Our imaginations allow us to discover things beyond the limits of the real world. When we tell stories about our incredible discoveries, we stretch the limits of other people’s worlds, too. To be discoverers, we have to be bold. We have to face uncertainty and risk making mistakes. Sound familiar? Discoverers and storytellers have a whole lot in common.

Welcome to the Discovery issue, a place of Easter bunny lairs, music-box mines, colourless puppies and colourful pencils. We hope it stretches the limits of your world.

Silver is digging for gold. The earth is hot and brown, and the sun is boiling hot. Silver is sweating very profusely. Her sweaty face glitters in the sun. She thinks she will never find gold because she has been digging a long time with her friends, Hole, Stella, and Bubbles.

Bubbles says, “why are we not finding gold?” He is wearing a cowboy hat and has a stalk of wheat in his mouth.

Hole and Stella also think this is useless because they have not found gold for ages.

Bubbles says, “why don’t we leave?”

But Hole stays and doesn’t give up. He knows he will find some gold.

Stella and Bubbles both say… “We’re off!” Then they stomp away furiously.

“Why don’t we try again?” says Silver.

A few hours later, Silver and Hole also give up because it is too hot, and now their sweat is on their clothes. They’ve just decided to leave when they hear strange music coming from the mine. It’s a little tinkling noise. Silver and Hole rush back to the mine and follow the music. They see a music box playing in the darkness. The music box is golden and shiny. Just what they need.

They rush back to tell Bubbles and Stella.

“How did you find that?” says Stella. Bubbles is also shocked to see a music box because there are no people and no shops nearby.

Silver says, “we are so lucky to find a music box in the desert. Let’s take it back home to the mountain.”

The desert is blazing hot and lizards scuttle around. There are no trees except dead stumps, and the ground is sandy and cracked with ants crawling around.

Silver has been holding the box for so long in her sweaty hands, that she drops it without realising. When they reach the mountain, Silver’s place, she notices that she’s holding nothing.

“Oh no,” says Silver.

The others say, “don’t tell me you lost it.”

“Maybe I misplaced it,” says Silver suspiciously…

The others get very angry and Stella jumps and stomps on the rock.

After that, Silver says, “I lost it…But I will find it!”

The others say, “yeah, we have to find it quickly.”

For seven days, they search where they walked until finally, they start to hear the music. When the music gets louder, they are closer. Silver hears a loud tinkling noise and follows the sound to a bush. She finds the music box behind the bush, which has been burnt by a fire. She quickly tells the others, talking excitedly as if it were her birthday.

They make a museum and display the music box only for them.

One morning, I was drawing in my drawing book when suddenly, my pictures started moving. I was drawing a beach for my school art fair. Water started spilling out of the paper; sand was all over the carpet. I put the drawing down on the table. The water and sand stopped spilling out. I wondered what caused it.

My colour pencils?

I turned a new page in my drawing book. I quickly drew a banana and then bananas started tumbling out. Wow! What is with these pencils? I suspiciously studied the packet they came from. It appeared to be normal.

I continued drawing things that I wanted. Art supplies, candy, clothes (designed by me of course), stationery, jewellery and electronics. By the time I had finished, my room was full. I looked out the window and it was pitch black outside. I checked my watch; it was eleven o’clock at night. I had spent so much time drawing that I wasted a whole day. I wandered over to my bed and drifted off to sleep.

The next day, I went to show my best friend, Layla. She didn’t believe me at the start, but then I showed her. She was hungry, so I drew some fluffy pancakes with maple syrup. Yummy, right?

I drew the pancakes and titled the page, waiting for the pancakes to slip out. I waited. The pancakes still hadn’t come out.

Layla didn’t believe me at all now. I didn’t know what had happened. I did it before and my own house and it worked perfectly. I showed her my drawing of a t-shirt, and then the video I recorded of the t-shirt coming out of the drawing. It was only then that Layla believed me.

I walked home wondering what had happened. Maybe it was only a one off thing, a thing that only happens once and then stops forever.

I think that’s what happened.

But I hope it happens again.

Once upon a magical land, there was a god, a rainbow and a magic puppy named White. The magic puppy was called White because he only ate white things, like parmesan cheese.

One day, the magic puppy stole six colours from a big town. The big town was named Rumpus Lumpus, and it was the most colourful town in the world.

The rainbow, which shone over Rumpus Lumpus, got angry at the magic puppy and threw colours at him. So the magic puppy thought it would be funny to steal fourteen colours the next day.

Now the rainbow was sad, because Rumpus Lumpus had no colours left. So the Rainbow God came down from the clouds in the sky. He went to the puppy and used his magic finger, making a magic spell to curse the puppy away.

The magic puppy, White, was made to walk all the way to the sea, where everything was white.

The magical Rainbow God took the colours back from the puppy and gave the colours back to the rainbow and Rumpus Lumpus. Everyone lived happily ever after.

Lots of our favourite stories show their characters discovering new worlds--Peter Pan, The Chronicles of Narnia, and Alice in Wonderland, just to name a few!

Imagine if you stumbled across an unlikely portal to a new world…

• How did you get there? Through a wardrobe? A rabbit hole?
• What are the differences between the real world and your world? What’s the weather like? Are there thirteen months in the year?
• What is a problem in this new world that you have to fix before you go home?

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