Walking the Tree (47 page)

  Lots of people were there already, including Dickson, one of the grown-ups. He is so awful. He teases us kids. Hides in the branches to frighten us and he takes our food sometimes because he's bigger. We were eating food and talking at the celebration and he peed on people. I couldn't believe it. I wouldn't do that. The grown-ups laughed as if it was funny.

  Later he picked up one of the other children, not me. If he'd picked me up I would have screamed. But Zygo loved it. Loved being spun around so fast he was nearly sick. The grown-ups said stop, but Zygo said keep going. He is young. He's wilder than I am and makes fun of me. He's not brave, though. When I look into the ghost cave, he screams with the rest of them.

  I like the emptiness of the ghost cave. The fact no one else goes in there, looks in there. The fact it is mine alone.

  Sometimes I feel this hard nut of something in my stomach. I think it's hate. I feel like I hate Dickson, hate Zygo. Sometimes I even hate my mother. And I hate being told what to do.

 

I was bored, listening to the grown-up talk. I sat there, though, because they want you to and sometimes it's easier doing what the grown-ups say.

  You don't just get to eat and play when there's a celebration. You have to listen to stories and rules and future plans.

  "The Tale teller makes a good story boring," I said to the other children later. "Come with me and I'll tell you the real story of the Tree and the noise inside it. If you are scared you should stay with the adults. You don't belong with the children." Most of them followed me up to the base of the Tree. I made them press into the thick leaves. I like it in there.

  "There is a massive insect inside, a giant termite, nibbling away at the flesh of the Tree. They say if you scrape your shin on the bark, leave any skerrick of yourself behind, the insect will come for you. Once he's had a taste of you he'll come to gobble you up."

  They ran screaming from the Tree down to the safety of the water. They are not used to hearing bad things; in our community children are never hungry and we are treated well. We are not beaten. Our sins are punished with discussions, long, dull discussions about what should and shouldn't be.

  Every time I looked at Dad I pleaded with my eyes. "Ask her! Talk to her!" He did start talking to Mother about school, and about how my life would be if I didn't go. He whispered other things, too. Grown-up things which made her smile.

 

They announced the teachers and crabby Lillah is one of them. She actually smiled and didn't seem crabby while we celebrated. Rham said to me and Zygo, "She might be fun." They are both going, of course, and Borag too, and three or four others. The teachers are Lillah, Melia, Thea, Erica and Agara.

  I wanted to be happy for them, but I couldn't do it. I didn't think I was going.

  Lillah saw me sitting alone and walked over. "Morace, I'm sure you'll be coming with us. Your father talks a lot about it." My mother hates my father talking to the young women.

  "It's her that's the problem," I said.

  "I'll talk to her. It can't hurt me if she hates me; I'll probably never see her again."

  That's the thing with the teachers. They don't come back. They find a new village to live in and they stay there.

  "Yes, please!" I said. "If I have to wait for the next school to leave, the children will be even younger. I can't be friends with children who still need help to wipe their bottoms."

  She laughed. She is turning out to be not so bad after all. Most of them wouldn't even know I was worried about it, so I think she might be all right.

 

Mother welcomed Lillah in her tight-faced way. She spoke so quietly Lillah couldn't hear her, until finally Lillah sent me away to find a smoothstone so my mother would be able to speak normally, not try to keep me from hearing.

  I hid under the window. My friend Rham saw me outside and came over and stood with me. I didn't want her to hear any of my secrets. She is too smart. I caused an argument with her and she threw her hair back in anger and walked away. So she didn't hear what I heard. Mother played her foolish talking, lying game and I listened outside the window, wanting to run in and push her over. The words were muffled by our window coverings. Oh, Mother and her secrets. I thought I knew them all. But here were two. Two things I didn't know. She said "Can I trust you, Lillah?" then she said she was very sick.

  I felt so bad about it. It meant that she might die and I couldn't bear the thought of that. Plus, what about me? What if people thought I was sick with Spikes and decided to treat me? I didn't want to die. I was too young and I had not even been to school yet. How could she do this to me?

  She said she didn't want me to know, but how would she think I wouldn't?

  And then she told the next secret. A terrible, wonderful thing.

  My father is not my father. I don't understand. Myrist is. Lillah's father Myrist is my father also. So Lillah is my sister, my half-sister. Such a wonderful thing. And then so is Logan half my brother! And then so is that baby half my nephew, or is he quarter my nephew? He's mine, anyway. I belong.

  But my father is not my father.

 

After all that, she said yes. I'm going to school.

 

Lillah's turning out to be really good. She took me to see Aracauri. He hasn't got legs that work but he's got the strongest arms you've ever seen.

  He gave me a great hat with flaps on the side so I only had to look ahead. It was to keep the world small, he said. I like small places. I hate looking along the beach, out to sea. It's endless. I want to know when something will stop.

  The hat blocks a lot of view off and I like that. Aracauri told us a story which made me think he was like me; he said he used to wear it because he used to hate open spaces but now he didn't. He might have been lying but he seemed to be truthful.

 

I can't believe Mum is letting me go to school. I thought she'd say no, and I'd be left here with the babies and the old people. The other children see the sand and the beach as places to explore. They don't think ahead. I do. I see sharp rocks, spiny fish, poison food. If I think about it, everything ahead is danger. I want to be like them. Fearless. Not like my mother.

 

I can't believe I'm about to go. Leave home to walk around the Tree. I can't believe she's letting me go.

  I look at my father. The one I've always thought of as my father. I will miss him. I feel bad leaving him behind. I'll miss him. They say you barely recognise your parents when you get back.

  I have his smoothstone. He gave it to me. I never thought I'd own this; I thought it would sit on the shelf, forever. Or until Mum and Dad died, but it would be too late for me to go anywhere, then. I'd be grown-up. An old man.

  The one who really is my father? I don't care about him. I am too scared to talk to him in case he finds me weak.

 

Is it bad I feel so happy to be leaving Mum behind? Even ten steps away I feel better. My nostrils are clear, and I smell salt air, the Tree. The smell of Mum's illness has gone. I stink, though. No wonder the other children keep away from me. It was so clear away from home. I can fix that, easy. They'll like me soon enough.

Hopefully.

 

 

 

The further away from home, the more I only wanted to look at my feet. The water was so big away from our community and I didn't know if around any corner, behind any rock, a huge sea monster lay in wait to swipe me out to sea with his tail. Break my legs, my back, and I lie face down and can't breathe.

  I tried to hold Lillah's hand but she was too busy being excited. I felt like running back to the fathers and saying, "You've chosen the wrong one. This one is mean and doesn't care for the children."

  I felt like saying, "Hey, sister." But Mum had warned me I had to keep the secret, not let anyone else know. Lillah made Mum tell me in person, which was good, because then I didn't have to pretend not to know. But Mum said never to tell anyone or I would put my life in danger.

  She always thinks of the worst thing.

  We feel tired. We have never walked for so many days before. We sleep out and we have to build a fire to cook our food every day.

  Rham took my hand. She's the smartest person I've ever met. Smarter than all the adults put together.

  "Can you believe how foolish the teachers are? We are going to have to look after them."

  We were close to the next community and the teachers were sitting in the sand rubbing the grains on their legs to make the skin smooth.

  "They are crazy. We're all going to die with them looking after us," I told the other students. "Look at them. Don't they realise we're hungry? Well, at least they die smooth."

  The children laughed at that. I like it when they think I'm funny. Back home, mostly they didn't notice me. Out here it's different.

 

Going into a new village for the first time was really strange. It looked like Ombu from the edges; the houses there were the same, and they had a seawalk to take you over the water to fish and to feel the sun if the Tree's shadow filled the island.

  But they were strangers. All new faces. They knew each other but not us.

  I let the people of Aloes put seaweed on my face. The things I'll do for a laugh. It felt bad when it was on, but my cheeks felt tingly and good when they washed it off.

  Many things are different. In Ombu, we wash in a pool of collected sea water, letting the water soak off the dirt. Here, washing yourself hurts. You go out into the water (Lillah had to walk beside me because I still felt worried about being deep in water) and using scratchy seaweed, you scrub and scrub.

  The ones I feel really sorry for are the oil-makers. They make oil here from the jasmine flowers, and the oil-makers have to wash themselves so hard their skin bleeds. They hit themselves, too. It seems as if they like the sight of blood here. I don't like it when things hurt me. These people actually scrub till they bleed.

 

This place stinks so bad of flowers we feel sick.

  It was hard to enjoy the feast when they fed us, because the smell is quite strong. It was quite good food and then they made us go to bed, but none of us could sleep because of the noise the teachers made. Drinking fermented tea makes you screech, it seems. The men watched them. The teachers danced around and they looked okay but silly. The teachers and the men started to like each other. In Ombu when that happens no one notices what the children do, so it's our chance to run around and do the things we want to do. I don't do very much. I feel worried about the water, the sand, the rocks, the Tree.

  I feel braver with Rham nearby. She is smart but not scared. She has sayings. She says, "If you think

quickly, you can get out of trouble."

  Finally, we ran around and played so much were so exhausted and we fell asleep. It was nice to be in a comfortable bed and under shelter.

  We awoke to more shouting; the local children. Rham went to have a look. She came running back.

  "Thea's boyfriend has Spikes and they're going to treat him." Spikes is the disease you get which turns your insides smooth. I hope my mother doesn't have it, but they will say she has and say I have, too.

  We dressed and ran to see. Thea stood by herself crying but none of us wanted to go near her. Some adults you do not want to be alone with. They hurt you. Thea doesn't hurt you but she looks as if she wants to. Rham says she drowned her own sister, but who knows.

  We know two children drowned when Thea was supposed to be looking after them. The adults say, "Oh, poor Thea, it must have been terrible," but I know Thea doesn't think it's terrible at all.

  The local kids said, "You brought Spikes with you. We didn't have it before." I thought they stared at me; how could they know that my mother was sick? But Lillah said, "This man was infected long before we arrived. We are the ones in danger." The children backed away and I hoped none of their fathers would be angry with Lillah.

 

We couldn't believe what they did to the man they said had Spikes. The teachers tried to cover our eyes, but hearing his screams was worse. They beat him with sticks until he bled. Borag was sick in the bushes, then she went to her bed. Rham couldn't believe it. Zygo and I watched until the end. I don't know why it didn't make him sick. I know I never want to be beaten like that, though. Zygo fidgeted, jumped around. He seemed almost excited. I pretended I wasn't sick but I hated it.

 

Our time to leave came and we weren't too sorry.

  Partly I wanted to go home because I didn't know what would be next. But I couldn't go back. This was my only chance in all my life to explore. When I get back from school I'll be a village boy, man, old man. I'll marry a teacher who comes through, hopefully one like Melia, and our children will go to school, and on it will go.

 
 
 

I didn't want to walk so far again so soon, but you have to walk with school. That's what you do. We had two extra people with us. One was a lady who was having a baby but she had to have it in Ailanthus. Her name was Corma. Her husband was here, too. I liked him. His name was Hippocast. We all liked having him with us. He was shy, nervous of walking, but I liked hearing his deep voice. He carried us when we were tired.

We took it in turns to be tired.

 

We stopped at the market. I've never seen anything like it before. There was a man running it and he hardly had to see people at all, only when they came to the market. He had his room all to himself and he ate what he wanted to eat. He didn't have to worry about anyone else.