The Kid Who Cried

SUPERVOLCANO!

Written by Ben Kennedy and Sriparna Saha

Illustrated by Elizabeth Mordensky

Once upon a time there was a little girl
named Ash and she loved volcanoes.

One day her teacher announced to her

class that they were going to
Yellowstone National Park.

Ash was so excited to visit a

Supervolcano!

Maybe a little too excited...

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At the Park, Ash ignored her teachers and the warning signposts. She ran ahead of
the class, following the volcano sounds and smells. She ran off the track desperate
to see, smell and hear the Supervolcano.

But she couldn’t find it. She was tired from running, so she sat down by a stream
and thought...

“This super volcano can’t be that super if I can’t even see it.”

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 She couldn’t see it, but she could smell it and hear it
bubbling. Suddenly the stream squirted boiling water at her.

“YAAAAAAAAAAAAW!”
The water burned her hand.

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She was furious at the volcano for attacking her.
She now imagined the volcano as a dangerous SUPER-MONSTER
that hid in the forest and attacked little kids.

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Ash ran back to the path and yelled

“SUPERVOLCANO!
It attacked me! It is going to super-erupt and attack everybody in
America!”

The teachers and other children got scared. They all started running
too.

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 The scared teachers and class arrived at the
Supervolcano monitoring centre. The scientists were
worried by all the commotion and they went to check
their monitoring equipment, but everything looked
calm.

The kind scientists calmed Ash down and helped her

with her burnt hand.

They then explained:

“We are already inside the supervolcano! It is all

around us and can be a dangerous place if you don’t
follow the signs, even when it is not going to erupt.”

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 The scientist explained that “The Supervolcano is not a big mean erupting
supermonster, but more like a sleepy stone giant.

The giant sleeps for thousands of years at a time. It has a heart of hot magma
and is always breathing. The giant’s magma heart and sleepy breaths are why
Yellowstone is always hot and steamy.

The teachers and class were

happy with the explanation.

Ash apologised for making

everyone so worried.

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 A few years later, Ash visited Yellowstone again with her school. She was
famous in her class because she had a cool volcano scar on her hand
where the volcano giant had bitten her.

Ash wanted to show her classmates how much she knew about
Supervolcanoes.

Beside one of the hot bubbling pools, Ash explained to the class that the
Supervolcano was like a sleeping giant with the heart of magma.

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 Suddenly the ground started shaking, and rocks started falling from a nearby cliff.

Everyone was scared and Ash cried “SUPERVOLCANO!” again and yelled

“The giant is waking up and the super eruption is coming. RUUUUUNNNNN!

This time the teachers and class mates, didn’t believe Ash that the volcano was
going to erupt and attack everyone, but they were worried and walked calmly to
the scientists office.

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 At the office, the scientists explained that earthquakes are pretty normal for
a sleeping rock giant. When the giant snors and moves in its sleep, the ground
shakes causing earthquakes.

Although the sleeping giant of Yellowstone has had super eruptions in the past,
small eruptions are much more common. Usually there are just little rumbles.

One of the scientists even made a joke,

“Sleeping giants are pretty smelly and noisy on normal days, and sometimes they
relase puffs of smelly gas, just like a sleeping giant fart!”

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All the kids laughed, and Ash made a loud
giant fart noise with her tongue, and
everyone laughed more.

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Then the scientist said seriously,

“Farts, even from sleeping giants, can be quite

dangerous, and cause earthquakes or even small smelly
eruptions”.

But she smiled and said, “Lucky we have a pretty good

idea where these small eruptions will take place and
this area was strictly off limits!”

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 Ash grew up to become a volcanologist in
Yellowstone National Park.

She always remembered her exciting adventures as a

kid in the Park. 20 years after her first visit, there still
hadnt been an eruption.

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One day, Ash was looking at her monitoring equipment and
noticed lots of small earthquakes and gas coming from an area
of the Park.

She knew this was a normal behavior for Yellowstone and not
necessarily a sign of an eruption, so she looked into it very
carefully. She had learned not to cry “supervolcano” and make
everyone scared.

She checked her data and showed the other scientists her
findings.

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 Ash arranged a meeting with all the important people in the Park and
surrounding towns.

The town hall was full of noisy, angry and scared people. Some of these
people were annoyed. They didn’t believe in the risk of volcanoes and
were just were worried about losing money. Others were scared of a
supereruption.

Ash remembered what the scientist had explained to her as a kid. She new
just how to get their attention….She bravely stood up and cried out:

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“Sleeping Giant Fart!”

Everyone was very shocked,

some smiled, but after she
explained, they understood
that small eruption was
possible but a large eruption
was unlikely, they closed the
cracked area of the park to
keep people away.

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 A few weeks later a small eruption occurred
from one of the cracks in the closed off area
but no one was hurt, the people of the town
and visitors to the park thanked Ash for
keeping them safe.

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 And the Giant...

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…He could sleep easy again, feeling quite relieved.

One day he would wake up, but he felt he could sleep

soundly for a few more thousand years.

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