Karina Palma

     High up in the Peruvian mountains lived a girl and her family. The girl's name was Karina Palma and her family was guinea pig farmers. Her parents would raise the guinea pigs and when ready, round them up and travel to a nearby city to sell them while she stayed home to watch the rest of them. Karina loved all of the guinea pigs that they raised on the farm. She would play with all of them and treat them as if they were her own children.
   
     One day while Karina's parents traveled to the city, a strange man came up to the village. He walked up to Karina and asked her if he could buy a handful of the guinea pigs. She told him that the ones at the farm were not ready to be sold yet and that her parents were taking some to the nearby city. Disappointed, the man told her about how he was going to cook them. Shock by what she had just heard, Karina pushed the man out of the way and grabbed all of the guinea pigs, threw them into a basket and fled the farm.

     Not knowing what to do, Karina ran to the nearest cave and rested inside. She stayed in the cave for hours thinking about why her parents would sell off the guinea pigs as food. She was very stressed. She looked over at the tiny guinea pigs inside the basket and felt sad that people would actually eat them. She grabbed the basket and held it tightly in her arms and rocked the guinea pigs and herself to sleep.

     Early the next morning, Karina woke up to the sound of her parents calling for her. She tried to hide, but her father came into the cave before she could even move. He asked her why she ran off with the guinea pigs. She told them the story of the man and how she was upset when she found out that people ate guinea pigs instead of keeping them as pets.
 
     Both of them laughed because they knew that strange old man. They told her that they never sell guinea pigs to him for the fact that he will eat them. She then asked what the guinea pigs were really being sold for. Her mother chuckled and told her to traveled with them back to the village to see for herself. Karina wiped her angry tears off her face and collected the basket full of guinea pigs and followed her parents out of the cave.

     Once in the city, Karina was very excited to see that the guinea pigs that she helps raised were in fact pets and not being used as food. She ran through the city meeting guinea pigs that she hadn't seen in a long time and going around telling people about all she knew about guinea pigs. Years to follow, Karina would venture to the city with either her mom or dad and helped find great homes for he precious guinea pig friends.