Fire Girl, Forest Boy

by Chloe Daykin

  My feet take over.

  I run like a frilled lizard, pumping my arms like a howler monkey.

  The path splits into three. My head turns and disconnects from my feet which skid. I slide. Screech-slipping, like a rat down a drainpipe, and crash into something solid. With a stick.

  That screams.

  Maya

  The charging thing knocks me into a tree. I hit out with my paddle and scream.

  Sometimes noise is power. That’s why lions roar, right?

  I scream till my lungs sting and hold my paddle out like a sword. If it comes near me again I’ll knock it out. No way I’m dying here in the dark eaten by a beast.

  ‘Back off!’ I yell.

  It doesn’t. It pushes me so I bounce off the tree.

  The light ball peeks out, flashes round the trunk and lights up the air between us like a laser.

  I see it isn’t a beast. It’s a boy.

  Getting jumped on from behind. By Matias.

  The boy’s knees buckle and they fall on to the floor. Matias gets his arm round the boy’s neck and the boy shouts something. Matias screams and I hit them both with the paddle to make them stop and fall back into the tree.

  Raul

  Before I can see what I crashed into, something jumps on my back. I spin round to shake it off, my elbow in its throat.

  ‘Hey, townie!’

  ‘Matias!’

  He puts a hand over my eyes and I push it off and shove him down into the mud. He gets my leg and pulls and we both go down. He gets his elbow round my throat and I bite him a bit to get free and breathe.

  He screams.

  The thing I crashed into hits us both with the stick and passes out.

  ‘Ow!’ I grab my jaw and look at Matias. His face lights up, goes dark and lights up again. ‘Your face looks weird.’ I poke his cheek.

  He puts his hands on my head and turns it to look. I see the tree. I see the thing. The thing is a girl. In the toe tree?

  My stomach lurches.

  I pull back and hold my arms up. I don’t want to touch it. Or her.

  A yellow light is cocooning her body. Pulsing and throbbing. She’s glowing.

  Nothing moves. The whole forest is watching.

  The rain patters around us. The drops hiss softly when they touch the glow.

  Matias reaches out towards her.

  I pull his arm back.

  ‘Meet Maya,’ he whispers.

  ‘You know her?’

  ‘Shh.’ He pulls away and cups his other hand over my mouth and reaches into the glow. It glimmers, then parts and shrinks away like burning plastic.

  ‘Does she usually glow?’ I say through his fingers.

  ‘No,’ he says, and lifts her up over his shoulder. ‘Last time she made light balls fall out of the sky.’

  Raul

  ‘Where were you?’ I flick both Matias’s ears for being late. And he can’t hit me back or he’ll drop the girl.

  ‘Rescuing her,’ he says. ‘You were fine on your own. Right?’ He kicks my leg and I collapse his with my knee. He keeps walking.

  ‘I think she was finer if she can make fireballs and glow.’

  ‘She doesn’t know she glows,’ Matias says.

  The darkness pulls in and dances in our faces. Fluttering in and out with the moon as the clouds fly by. Letting us see things and then not. A branch slaps me in the face.

  ‘I wish she was glowing now.’

  ‘Call this dark, townie?’ he says and trips over a stump.

  We carry her through the rain. As we get closer to the village the trees open out and we see the shadow outlines of the stilt houses, and my stomach churns. I don’t want to look at them. It’s like looking at ghosts. My old self. My old life.

  Memories creep out of the shadows and run out at me in the dark with their arms up.

  I keep my head down and walk past it all like it’s breathing down my neck. We climb up the back steps into Matias’s house and lie the girl on the table. I look up and around, trace my hand on the wood, breathe the old smells in.

  ‘You OK?’ Matias arranges Maya’s legs.

  I shrug. No. Not really.

  He takes off Maya’s boots and checks out her ankle, which is bandaged.

  I run my hand along a stack of Matias’s books.

  ‘Don’t touch that,’ he says and pushes me and picks one up off the floor. He dusts it on his shirt, puts it back on the pile and frowns. I push him back and he pulls out of the way and grins. ‘Too slow, kerango,’ he says and jumps over the balcony down to the firepit.

  It feels good to be back in the forest though. To be back in green. Trees feel more forgiving than people. I jump down to the firepit too and we light a fire and make plantain and rice. Like we used to, when our mums were busy with other stuff and each other. Proper jungle food.

  ‘What’s the caterpillar on your face, brother?’ Matias says and stirs the silver steel pot over the fire. I stroke my moustache stubble and smile. ‘You getting old, man.’ He ruffles my hair.

  I fix my eyes on the fire, avoiding the silhouettes of the other houses. Trying not to piece together what was there before. Or who. I don’t know how Matias does it. It’s like the past’s sat hunched behind me, like a silent monkey. Waiting for me to turn round and remember.

  ‘Why’d you put her on the table?’

  ‘The floor’s wood.’ He serves the food out into three bowls. ‘What if she glows and sets the place on fire? I’m not risking it.’

  ‘The table’s wood.’

  ‘If the table catches fire I can throw it out the door,’ he says and jump-pulls himself up on to the veranda with both hands.

  ‘Fair enough.’ I pass the bowls up and try to jump-pull up too, and fall flat on my back. My fingers just slip off. It’s been too long. Jungle me is fading.

  Matias leans over and laughs so hard I think he’ll wet himself.

  I take the back stairs.

  Matias is still laughing when I go in.

  He lights the kerosene lamps and does an impression of me falling off like a loose monkey. ‘Townie,’ he says and passes me a bowl.

  I take my shirt off and wring it out the back door. The rain’s thudding so hard on the roof the lamps are shaking.

  It’ll do what it always does here. Rain like a tap’s been left on and then stop like nothing ever happened and turn to mist that rises into clouds and turns us into the cloud forest.

  I go back in. The damp mists off my shorts in trails.

  I look at the girl.

  ‘She’s Scottish.’ Matias eats his food like he hasn’t eaten all week. ‘And alone.’

  That makes two of us.

  ‘You eat like a wild dog,’ I say. I guess that’s how you eat when you live alone and no one’s around or watching. He ignores me. ‘Why’s she here?’ I eat a spoonful and feel the heat sliding down inside.

  ‘The same reason you are.’

  I nearly drop the bowl.

  ‘Life’s complicated, chico,’ he says and then she sits up.

  Maya

  I wake up back in the hut. On the table. Rain hammering on the tin roof.

  My leg is twice as painful and my hand’s hurting. And my armpit.

  I squint at the fire flickering off lamps hanging from the ceiling, pushing the dark out the door. Matias and the boy stare at each other. Then me.

  I sit up and grab a boot. ‘Who are you?’ I yell at the boy. ‘Are you one of them?’

  ‘No.’ Matias takes the boot and puts it down. ‘He’s with us.’

  Since when did we become an us?

  Maybe since he keeps rescuing me?

  I look at the boy. In the lamplight and not running, he looks much friendlier. And less like a beast. He’s stroking Steven’s head and a bruise is coming up on his cheek. He looks about my age. Brown skin, black hair, no shoes.

  His eyes look smiley but sad.

  Like there’s something in them that says, don’t touch. Something he doesn’t want t
o look at himself.

  I wonder what I look like and am glad there’s no mirrors.

  ‘Sorry,’ I say. ‘About hitting you.’

  ‘De nada,’ he says (it’s nothing) and starts eating whatever’s in his bowl.

  I look around the table for leaves. ‘Am I cursed again?’

  ‘No.’ Matias smiles and sits up on the bench next to me. ‘You were caught by the toe tree. I think the forest likes you.’ He flicks a caterpillar off his ear. ‘It seems to have changed its mind.’

  ‘On what?’

  ‘To curse or bless you.’

  The boy and Matias smile at each other.

  ‘Right.’ I feel out of it and embarrassed.

  ‘Toe is sacred.’ The boy looks down into his bowl. ‘Shamans use it for healing. It’s one of the five key plants. It either heals people or kills them.’

  ‘Oh.’

  He lifts a bowl off the workbench and comes over to me. ‘Hungry?’ He flicks brown hair out of his face. ‘It’s plantain and rice.’ He has no shirt on and his shorts are dripping.

  ‘Did you spit in it?’ I’ve seen videos of jungle people chewing manioc in their mouths and spitting it back in the pot. It’s the way they make mash.

  He shakes his head and his eyes go smiley and something about him makes me trust him. Though I don’t know why. It’s like when you meet a dog and sense if it’s going to let you stroke it or bite you.

  ‘I’m Raul,’ he says.

  ‘Maya,’ I say and take the bowl.

  Maya

  The food’s nice – gentle and soft and sweet – but I still feel a bit sick. I haven’t been knocked out twice in one day – or once any day – before.

  ‘Do you know where Dad is?’ I swallow a spoon and look at Matias. If Raul is a patting dog, Matias could be a biter. I don’t know how to take him.

  ‘Yeah.’ He nudges a yellow spotted frog out the door with his foot. ‘Kind of.’

  ‘Kind of how?’

  ‘Enough to know he wasn’t kidnapped. He shot at me.’

  I spit out the rice. ‘He wouldn’t do that.’

  ‘He did and he missed.’

  ‘Whoa!’ Raul holds his hands up and looks at Matias. ‘He shot at you?’

  Matias shrugs.

  ‘You mentioned trees. You never mentioned guns.’ Raul folds his arms.

  ‘You think I expected guns?’ Matias stares him out.

  Raul raises his eyebrows. ‘Yeah, after what happened. Yeah, I reckon you should’ve expected guns.’

  ‘After what happened?’ I grip the bowl. No one answers. ‘Dad doesn’t have a gun.’ I think about the shot in the night. I don’t know who it came from, but it wasn’t him.

  ‘Well he did. He shot at me and left.’ He scratches his ear and looks away, ‘with a guy with a briefcase.’

  ‘Why would he do that?’ I pull a face.

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘You don’t know?’ Raul yells. ‘How can you not know? I thought you knew everything.’

  ‘I know what he’s doing. I just don’t know why.’ Matias waves his hands.

  ‘I don’t get it.’ I rub my hand over my forehead. ‘None of this makes sense.’

  Matias looks at me. ‘Your dad’s a fool,’ he says.

  I look at his face and wish I’d hit him harder with the paddle. ‘My dad’s a scientist.’

  ‘In the wrong hands everyone’s a fool,’ he says. In what hands? The hands of the guy with the briefcase?

  I pick up the other boot and chuck it at him. He ducks but it catches his shoulder.

  Matias stands up and runs his fingers through his hair. ‘You two have the same enemy,’ he says.

  ‘Like how?’ Raul shoots him a look.

  ‘But I have the solution. Help me finish my boat and I’ll take you downriver and we’ll find out what you need to know.’ He puts his bowl on the table and his hands on his hips. ‘And stop the worst from happening.’

  ‘I thought the worst already happened.’ Raul’s eyes narrow.

  ‘Me too,’ I say into my food.

  ‘No.’ Matias shakes his head. ‘The worst is about to happen. If we don’t stop Maya’s father, everything will be worse.’

  Raul

  Maya looks so mad I think light beams are going to come out of her eyes and burn Matias alive.

  ‘How?’ She looks at her knees. ‘How will it be worse?’

  ‘That’s what we need you to find out.’ Matias rubs his elbows. ‘But not right now. It’s late.’

  He yawns and stares out the doorway. The breeze blows his hair. ‘You need sleep. We all do.’

  ‘I’m not tired,’ she says and grips her spoon so tight her knuckles are white.

  A flicker like a light mosquito flies out of Maya.

  No one else seems to notice.

  It looks at me and buzzes off.

  Maya stares at Matias.

  Matias stares at the night.

  The rain stops.

  And the silence feels like a visitor that comes in and sits with us. Hey, I’m silence.

  We don’t shake its hand. No one smiles at it.

  Matias scratches his head. ‘OK, OK, I’ll tell you what I know,’ he says. ‘Out there, not in here.’ He points at the door. ‘Some words need space, you know.’

  He offers Maya his shoulder to lean on. She puts her arm on it though her face says she doesn’t want to touch him. Her leg says she has no choice. They shuffle out on to the veranda. I unhook a lantern from the roof and follow. Steven trots out too and we all sit together on the floor swatting away giant moths, breathing in the wet heat.

  ‘OK,’ Matias says and breathes out. ‘Don’t blame me if you can’t take it.’

  The darkness sits and listens.

  Maya

  ‘My name is Matias Fernandez,’ he says and sits and leans his back against the hut. ‘I’ve lived in the jungle all my life.’ He looks over at Raul.

  Raul pulls a face and puts two fingers up at him.

  ‘And for as long as I have been alive I have loved trees. They suck things up, they spit things out, they breathe. They have soul.’ Matias closes his eyes. ‘My father used to teach me how to use them, how to treat them. Respect. He taught me how to respect the trees. And it was trees that killed my father.’

  Raul tucks his hands under his arms. ‘It wasn’t the trees. It was the people.’

  Matias shoots him a look. ‘It was money.’

  ‘It was the people after the money.’

  The rain mist smokes out of the wood and the forest sighs. Two moths with pink eyes and long green tails land next to the lamp. Steven eats one.

  Matias stares Raul out. Neither of them blinks. ‘We should know better than to slaughter what is precious,’ Matias says. ‘But we don’t. We don’t learn. We care about money.’

  ‘Dad doesn’t care about money,’ I tell them. It’s true, he could be rich, but he isn’t. He never takes on a job ’cos of what it pays.

  ‘No, the way they’ve trapped him is different.’ Matias frowns. ‘I haven’t worked it out yet.’

  ‘Who’s they?’

  ‘JVF,’ he says. ‘Juan Carlos Vial Forestal.’

  Raul

  JVF. Even hearing the name makes me feel sick. Steven snuffles his nose under my knees.

  Maya looks confused.

  ‘They’re a deforestation company,’ I tell her.

  Matias nods.

  ‘They used to be little. Now they’re not.’

  ‘They cut down one thousand hectares of forest last year.’ Matias points around us. ‘It takes five years to grow a tree this thick …’ He cups his hands into a circle. ‘One hundred years this thick …’ He spreads his arms like they’re hugging the air.

  ‘They can’t do that.’ Maya throws her arms up. ‘Doesn’t the government protect the forest? Aren’t there laws?’

  I scratch behind Steven’s ears. ‘Gangs cut the wood and ride it downriver to export. They have guns.’ I look at Matias. ‘No on
e argues. The government turns a blind eye or backs it.’

  ‘They fake the exportation papers,’ Matias says. ‘They lie about where they’re taking the wood from. They say they’re taking it legally, but they don’t. And no one checks.’ Matias stares at Maya. ‘Two years ago we joined the EIA.’

  ‘You joined,’ I say under my breath.

  ‘The Environmental Investigation Agency.’ Matias says. ‘We work undercover.’ He puffs out his cheeks. ‘We have to. My uncle joined too. He moved downriver to Belen and started tracking shipments. The carrier’s too big for Belen so it docks offshore and small boats ferry the wood from Iquitos. Loads of them. Small boats heaped so high that the ship sits heavy in the water, fat like a pig while the forest’s left with holes and scars.’

  ‘Why would people do that?’ Maya screws up her eyes.

  ‘For money – everyone’s desperate for the money,’ he says. ‘They sell it on for millions.’

  ‘JVF have a new project,’ he says. ‘Two thousand hectares. Here in Iquitos.’

  My stomach fills with acid.

  I try to catch Matias’s eye, but he just looks at Maya. ‘They fought off the small gangs and turned into an official “corporation”. Now the government backs them, but last year there was a law passed protecting the trees, so even JVF can’t do this without official approval.’

  We look at Maya.

  ‘My father isn’t in the government.’

  I look at Matias. ‘They need scientific approval, right?’

  ‘Right.’ Matias nods.

  ‘My father would never approve that.’ Maya pulls her knees in tight.

  ‘No?’ Matias taps a finger on his foot. ‘He will do at four o’clock next Thursday. Unless you stop him.’

  ‘Why?’ Maya flicks away a black and yellow spotted grasshopper.

  ‘I don’t know.’ Matias shakes his head. ‘You need to find your dad and find out.’

  ‘Right.’ Maya raises her eyebrows. ‘Like he’ll listen to me,’ she whispers and folds her arms.