by P. B. Kerr
At least she did until they got back on their Cessna and flew east and over the other side of the Andes to a little town named Manu, in the heart of the Peruvian Amazon.
The Amazon rain forest is the largest tropical rain forest on Earth and covers almost three million square miles. The Peruvian Amazon is only a small part of that huge total, but it is the wildest, least accessible, and hence, the most unexplored rain forest in the world. As the plane dipped low over the near-unending canopy of trees, Philippa decided that it was almost as if she was looking down at a thick layer of green cumulus clouds.
“Wow,” she said to John. “It just goes on forever, doesn’t it? I mean, when you see how thick that canopy of trees is, it’s a lot easier to buy the idea that there really might be some kind of lost city down there, isn’t it?”
“You bet.” John smiled and nodded back at his twin sister. “Isn’t this cool?”
Groanin, however, was doing his best to ignore the view.
“I hope that pilot knows where he’s going,” said Groanin. “I should hate to run out of gas and have to start looking for a good landing spot down there.”
John clapped the butler on the shoulder. “Good old Groanin,” he said. “Always looking on the bright side.”
“Someone has to,” said Groanin. “That way nobody’s surprised when things go wrong.”
John laughed.
“I’m glad you find it so amusing, John,” said Zadie. “Because I don’t. I’m not a good air passenger at the best of times.”
“Somehow I suspected as much,” said John.
“Look on the bright side,” Groanin told him. “At least she’s stopped tap dancing.”
“Did you know that there are a thousand different species of birds down there?” said Philippa. “To say nothing of sixty different species of bats, including five different kinds of vampire.”
“Do please say nothing about the bats,” said Groanin. “Especially the vampire bats. I hate bats. Nasty things. Like rats with wings.”
“Unless you’re careless enough to leave a foot sticking outside your tent at night,” said Mr. Vodyannoy, “there’s very little chance of you being bitten by one.”
“There’s very little chance of me leaving so much as a single hair outside my tent at night,” declared Groanin. “Some of us have got more sense than to go gallivanting about in the jungle with all them headhunters about.”
“I can’t see anyone wanting your head, Mr. Groanin,” said Zadie. “For a start, there’s not much hair on it. And not much in it, either.”
Groanin swore at her under his breath and began to eat a jar of Baby Balance Scrummy Tuna Penne, which, unless he was very hungry, was the only kind of food he intended to eat while they were in the Amazon. He hoped that at least there would be something nice to drink. He’d heard the local beer, chichai, was delicious. And Groanin was fond of beer.
“Look here,” said Philippa, “can we dispense with this ridiculous myth once and for all? There are no headhunters in the Amazon rain forest. Possibly there were headhunters, about a hundred years ago, but not anymore. Isn’t that right, Uncle Nimrod?”
“You might very well be right about that, Philippa,” said Nimrod. “Then again, this is the Amazon we’re talking about, not Yellowstone National Park. This is the last great primeval forest on Earth and there are three million acres of it, most of it untouched by humans or, for that matter, djinn. So we really have no idea what might be down there and what might not. But at the very least I should say that all of us are in for some surprises when we step on the ground.”
They were met by their South American guide and expedition manager, Sicky, and his cook and boatman, Muddy. These two were old friends of Mr. Vodyannoy’s, having accompanied him on previous trips up into the jungle.
Sicky was extremely tall for an Indian, with huge hands and enormous feet, and his arms, neck, and chest were covered with a variety of strange tattoos that he was more than happy to show John. All except the tattoo on his stomach. Sicky told John that he kept this particular tattoo hidden because, just like a Gorgon, it had the power to turn all living creatures to stone.
“Gee,” said John. “I’d like to know where that tattoo parlor is.”
“Many years ago, Mr. Vodyannoy gave me three wishes,” Sicky explained. “And that tattoo was one of the things I wished for, so that I could always defeat my enemies even when I wasn’t armed.”
“Wow,” said John. “Do you have many enemies?”
Sicky smiled. “Not anymore.”
Otherwise, Sicky was kind, with a good sense of humor, very reliable, and scrupulously honest. It seemed he was also quite an accomplished sculptor. Or so the children thought. But chiefly Sicky was remarkable for the size of his head, which was no larger than a grapefruit or, for that matter, his own fist. John and Philippa tried to pretend Sicky’s was a perfectly normal-looking head, but this was difficult when Sicky was talking since his English wasn’t great, and they had to look closely at his lips to be sure of what he was saying. These lips were almost as strange as his head. The twins had seen body piercings before. There were plenty of weird people walking around New York with strange pieces of metal in their noses, ears, lips, and belly buttons. But Sicky was the first person they had ever seen with lengths of colored cotton cord sewn into his lips, like several Fu Manchu mustaches. And, for several hours at least, how he had come by these remained something of a compelling mystery.
The origin of his nickname was easier to understand, however. Every time someone asked Sicky a question like, “How are you today?” Sicky would always answer, “Not so good. I’m a little sick today.” Of course, the twins were much too polite to ask Sicky about his small head and unusually decorated lips. Zadie lacked their diplomacy and good manners, however, and it eventually was she who blurted out the question that was on all of their minds.
This is how it happened: They were having dinner at Sicky’s wooden lodge in the village named Manu, on the edge of a palm-rimmed, sparkling oxbow lake where they were to spend their first night in the Peruvian Amazon. A delicious goat stew had been prepared by Sicky’s cook, Muddy, who was an excellent chef and a fine guitarist to boot. Zadie had drunk several glasses of something she had enjoyed so much that she had asked Sicky what it was and how it was made.
“It’s chichai, a sort of local beer invented by the Incas,” said Sicky.
“There’s nothing like a glass of decent beer,” said Groanin, and toasted Sicky happily.
“Adults like Mr. Groanin have alcoholic chichai,” Sicky told Zadie. “Which is called chichai. But Mr. Vodyannoy said to give you the zero-alcohol version, which is called holy chichai, so that is what you are drinking. It has all the taste of chichai, but without any of the alcohol. And zero calories, too. Of course, if you weren’t American kids, I’d have given you regular chichai. But Mr. Vodyannoy said —”
“Yes, I understand all that, of course,” said Zadie, interrupting him. “But what’s it made from? What’s in it?”
“Corn,” said Sicky. “Same as any other beer. And saliva. Human saliva.”
Zadie swallowed uncomfortably. “Excuse me, did you say human saliva?”
“Yes,” said Sicky. “Spit.” He picked up his empty glass and, gathering the cords in his lips to one side, dribbled copiously into it as if it might remove any doubts that still remained after his explanation. “Like this. Yes?”
“You’re joking,” she said.
“I’m afraid he’s not,” said Mr. Vodyannoy, lighting his pipe.
“I’m not joking,” said Sicky. “It’s a very old Inca recipe. Very old. Good, huh?”
Philippa smiled politely. “And do you buy the chichai in bottles?” she asked. “From a supermarket?”
“No, Muddy makes it himself,” said Sicky.
“So, let me get this straight.” John’s inquiry was sadistic and meant entirely for the effect it might have on Zadie and Groanin. “This chichai is homemade. Muddy makes it with h
is own spit, right, Muddy?”
Muddy stopped playing his guitar and, standing up, took a bow as if proud to acknowledge the true origin of the spit in the chichai. He wasn’t much taller than about five feet and, standing up, was no bigger than Sicky sitting down. But he had a big heart.
“My own spit, yes,” said Muddy, and spat into the bushes as if he was keen to add some further evidence to what he had alleged. “I like to spit. I can spit pretty good, too. I can spit maybe thirty feet and hit what I aim at.”
“There’s not a man in the whole of South America who spits better or more than Muddy,” said Sicky.
Groanin got up and left the table quietly.
“Oh, dear,” said Nimrod. “Poor Groanin. Perhaps I should have told him before he got the taste for it. He’s had several large glasses of the stuff.”
“Delicious,” said Mr. Vodyannoy, and drained his glass.
“Can we talk about something else?” said Zadie. She was clutching her stomach in horror and feeling too nauseous to follow the butler into the bushes, where he was already throwing up loudly.
But John wasn’t about to let this subject go. Not yet. “About how much of your own spit do you need, Sicky?” he asked. “To make, say, a gallon of this stuff.”
Sicky nodded and dribbled several mouthfuls of saliva into his empty glass. “About this much,” he said, holding up several inches of thick yellow saliva. “For the chichai. More for the holy chichai.”
“Please, if you don’t mind, John,” said Zadie. “I really think we’ve heard enough.” And thinking John and Muddy would only be diverted from the disgusting subject of chichai if she provided another topic of conversation, she smiled brightly and said, “So, Sicky. How come your head’s so small? And how did you come by all these weird pieces of string in your lips? Did you sew them in yourself?”
Philippa gasped that anyone could ask such a direct question to such an obviously afflicted person. But Sicky didn’t mind. He was used to it.
“I am a Prozuanaci Indian,” said Sicky. “The Prozuanaci are old enemies of the Xuanaci Indians. The Xuanaci are plenty more savage, plenty more uncivilized than we are. The country they inhabit is plenty inhospitable, too, with no tracks through very dense jungle, and they are seldom seen by anyone. Which is just as well. Anyway, plenty long time ago, when I wasn’t much older or bigger than the boy, I was captured by Xuanaci Indians. Except for my young age, they would have cut off my head as a war trophy. What they call a tzantza. Instead, to humiliate me and always make me be reminded of how they had captured me, they decided to shrink my head while it was still on my shoulders. Something that we Peruvians call pernocabeza.”
“But surely that’s impossible,” said Philippa.
“Not for the Xuanaci. The Xuanaci know plenty things about taking and shrinking human heads as trophies. First of all, they tied me up tight and sucked the fat out of my face with little straws. Then they shaved my head and painted it with special oil from a rare plant that grows only in the Amazon, and which is known only to the Xuanaci. Then they made me lie with my head in a bucket of other secret herbs and hot sand for many weeks, drying it out before painting it again with the special oil, and drying it once more. And always they kept sucking the fat from my face.”
“Kind of like liposuction,” said John. “I get it.”
“This happened plenty of times,” said Sicky. “And all the time my body was growing, my head was shrinking. Of course, I would have cried out for help. Because my own people were looking for me. And to prevent this, the Xuanaci sewed my lips together with these cords that you see I still wear.”
“What happened next?” asked John, who was fascinated by Sicky’s story. “Did they let you go?”
“When my head was plenty small they held a special pernocabeza — a feast at which I was the guest of honor. They gave me a drink that contained all of the fat drained from my own head.”
“And did you drink it?”
“Of course. If I had refused, they would have killed me for sure. This fat made my body much bigger than it would have been, and which made my head seem much smaller, too.”
“Makes sense, I guess,” observed John. “What happened then?”
Sicky shrugged. “They gave me a mirror that they had once traded for a shrunken head and let me look at myself. Which they thought was plenty funny.”
“And how did you feel?” asked Philippa who, in spite of herself, was equally fascinated.
“Sick,” said Sicky. “Very sick. Sick to my stomach. How would you feel?”
“Sick,” agreed Philippa.
“Then they let me go. I went back to my village and everyone was plenty pleased to see me, but also very sad because of what the Xuanaci had done to me and my head.”
“And did you ever get revenge on them?” asked John, who, being a boy, was inclined to think that way.
“Oh, yes. But many years later.” Sicky looked at Mr. Vodyannoy and smiled.
“I was on vacation down here,” said Mr. Vodyannoy, “and Sicky saved my life. Stopped me from being bitten by a Scolopendra gigantea, a Peruvian giant centipede. These are highly venomous and quite deadly. Even more so to djinn than to mundanes.”
“I guess that’s only fair, given that we’re immune to snake venom,” said John.
“How giant are they?” Philippa asked.
“They can easily reach fifteen inches in length,” said Mr. Vodyannoy. “Anyway, I gave Sicky three wishes. And after wasting the first one —”
Sicky grinned sheepishly as he remembered it. “I wished that I knew if he was telling the truth or not. And then, of course, I did.”
“So, forgive me,” Zadie said carefully, “and no offense, Sicky, but why didn’t you wish for a normal-sized head?”
“Because I didn’t want one,” Sicky said simply. “I was used to my head the size it was. So was everyone else. It didn’t seem that important.”
“I get it,” said John. “Your second wish was to have revenge on the Xuanaci.”
“Oh, no,” said Sicky. “My second wish was to have my own business. Here in the jungle. To support my family. Which is how I have this tour and expedition company. My third wish was to have the tattoo I told you about. The one that turns things to stone.”
“And I thought you were a sculptor,” said Philippa.
“Those very lifelike statues of animals I’ve seen around the place. Those were once real animals, weren’t they?”
“Yes,” said Sicky. “I make some money by selling them to tourists.”
“And the Xuanaci?” said John.
Sicky grinned sheepishly again. “You are right, boy. One day, using this tattoo, I went deep into the jungle, looking for some Xuanaci and turned some of them to stone, too.”
“Wow,” said John. “How did you feel about that?”
“Sick,” said Sicky. “Very sick. Sick to my stomach. It gave me no pleasure to do that. Anyway. Perhaps you will see the statues for yourselves since we will have to go upriver, deep into Xuanaci country, to get to where you want to go.”
Groanin returned to the table.
“Do they still hunt heads?” John asked with one eye on Groanin.
Sicky shrugged. “Difficult question. I have not seen any Xuanaci for a very long time. So, maybe yes. Maybe no.” He smiled at Groanin and added quietly, “Keep very still please, Mr. Groanin.”
“What’s that you say, Sicky, old chap?”
“Keep quite still, please. There is something on your back.”
Groanin gulped and turned very pale. “Something? What sort of something? You mean a creepy crawly something?”
Sicky’s hand disappeared behind Groanin for a moment and when it returned it was holding a giant centipede. It had about twenty-eight red leathery segments and a couple of dozen pairs of yellow claws that were bigger than the teeth of a large comb. The centipede looked like something from another planet, and an inhospitable planet at that.
“Holy centipedes,” exclaime
d John, rising from the table. “A Scolopendra gigantea.”
“Precisely,” said Nimrod.
“Biggest I’ve ever seen,” said Sicky, and held it up to the light so that everyone could get a better look at it. Even in Sicky’s hand the giant centipede looked as big as a snake. “This one must be twenty inches long. Plenty poisonous, too.”
“You look a bit pale, Groanin,” said Nimrod. “How do you feel?”
“Sick,” said Groanin. “Very sick. Sick to my stomach. How do you think I feel?”
And then he fainted.
Sicky did not, however, kill the giant centipede or even throw it away. Later that same evening the three children discovered he was keeping the centipede in a large box and feeding it with mice and cockroaches.
“Ugh,” said Zadie. “Why are you keeping that disgusting thing, Sicky?”
“I’m going to feed him up until he’s plenty bigger,” said Sicky. “Then I’m going to show him the magic tattoo on my belly and turn him to stone. He’ll fetch a good price as a piece of sculpture, from tourists. Same as the others.”
He pointed at some of the beautifully detailed stone animals that were on the veranda outside his living quarters. There was a bird-eating spider, an anteater, a sloth, an opossum, a howler monkey, a short-eared dog, a tapir, a porcupine, and a puma. It looked like quite a cottage industry Sicky had going at his simple wooden home at Manu.
“Is that how you make all your sculptures?” asked John. “You just show them your belly?”
Sicky nodded. “I used to have a stone Xuanaci Indian,” said Sicky. “But a famous British artist bought him and sold him to a modern art museum in London for plenty money.”
“How did that make you feel?” asked John.
“Sick,” said Sicky.
“I can see why someone might want a stone puma,” said Philippa. “Even a porcupine. But what kind of weirdo would want a stone centipede?”