The Building of the Water-Style Volcano
“Oh!” I cried out in class. “So, that’s how a volcano works. I wonder if I could build one…”
“Yea,” said my learning coach. “Sure you could.”
Yes! Of course, I could build a volcano. I always wanted to build something ginormous. I talked it over with my brothers, Salah, Abdu, Hakeemo, and my sister, Maryam. They all agreed that it would be something awesome to do, so we set about planning. First of all, we decided it would be a water-style volcano, because we were planning to design it near the beach. In that case, it would be safe, we thought, and we began working out a plan. We decided that there will be a great basin on top of the volcano to collect rain. After that, the rain would go down a tube inside the volcano. Below that tube, there will be a huge machine that would pump the water up. Once the water is up and the volcano erupts and the sand-made mountain disappears. Three meters away from the volcano would be a number of seats for the tourists to watch the explosion. The tourists will be our parents.
“Ain’t that awesome?” I said.
"Yea. But, a volcano is H-O-T,” argued Salah.
“Yea, but our volcano is special.”
“Oh well, then. Special must it be,” agreed Salah.
Then, it was time to go to the beach and build the volcano. We went in the car while listening to Salah telling us about the plan repeatedly all the way till we got to the beach house.
Finally, we reached the beach house. We ran to the beach stepping on the sun-baked sands like lizards, ignoring the coconuts on the tall palm trees and air-conditioned house and plunged into work under the blazing heat of the sun. First, we piled up a little mountain and called it Everest. Then, we followed our designed plan, until we got stuck and couldn’t build the pump.
“Hey Salah,” I called. “You think this will work? The water goes down, but then…. what happens?”
“No,” he replied. “I’ve got an idea!”
“What?”
“Get some food coloring and we will mix that with water. Then, we will pour the colored water on top of the volcano and that way, it would look like lava.”
“That sounds awesome! Great! Let’s get working!”
I brought the food coloring and did the mixing while Salah removed the bowl and leveled the volcano. The whole idea of the pump was cancelled.
“You say we were going to make this very, very big,” said little Abdu.
“Yea,” I agreed. “But, do you think that we could?”
“No.”
“Then why are you asking?”
“I don’t know.”
“Okay. Bye.”
Now, we are all ready and set to go. Salah and I asked Maryam, who was busy looking for dead sponges on the beach, to get some chairs. She did and we placed them three meters away from Everest. That is to show our parents that we were doing something dangerous.
We called our parents and got them seated. Then, we poured the volcanic lava on top of the volcano and the lava poured out. Our parents clapped their hands but they couldn’t hold themselves while they laughed at our great accomplishment.
“Was awesome, right?” we all said together, according to the plan.
“Yea,” our parents agreed. “It is awesome. Next time, we could build one together, even more ginormous. But… We’ve got to go home.”
“Whoa! That will be fun. But give us a few moments to prepare to go back home,” I said.
We then went on placing blocks around the volcano, so that no one comes to touch and damage it. We placed a flag on top of the volcano saying “DO NOT TOUCH”.
Finally, we all went into the car, dead tired, dreaming of the volcano and thinking about how simple, simple things can actually keep you happy and entertained. Certainly, after a long, long day, we were ready to hit the bed for a lot of needed zzzs!