Click! I took my tenth photo of the unique bird of paradise. I looked at the result and shook my head. It was hard to get a good picture when the bird was hopping to-and-fro like it was. Click! Click! Click! After a few more photos I gave up for the moment and decided I would come back to it later. I let go of my camera and let it swing on the straps around my neck as I ran to catch up with my two friends, who were a little ways ahead of me.
"Fiona!" one of my friends, Alissa, said to me once I reached them, panting heavily. "Look at this beautiful frog!" She reached out to a red-and-blue frog sitting on a tropical plant near the trail we were on.
"No, don't touch that!" I almost yelled, jerking her away from the frog. She looked at me in confusion. "That's a poisonous dart frog," I explained. "Even though it's gorgeous, it's poison can kill you." Alissa jumped back in alarm. "Yikes!" She said. "That was close!"
Gabriella, my other friend, sat on the other side of the trail carefully sketching a colorful flower which grew in front of her. "Isn't it amazing how beautiful everything is in the rainforest?" She said in her soft voice, admiringly gazing at her sketch as we walked up to her. Alissa and I both nodded in agreement.
Just then there was a noisy rattling in the bushes behind us. Alissa and I spun around and Gabby (that was Gabriella's nickname) jumped to her feet. We looked intently at the place where we thought the noise had come from, and I realized I was holding my breath. Suddenly, something orange and black jumped out of the bushes. I fell down backwards in shock, my camera strap slipping off and my camera clattering and rolling a foot away. I heard a click as a button was hit and my camera took a picture, but I didn't bother to think about that, because I was to worried about what stood in front of us.
I saw Gabby frozen in place out of the corner of my eye, and saw Alissa fall to her knees, also in shock, wide eyed. We all stared, terrified, at the huge tiger in front of us.
I knew that we had no time for fear, though, when I saw the tigers narrowed eyes glaring at Gabby viciously. I willed myself to slowly stand up, and was surprised when I actually found myself doing it. I kept my eyes on the tiger all the time, hoping it wouldn't attack, at least not right then. Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed a large branch near Gabby's foot, and I quietly reached out to grab it. The tiger switched his gaze to me, and began to crouch low to the ground. I quickly shoved first Gabriella then Alissa into the bushes off the edge of the trail and swung my heavy branch to meet the tiger, who was now leaping at me with bared teeth. The tiger was knocked to the ground from the blow in the face, but immediately jumped back up again and leaped at me again.
I don't remember anything after that, except for falling and seeing the tiger laying on the ground a ways away, just before everything went black.
To be continued.
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