Marty the Motorcycling Giraffe
Story 38 Marty and the treasure map part 1 Victor’s close call
It was a Friday afternoon and Marty the motorcycling giraffe was hard at work with is friends Peter and Victor, they had finished cleaning the windows of the tall building in Nairobi for the week and were now hard at work cleaning the lorries and trucks at Mr Makuchi’s yard, when suddenly they heard the roar of a motorcycling and the lads' friend Emmanuelle (the farmer) came whizzing into the yard.
Emmanuelle parked his motorcycle and ran across to the others shouting excitingly holding a large rather tatty looking piece of paper.
“Marty, Peter, Victor, looked what I found, when I was planting some coffee plants in my field today”
“What is it?” asked Peter “it looks like a bit of rubbish”
“Oh its not rubbish” replied Emmanuelle, who then exclaimed rather grandly “It is a TREASURE MAP!!”
“Wow really? Let me see” shouted Victor, and he tried to grab he map
“Steady on Victor, don’t rip the map it’s very fragile” said Emmanuelle rather crossly.
Emmanuelle then rolled the map out on the floor and the all gathered round to take a good look at it.
Emmanuelle explained hat the map seems t be in the Turkana area of northern Kenya, and it leads to a spot on an island in Lake Turkana where the treasure is buried”.
“It could be the ancient treasure of a Masai or Turkana chief” explained Emmanuelle.
“Why don’t we visit Lake Turkana this weekend and see if we can find the treasure, it will be a great adventure” said Marty
So they started to plan their trip, Marty and Emmanuelle would go on their Motorcycles and Peter and Victor will go in Peter’s van with Peter’s wife Gloria.
“I will pick up Gillian as well” said Marty “she told me she would like to go on an adventure with me one day”
Victor was still looking at the map and had a puzzled look on hi face,
“Why has the mountain, on the island where the treasure is, drawn with a hole in its top?”
“That’s because eh mountain on the central island on Lake Turkana is a volcano” Emmanuelle informed Victor.
“Oh!” said Victor “that’s a bit dangerous isn’t it?”
“It’s not the volcano you have to worry about” laughed Emmanuelle “it’s all the crocodiles in the lake that are the real danger”
“I don’t like crocodiles” said Victor nervously “they are very scary”.
“You’ll be alright” laughed Peter who added “come on Marty, Victor let’s get the cleaning of these trucks finished s that we can get home for same rest , before making an early start searching for Emmanuelle’s reassure tomorrow”
They agreed they would meet at Peter’s yard at 8 in the morning, Emmanuelle set of home to his farm and left the others to finish cleaning Mr Makoushi’s trucks and vans.
As soon as he was finished working Mary rushed off home to have some dinner (twigs and leaves of course) and to get to bed for an early night.
The next morning Marty got up before the sun rose and was soon whizzing out of Nairobi and he had reached the Masai Mara as the daybreak spread a beautiful orange glow across the African plain as the sun rose above horizon.
Soon Marty reached the part where the giraffes like to spend the night; he found Gillian and woke her up to tell her all about the treasure map and the trip to Lake Turkana.
“That sounds wonderful” said Gillian “I have always wanted to go on a real adventure with you Marty” and she gave him a little kiss and went to get ready.
Gillian got ready very quickly and was soon sat behind Marty on his motorcycle, while little Georgina who had woken up a soon as Marty had arrived and had listened to everything they said, ran up to Marty and Gillian excitedly shouting “Uncle Marty uncle Marty bring some treasure back for me”
“Hush” Said Gillian “you’ll wake the others and of course we will bring something back for you,”
With that Marty accelerated his motorcycle and with a roar Marty and Gillian started to whizz away.
“The other giraffes will certainly be awake now” laughed Gillian
It wasn’t long before Marty and Gillian arrived at Peter’s window cleaning yard in Nairobi
“Come on” shouted Peter “let’s get going we have a long way to go”
And off they shot out of the yard and into the roads heading north out of Nairobi with Peters van in front and Marty (with Gillian as a pillion passenger) and Emmanuelle following behind on their motorcycles.
It was a long drive to Turkana and they had to pass over the equator and through the Samburu national park before eventually arriving at the banks of Lake Turkana , in the early evening.
On the coast of the lake, the six adventurers stopped for a rest and to have something to eat before hiring a couple of rowing boats from the local fisher men to get across the lake to the island where the treasure is.
Gloria had packed a lovely picnic hamper with all types of different food in it for everyone to eat, but Marty and Gillian preferred to eat the twigs and leafs from the top of some acacia tress that were growing nearby.
After eating Peter worked a deal with the local fisherman to hire two rowing boats.
Marty, Gillian and Emmanuelle climbed into one of the boats and Peter, Gloria and Victor got into the other
“bahati nzuri ya kupata hazina, bali kuangalia mamba” ~(good luck finding the treasure, but watch out for the crocodiles) shouted the fisherman that hired them the rowing boats.
“Let’s have a race to other side” shouted Victor
“You sit down and don’t do any thing silly” scolded Peter in reply and set off to row across the very large lake towards the island in the distance.
As the two boats crossed the lake the six adventurers saw some very large turtles swimming close by to the their boats and in the distance they could see some very large and very scary crocodiles lying at the top of the water basking in the last of the days hot sun.
Because of all the hard work he does on his farm, Emmanuelle has very strong arms and when it was his turn to row, his Marty and Gillian’s boat started to get ahead of Peter, Gloria and Victor’s boat.
This got Victor a little excited and he stood at the front of his boat and shouted to Peter, “come on Peter row faster”
But a small wave in the lake caused the boat to rock and Victor slipped and with a great big splash he fell into the water.
Because of the wares on the lake Peter’s boat was quickly some distance from Victor who was left splashing in the water shouting for help. A large crocodile saw what was going on and thought to himself that a trainee window cleaner would make a very tasty supper, and started to swim towards Victor with hungry looking grin on his face.
Marty, Gillian and Emmanuelle saw what happened and the turned their boat around and Emmanuelle, with his big strong muscles, started to row very fast to where Victor was splashing in the lake.
It soon became a bit of a race over who would get to Victor first, Emmanuelle, Marty and Gillian or the crocodile. Just as it looked like the crocodile was going to win and Victor was going to be a tasty snack, Marty stretched his long neck over the edge of the boat and grabbed Victor by is collar and pulled him up to the boat.
As Victor was raised out of the water the crocodile tried to grab him but he was just too late, with his big bite missing Victor by inches.
Victor sat very quietly for the rest of the trip across the lake. And once they had all arrived safely across to the island, they gathered some wood together and lit a big fire to get Victor dry and decided that as it was now getting quite dark they would put up their tents and spent the night on the island before hunting for the treasure in the morning.
Because they are so tall Marty and Gillian’s head and neck stick out of their tents, so they put up their tents opposite each other so that they could lie with with heads next to each other.
Before they went to sleep they looked up at the night sky and chatted about what more adventures this trip will bring for
Marty the motorcycling giraffe
Look out for the nesxt thrilling installment as Marty's year of adventure continues next Saturday (March 17rh 2012) with story 40 Marty and the treasure map part 2 Marty and the large treasure chest
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