I am the Loch Ness Monster.

My nickname is 'Nessie' and people have been hunting me for

generations. I am 947 years old and have lived in my grotto in Loch Ness all my life.
I am basically quite a friendly monster. I have only ever eaten one human, but he tasted very bad
so I went back to fish. I know I look a bit scary because I am so huge and my neck is so long, but I
really can't help the way I look any more than you can.
My mum had a very long neck and my dad was very dark and furry so I have inherited all of these
features.
On top of that I come from a very long line of monsters that date back to Prehistoric times. I believe
I am distantly related to a dinosaur called 'Mamenchisaurus', which lived in the late Jurassic period.
It had a body about 25 metres long and a 14-metre neck! It also had a tiny head, a huge, bulky
body and possibly it had two brains that's probably why I am so intelligent and no one has ever
caught me.
Now I'd like to tell you the story of my grotto. That's where I live. It is a huge cave about 300
metres underneath the bottom of Loch Ness, opposite the town of Drumnadrochit.
It has a very nice view of Urquhart castle when I come straight up to the surface, but nowadays
there are too many tourists and cameras waiting so I usually only use this way at night. My cave is
very comfortable and I had lived there very happily until last year when things began to get very
uncomfortable indeed.
It all began with the arrival of a mad scientist (Mad Mick) and his underwater search team. I don't
really know what they wanted but they disturbed me a lot, and then I became very anxious about
my cave.
Their first attempt to find me was just really noisy. They came out onto the lake in a boat and put
this piece of sonar equipment into the water so they could listen for sounds a 'hydrophone', I
think it's called. Of course down at the bottom of the lake the water is very dark and murky and you
can't really see much. I have to use my own sonar systems to catch fish. Anyway, one morning I
was very sleepy and my sonar systems were not working very well and I swam right into the
scientists' equipment.
OUCH!
I think I said some bad words which they picked up on their equipment. I found out later that they
said I sounded like a mixture of a 'snorting horse' and 'an eating pig' now that wasn't very nice,
was it?
So Mad Mick and the other men went off for a few days and I thought my life would be quiet after
that. But I was wrong!! The next week I was happily going for a morning swim around the bottom
of the lake when I discovered a sort of round space-ship object called a 'probe' moving around in
the dark water.
It was yellow, and through its windows I could see that man Mad Mick again. It had lots of flashing
lights and cameras, and when the men saw me the lights started flashing even more. I suppose
they wanted lots of photographs.
Suddenly, with no warning, a long dart flew out of the yellow probe and hit me in the side. OUCH!
I think it was some sort of stun gun, as I immediately felt very sleepy. I swam slowly back to my
grotto and slept for the rest of that day. When I woke up, I was still very angry with Mad Mick!
After a few days I felt better and things on the lake were quiet. The weather was nice and foggy so
I could swim around more on the surface. One day I swam all the way up to Lochend near
Inverness, which is quite a long way! The whole lake is 24 miles long, so you can imagine I was
quite tired when I got back. Just as I was having a nice rest in my cave, it started ...

... the banging sounds and then the explosions! I had a look outside my cave, and there was Mad
Mick and the yellow underwater probe again! This time it just wasn't funny! They had planted
dynamite in the rocks near my grotto. After the explosions the rocks were falling down and I
thought they would block the door to the cave!!
I went outside and decided to swim under the yellow probe and bump it. They went away in a hurry
then!
By now I was desperate. How could I get rid of Mad Mick and his stupid yellow probe before he
blocked my lovely cave? For a few days I was very depressed, but they didn't come back. I suppose
I had frightened them.
And then, a week later, help arrived. It was six o'clock in the morning and I had decided to go for
swim down the lake. It was foggy and misty and the mountains looked very black against the pale
blue sky. I swam towards the town of Invermoriston but got out of the water on the other side of
the lake. I sat down to rest on the little beach. It was very quiet, and all I could hear was the gentle
sound of the water.
Suddenly a voice said, 'Hello'.
I nearly jumped out of my skin!!
Who is it? Is it Mad Mick?
I looked round, and there was a small boy with brown hair and a red face. 'Hello, I'm Robbie,' he
said.
I wasn't scared because Robbie wasn't scared! So I said, 'Pleased to meet you.'
'Who are you?' he said.
'I'm Nessie, the Monster of the Loch.'
'Oh yes, I've heard of you. Where do you live?'
So I told him about my lovely comfortable cave and Mad Mick's efforts to destroy my front door.
'No problem,' said Robbie. 'I've got an idea!'
Robbie has got an idea. What is it?
So he went home and told his father that he had seen a strange black shape in the water, which
looked like a monster. Now, Robbie's dad worked for the local newspaper and they wrote a
wonderful story about people seeing the Loch Ness Monster at the other end of the lake.
So all the tourists with cameras, and Mad Mick and his men, all set off for the other end of the lake
to hunt for me. Of course, I didn't go there for weeks I just stayed at home in my comfortable
cave near Drumnadrochit.
Eventually the tourists, and even Mad Mick and the scientists, gave up and went away because they
couldn't find me. So now all is peaceful, and I've got a quiet life! So I'd just like to say, 'Thank you,
Robbie.''