Something's Not rRight

     A faint sizzling sound interrupts my slumber, and a sweet tangy smell urges me to meet the day with enthusiasm.  I start opening my eyes, and realize that the food is much closer than I had thought.  In fact, the food is waiting for me on the “pot table.”

     “Good morning, Sleeping Beauty.  It is so good to have you up.  I thought you were dead!”  Cat just stares at me as if I were an alien, but then she loses her grip and starts laughing at me.  How I love that laugh!  It reminds me of Tieson and sunshine and friends and everything! 

     “So, when do you get up, Missy?”  I ask in sweet retaliation, getting myself out of bed.

     “I rise before the sun itself does.  Oh, and just in case you forgot, my name is Catara, not Missy.”

     “I know Catara,” I say hugging her.  “Why do you get up so early?”

     “So that I can gather food before I get too hungry.”

     “It takes you that long?”

     “When you`re collecting for two, and roasting the nuts, yes.”

     I will wake up with Cat from now on,  I resolve.  We eat the hard, crunchy nuts, and save a few for lunch.  Then we pack up her few belongings.  I pack the noticeable things, the pots, pans, three spoons, and clothes.  While I`m packing these, Cat wanders into the tall, dry grass.  I have half a mind to call her back, and ask for her help; but she may never come down from the mountain, so she needs to say good bye now.

     After I gather her things, I search for some small bag for her to carry her belongings.

     “Guess we`ll just have to use our arms.”  As I decide that this is the only option, Cat emerges from the grass with her own pack.  She turns her back to me, dumps its contents on the ground, and steps back to allow me to examine its contents.  A proud look in her eye asks me, “Do you like my treasure?”

     On the ground lies a homemade knife made from a small tree branch and a sharp, pointed rock, with several brown vines tying it together.  She also had hidden a skin filled with water, and some well-preserved nuts and berries.

     “You have some very useful things,” I tell her, “and that backpack is large enough to carry all of this plus your parents clothes and possibly even a pot or pan.”

     “It can carry a lot, because it was my dad`s pack,” she informs me.

     I`m not sure if I get her reasoning, but I believe that she may be trying to tell me that the backpack is big, because her father was strong and could handle the weight.  At any rate, I stuff her backpack with

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her personal belongings.  When I am finished, the backpack is bulging with the “treasure”: food, clothing, pots, and pans.  Since there is still room on the side, I force myself to add both of the coffin        plates to the pack.  I can`t eat off that!  I tell myself, even though I know that I will have to.

     Cat ties her water skin around her waist, and slips her knife in between the strings and her body.  I sling her light backpack onto her back, and heave mine onto my back.  If I were to compare our loads, hers would be a hatchling`s feather, and mine would be a boulder!  I guess her parents` clothes explain the weight difference.

     Once I adjust the weight of my backpack, and rest it evenly on my shoulders, we are off to face Mount Gang Pen.  We start trekking the two miles through the forest.

     “So Cat,” I begin trying to fish for something to say to break the silence.  I try to ask something, but my brain is blank.

     “Yes?”  She asks patiently, waiting for me to continue.

     “Uh…what do you want to…um…be when you grow up?”  I ask, telling myself that this is a dumb question.

     “Never hungry, someone`s daughter, and a mother.”

     Obviously, she thought this was a legitimate question, seeing how she answered it so seriously.  Never hungry.  Is this what all starving children want, and what their parents dream about for them? Never having to worry about where your next meal will come from?  While Americans go on diets to make themselves thinner, because they eat excess food, Cat is starving!  What a life!  She wakes up every day just to search for her next meal.

     “So you like little kids?”  I ask, wondering when she ever had experience with them.

     She shrugs her shoulders.  “I just know what it`s like to be an orphan, and to have no one care about you.  I want a child that I could help, one to love and be loved by, and for her to go to bed with a “good night” kiss.  I want to care for her.”

     Again, I am stunned.  Though I just met Cat, I never thought that she was this wise.  I knew she was smart, but wise never crossed my mind.

     We walk in silence until we come to the base of the mountain.  As I look up my eyes widen, and my knees give way.  “It looks much smaller from far away!”  I comment to myself, but also to Cat.

     “Let`s follow the river, it will be much easier to climb,” she says as she starts walking west, following a dirt path.  We follow this path for about a mile, but it is a much smoother course than in the hilly forest.

     When we start on this path, I begin listening for the faint rushing of the distant river.  With every step I take, the river becomes more and more distinct.  I let my feet carry me, so that I can enjoy the beauty

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around me.  Venus Fly Traps keep their mouths open, waiting for an unsuspecting insect.

     Snap!

     It catches one and digests its victim. 

     “What was that?”  Cat asks jumping.

     “Venus Fly Trap,” I reply and then walk over to the plant.  “It`s an insectivorous plant, meaning that it eats insects.”

     “What!  Why!”  Cat`s mouth drops, and she looks at me, her eyebrows lifting in concern.  

     “The plant uses the chemicals from the insects to sustain its life,” I explain. I am so glad that I just learned about this in Biology, so that I could explain it a little to Cat.

     “That doesn`t seem fair!  What did the insect ever do to it?”

     I feel like saying Honey, be glad that you live here, sheltered from the unjust world.  Lift is twisted, and she doesn`t even have a clue. 

     I pass so many gorgeous exotic plants.  Some look like they are upside down, long, dark-pink tulips.  I absolutely love the one that looks like a strawberry from the top, but I would never eat it.  It has a mouth-like structure on the side, with a yellow tongue on the top, and orange and yellow juice on the bottom.  There is a yellow lining around the mouth, and there is a small slit in the back that reminds me of Yoda.  Some other flowers look like pom-poms, and another one looks like a porcupine on a stem.

     Finally, we reach the river, and reluctantly leave the trees that provide our shade.  We are also forced to surrender the easy path for an open, rocky mountainside.  For the first few feet we have to climb up some steep rocks.  Cat scurries up with little trouble, leaving me to eat her dust.  She seats herself on the rocks, close to the edge, and stares down at me.

     It takes me much longer to climb because unwanted survival instincts kick in, filling my heart with fear.  I ponder each step before I allow myself to move an inch.  “Will this hold me?”  “Will the rocks give when I step into that crevice?”  “Isn`t this a little too high?”  These questions and “Don`t fall, Blade!” rush through my head, weighing me down.

     Once I turn my thoughts off myself though, and onto, “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me,” the climbing starts to go much smoother.

     “What took you so long?”  Cat asks when I seat myself next to her.  “Did you fall, or something?”

     “Ha, ha, very funny, Cat.  How can you climb without worrying about falling?”

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 “I climb these rocks every day during the fruit season,” she replies. “Up ahead would be the fruit, if I hadn`t eaten it all.”

     “Oh, that`s nice to know,” I laugh. 

     We climb the mountain passing a few evergreen trees, and even one or two palm trees.  It is an easy climb, because of the gradual slope.  We stop to fill our water bottles up at the river, every once in a while.  This water is probably infested with so much bacteria!  I wish that I had thought to bring along some iodine.   The sun beats down on us, as if to say, “You decided to come on this adventure, well take my rays!”  It gathers all the heat that it can muster and thrusts it at us.

     In an hour, we come upon a single withered tree that droops under the weight of its leaves.  We decide that this will probably be the best spot of shade that we will get, so we decide to rest and eat our lunch.  Cat pulls out her pouch of special berries, and we finish those off.

     “Tonight we`ll have a real supper,”  I declare.

     “A real supper?” she asks.

     “Well, one better than nuts and berries.” I show her some of the pouches from my pocket.

     “Bread? peas? and beef jerky?  What are those?” she asks reading the packages.

     “It`s some foods in the American diet.”

     After we have our lunch, we continue our journey.

     “It`s not as hot now,” Cat remarks.

    “Yeah, that`s because the sun is hiding behind the mountain,”  I point out.  

     “That`s why it`s getting darker, too.”

    “Almost too dark,” I mumble.

     We eventually reach the edge of the beginning of a forest.  It`s amazing how the land that we just passed on was dry and dead; but now we are entering an area full of lush green trees.

     “There must be more to this mountain than I had thought,”  I say to no one in particularly.

    “What?”

     “Oh nothing.”  

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     The forest is darker than the dry area, because it blocks out most of the sunlight.  It is much nicer on our backs, though, and it makes my eyelids heavy.  To keep myself awake, I grab a few berries from a bush, and raise them to my mouth.

     “WAIT!” Cat cries.

     I look around innocently, and ask, “What?”  I`m awake now!

     She snatches the smooth, yellow berries from my hand, and squeezes one.  Green ooze flows into her hand.  She raises her hand to her nose and smells it.

     “Just as I expected,” she says, reminding me of Nancy Drew, or Sherlock Holmes.

     “What is it?”

     “It`s a Sleeping Rattler.  You would have been dead in thirty seconds,”  she says matter-of-factly.

     “How did you…”

     “know?”  Cat answers, cutting me off.  “Come up with the name?  I`ll answer both questions for you.”

     I feel like saying Good, but I hadn`t even asked one.

     “When I was younger, my mom told me to stay away from snakes, especially ones that rattled.  Well, one day I was gathering food around here, and saw a bush with these berries on them.  As I went forward to get them, a snake slithered by, his tail rattling as he slithered, and he ate one of the berries that were close to the ground.  Immediately his whole body started to wriggle.  Then, starting from his backside and going up, the wriggling stopped.  In a few seconds, the snake was nowhere to be seen.”

     “What happened?”  I feel like a little kid as I ask the question.

     “He disintegrated.”

     “Wow!  Thanks for warning me,” I say, realizing how close I was to death.

     “Sure.  Remember, I`m the berry guide.  Don`t eat anything without my permission.  Do you hear me?”  Though she says this firmly, I can hear fear in her voice.  “Oh, and if we ever get separated, you can tell if it`s a Sleeping Rattler by looking at the bottom.  There is a slightly discolored scar on it.”

     I study the berry, trying to take in everything about it, from the scar to the pale yellow color and sickly firm touch.  I also squeeze the berry, and smell the sickening sweet, burning odor.  Everything about this berry spells F.I.R.E.

     We walk in silence.  Does the berry have the same effect on humans as it does on snakes?  I ask myself.  Is this why explorers never came back, because they didn`t have Cat to tell them that they were

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about to eat a berry that would disintegrate them? 

     We walk along the river`s edge, until we can barely see.  “It`s getting dark, Cat.  Let`s set up camp.”  Like we should have done an hour ago.  I drop my backpack, which by this time weighs more than the mountain.  “I`ll get the fire wood, and you can set up camp,”  I order, and then walk into the woods to hunt for some dry firewood.  After my arms are loaded with the wood, I head back to a perfect camp.  My blanket is lying right next to a stone fire place, and on the other side of the fire lies Cat`s mother`s skirt.  The pan is filled to the brim with water, for drinking and for cooking the food.

     I place the fire wood neatly in the pit, light a match, and boil the water to rid it of its guests.  In a while, I add a packet of rice and beans to the frying pan.  In half an hour, our rice and beans are cooked, have made their way to our plates, and some have even made it into our stomachs.  We eat until the food has vanished.  I then pull out some bread.  Cat takes a small piece “Yummy!  I love bread!  Can we have some tomorrow too?”

     “As long as you don`t eat it all.”

     “Oh, I`m full I just wanted to try it.”

     By now, I have to say that it is around ten o`clock.  We are both so tired from the long day, but the noises keep us from falling asleep.  Cat sits across from me, and she is almost lost in the pitch black behind her.  The howling wind whips her loose hair, and tosses my ponytail.  The trees look like they could topple over like dominoes.  This seems to bother some of the parrots, because they sing eerie songs.

     Raw….Raaaaw…Raaaaaaaaw 

     The worst part about this night is the faint, painful moaning that rips through my heart.  It sounds like a woman or small child is slowly dying.  It begs for help, but I don`t know where the groans are coming from.  They are long and drawn out, but I can hear them distinctly.  All these noises affect Cat more me.  Her whole body is shaking so hard that she can barely steady herself.  She has no control over her arms, as they will not stop shaking for even a second.  Her head jerks from side to side, as if she knew someone  was going to attack her, but she wasn`t quite sure when.  From the short glimpses that I catch of her face, I can tell that her soft blue eyes are filled with terror, and that her face is pale.

     I am about to walk over to her, when a panther gives his stomach deep warning to the word.  This startles both of us, as I quickly sit back down, and she rushes into my arms, almost tripping into the fire.

     “It`s okay.”  I say, hoping that my voice doesn`t betray my feelings.  “It`s okay.  It`s only the wind…and…and some animals.”

     After a while, fatigue sweeps over her, and she lies down on my lap.  I start singing A Mother`s Lullaby to her, to calm her down, and to drown out the haunted noises.

Close your eyes

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Go to sleep.

I`ll be here

To hold you dear.

 And when we are apart,

Remember I love you.

Tears flood my eyes, as I feel like stopping the song right there.  I had never even shared the other two verses with Tieson, but I know that Cat needs something to help her sleep, so against my own will, I continue.

Close your eyes

Rest your head

The midnight`s cry

Is passing by

An angel will keep you.

 

Close your eyes

Sleep in my arms

The night is leaving

Day has come

And harm has gone.

     I force myself to repeat the song, until I feel Cat`s head getting heavy.  Then I rest her tiny head on the ground, pull the blanket around both of us, and lay down.  Then I pick up Cat`s head, and use my arm for her pillow.  Gradually I forget about the haunting sounds, and fall into a deep sleep.