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waking
up, but I couldn’t tell if I’d been asleep for hours or just a few minutes as the same song was being sung. It was like when Bryan Adams was number one with ‘(Everything I Do) I
Do It For You’. You couldn’t escape it.

    I was woken again when Albi and JJ came into the treehouse to sleep. The good thing is, they wear so little, there was no messing around getting undressed. They just got straight into bed. It
felt like I’d just got off to sleep again when the next thing I knew Albi was waking me up to go and see Grandmother. It was 4 a.m.! Why so early? Are we helping her do a paper round or what?
I felt sick from tiredness as I tried to get dressed in total darkness.
    As we drove up a mountain I could hear explosions and see a red glow in the sky. JJ pointed and said, ‘Grandma.’ It was a volcano.

    It didn’t really surprise me that they call a volcano ‘Grandma’. Remember, I was in a place where Prince Philip is god. As we got closer, the road we were driving on had steam
coming through it. The volcano was acting like underfloor heating. The noise of the explosions got louder as we got closer. Funny how their grandma makes a lot of rumbling noises; it’s my
auntie who is known for her explosions. She once broke wind for five minutes. She said it doesn’t happen anymore, but I just think her hearing isn’t what it used to be.
    It was difficult to know if we were in any danger as Albi continued to smile. He seemed so relaxed with it. My car insurance costs a bomb just ’cos I have on-street parking. What would it
cost me if I had one of these on my doorstep?

    We made our way up a makeshift path with a handrail that had been battered and broken in places by smouldering rock spewed out from the volcano. I asked JJ about safety and which way to run if
this thing started getting more active. JJ explained, ‘If you are running, you keep on talking or speaking to her (Grandma), telling her to be careful and to take care of you.’
    This place has got enough languages without me having to learn to speak Volcano. I was worried about a lump of it landing on me as I can’t be doing with burns. I was always burning myself
as a kid on kettles and hot plates. I don’t like frying an egg as I don’t like the way it spits out hot fat at me. This was like that but on a bigger scale. It was like one big dodgy
firework that was unpredictable. The longer the silence, the bigger the explosion seemed to be. Standing on the edge, looking down into the churning red magma made my heart pound more than when I
was on the edge of the bungee platform. It didn’t seem to bother JJ and Albi. The loud echoing booms didn’t even make them flinch.
    Apparently Angel Falls was named after a US aviator called Jimmie Angel who was the first to fly over the falls in a plane. Even though it already had a local name,
     Kerepakupai Vená, he re-named it. I think the name Angel Falls works better to attract the tourists as it’s a lot easier to remember so it was a worthwhile change. I don’t
     know why they ever bothered changing the kitchen cleaner product name from Jif to Cif though.
    I had an empty plastic bottle I’d been drinking from all morning that I wanted to chuck into the bubbling lava, but JJ said I wasn’t allowed. As far as I could see,
this would be the only advantage of having one of these things on your doorstep. It would be great to get rid of old sideboards and mattresses by just tipping them in. Surely much better on the
environment than landfill. If we had one of these in the UK they probably wouldn’t allow tipping either, but it would have nothing to do with upsetting Grandma, it would just be because
they’d lose money, as it’s £25 a time for them to come and collect big pieces of rubbish. It would also be a good place to put dead bodies. A lot more efficient than burying, and
each time you heard it exploding it would remind you of old family members who had passed away. Their ashes