The Outing

Susannah was a shy but clever girl. She couldn't see too well, and had worn glasses for as long as she could remember. And again, for as long as she could remember, some of her classmates had habitually picked on her and made fun of her big glasses.

The worst thing was that Lewis had started calling her 'Four Eyes', and as he was a very popular member of the class, the nickname stuck. Now everyone knew her as Suzy Four Eyes. She acted like she didn't mind, but in fact Susannah couldn't stand it.

One day, the class went on a school outing to visit some famous caves. The children were walking towards the caves, when Lewis put his foot in a hole and slipped. While falling, he grabbed onto Susannah, who was walking next to him, and both plummeted down the hole, out of sight.

After some time they landed in a very big dark, cave. All that could be seen was a single ray of light coming from the cave roof, many metres above, and some tree roots and trunks which had fallen through the hole. Susannah and Lewis shouted for help, but no one came. Crouched together in the deathly cold of the cave, they endured a long dark night.

The next morning they still hadn't been found, and without the small ray of light from above, they wouldn't have been able to see anything at all. Lewis continued shouting for help, while he used the meagre light to look for a way out. But after hours of searching and scrambling, he had found nothing, and started feeling scared.

It must have been noontime, because Susannah noticed that the ray of light was descending from the hole in a straight line, and landing on the floor in front of her. Quickly, she took a piece of wood that had fallen into the cave, and, using her glasses as a magnifying glass, she focused the ray of light onto the wood until a little flame sprang up. Now they had a torch. Lewis watched all this with surprise and excitement. He grabbed some more branches, and off they went together, to explore the cave.

It took them some time, and they had to burn quite a few torches, but finally they found a way out. Amid hugs and cries of relief, Lewis gave Susannah his heartfelt thanks.
He knew that she couldn't stand people calling her Four Eyes, and now he regretted having given her that name. Especially seeing that it was her glasses that had saved them both. When they met up with the search party, Susannah and Lewis were faced with a barrage of questions, some even from the police and journalists.

Lewis came forward and said: "What a stroke of luck I had! I could not have been with a better fellow adventurer than Laser Light Suzy!"

Lewis told everyone what had happened, and from that day there was no longer any Four Eyes at their school. But don't ask how many Laser Light kids there are, because there are really quite a few.