ages. But she had a feeling that it
wasn’t going to be as easy as that.
“Come, join us, have something to eat
and drink. We only have berries and
things but it’s better than nothing.
We’re just waiting for our water to boil,
so you can have a drink,” said the
mother.
“Thank you! You’re being really kind,”
said Hannah.
They sat down and the mother gave
Hannah something to eat and drink.
They introduced themselves. They
were the Robertson’s. Hannah agreed
when they suggested that they should
start to build somewhere to sleep. She
took the two children to go gather
sticks and leaves for the shelter to
keep them warm. They decided to
build it in a tree so that they would be
off the ground.
The night was cold and wet. They
were all sore from sleeping in the tree
but it got easier as the days went by.
After days and days of gathering
sticks, collecting berries and boiling
water, their tree house shelter had
become quite amazing. It had ladders,
a rope bridge, comfy beds and even a
slide.
Maybe it was as easy as Hannah had
imagined, but would they ever be
found?...
Isabelle, S1