Lost Girls

by Ann Kelley

  I clamber back down—I’m getting pretty good at this—and have to travel farther to find dry timber this time. I find a long, dead branch and with difficulty drag it back up with me, and then break it up onto the fire. The wood crackles and the fragrant smoke grows high to announce our presence on the island. There’s not so much wind today.

  It’s a good fire! Oh, thank you, Hope, for the broken glasses! If only there were a ship or a plane to see the smoke!

  My euphoria fades as I think about Jas and Jody. Have they left for the beach, or is Jody worse so they’ve had to stay? My mind races.

  I sit by my wonderful fire, feeding it as if it were a hungry dog. It eats fast. The smoke spirals high as the flames die down. I wish I had some food other than rose apples. I have cramps and have to leave my fire to go to the bathroom at the base of the rock, where I can cover it up. I feel like a bag lady or a tramp, I’m so dirty. But I can’t neglect my baby, my hungry fire. I grab some more dead wood and climb quickly back up.

  The fire is stacked high with plenty of damp stuff and rotten logs. Green wood would be good, as it smokes more, but I have no ax.

  Beetles crawl out from the burning wood and try to escape the fire. Even though I don’t mean to I am killing things.

  Are Buddhists allowed to light fires if it means insects and grubs will die? I watch as the bugs are turned to crisp black beads, rather beautiful, like jet.

  I am proud of my fire; it’s settling well and will burn for hours with the amount of wood I’ve placed at its disposal. I say good-bye to it as if it were my friend and head back down the rock for the final time.

  I gather more rose apples and eat several for the moisture but almost immediately I am doubled over with more terrible cramps.

  My Hansel and Gretel crumbs—the ribbons tied to trees—show me the way.

  Ants bite or sting my ankles and I scrape them off with my spear, which I am using as a prod to poke at the undergrowth.

  I’m worried about snakes, and everything suddenly looks snakelike: Each dangling liana, every root that trips me, and above, in the trees, each trembling leaf turns into a serpent in my vivid imagination. It must be exhaustion. I’ve hardly slept for several days and I haven’t had enough to eat.

  I’d like to be back with my beautiful fire.

  Phaedrus worried about the meaning and existence of Quality. He couldn’t define it. He wanted his students to define it, but no one could. He stopped marking exam papers in the university where he worked and upset a lot of people, including his students, who only wanted good grades so they could get well-paid jobs. They didn’t care if their work was of Quality or not. In fact, I think that is what finished him off—sent him over the edge and into the pit of insanity. But I’m not sure. When I think about it, Mom is probably very clear about the meaning of Quality. She insists on me always doing my best, whatever it is I’m doing—baking a cake, doing my math homework, writing an essay. I suppose Quality is the opposite of sloppiness.

  At the beginning of the book there is a quote:

  And what is good, Phaedrus,

  And what is not good—

  Need we ask anyone to tell us these things?

  How come Mrs. Campbell can’t see that what she has become is not good? I don’t think she has any Quality at all. She has fallen apart. We haven’t been able to depend on her. She may be pretty, when she’s showered and shampooed her hair and put on her makeup and everything, but in reality she’s ugly—inside she’s crap. I don’t even blame May and Arlene. They’ve been led astray. But Mrs. Campbell is flaky, unbalanced, loopy. Definitely not Quality.

  This is the fifteenth day we’ve spent here, I think, and we only had supplies to last three days. But it’s no thanks to her that we’ve survived. It’s suddenly terribly important to me that people understand what’s happened on this island. I swing my backpack from my shoulders and dig around for my journal and pencil. I write in large letters:

  DAY 16

  If anyone gets to read this journal, it’s because I have failed to survive and get help. I want you to know that you should look into the behavior of Layla Campbell on this island. Ask any survivors what she did, and what she didn’t do. She’s partly to blame for the death of Natalie. She had plenty of whiskey, which could have been used to help disinfect Natalie’s injury, but she chose to drink it instead. And she’s been taking drugs. Encouraging minors to take drugs.

  Signed—Bonnie MacDonald, May 1974, Fire Mountain, Koh Tabu

  I feel better when I’ve written it down. I return my journal to the waterproof holder in my backpack and climb back down the mountain to find the others.

  They’ve gone. Jas and Jody have gone. I think this is where I left them. I’m sure it is. It’s the only possible place. They must have gone back to the beach; there’s no sign of an animal attack. I follow the track we made past the lightning-struck tree, past strangely shaped boulders I recognize, through a circular grove where no trees grow but there is a sward of dark ferns. Monkeys and gibbons swoop and swing and call in the high trees. I reach Tiger Cave and need a rest. The hornets are quiet.

  I have the runs again—too many figs and rose apples. I’m shivery and cold, then hot and sweaty. I leave the cave to go to the bathroom, then return, practically crawling because I’m so weak. I want to sleep forever, but I mustn’t give in.

  Would I see the tiger if it decided to attack me? Or would it melt into the shadows and suddenly pounce? Perhaps it would get me in my sleep. I know I shouldn’t sleep, but I don’t think I’ve ever felt this tired in my life.

  The roof of the cave is lit with morning light and as I glance up wearily, I see faint ocher images on the rock. When I focus on them properly, they become men running and throwing spears, and the animal they hunt is a big cat with stripes.

  A long, lithe tiger.

  Wow! Someone must have lived here once, maybe thousands of years ago. Perhaps I’m the first person in the twentieth century to see this cave. I wish I had a camera. I wander farther into the cave. There are other paintings, of great dragonlike lizards with flames coming from their mouths, and of small human figures throwing spears at a giant with horns. Like the temple giant, Laksha. And there’s a boar hunt. But among the larger images are lots of hands, different hands, most smaller than mine, with stunted fingers and thumbs, but there above the rest, high on the wall, I find one huge hand, three times the size of the others. I wander around for ages. Am I the first person—other than the artist—to have seen these drawings?

  My mind begins to rattle on. I must remember where this cave is so that when I get back to civilization I can tell someone about what I’ve found. It might be important. I can lead expeditions back to this place. I draw a more detailed map of the location of the cave. A compass would have been useful, but I think I’m more or less in the middle of the island. I also copy the drawings from the cave wall into my journal. The golden Buddha was probably carved long after the cave paintings were finished; the sculpture is far more sophisticated than the drawings.

  While I am sitting quietly, drawing and observing, the tiger slinks by, almost hidden in the trees about thirty feet away. She stares at me and I stare back, hypnotized but strangely unafraid. Until I remember that cats take a stare as a sign of aggression. (I think Jas told me that.) So I glance away, hoping the cat is not deciding that I’m exactly what she fancies for breakfast.

  And I see something orange, like Hope’s sweatshirt, disappear into the dark trees. What is it? Did I imagine it? I remember Jody saying she’d seen something similar. This is no imaginary friend. It is real—tall, like Hope—taller. The tiger stops, head turned toward me, grunts like an old dog in her sleep, and then walks on, away from me.

  I haven’t breathed since I caught sight of the big cat, and now let out a huge sigh of relief. My heart is beating too fast and my hands are shaking. I want to laugh. I wish Jas or Hope were here so that I could share the moment with someone. I turn to a fresh page in my journal.

&
nbsp; Saw tiger, or maybe two! Female, I think.

  I drink water and leave the wonderful cave, looking carefully around me all the time.

  nineteen

  It’s good to walk. I feel so much stronger, my legs are no longer weak, and my cramps have gone. I whistle loudly to frighten away any possible predators—tigers, snakes, wild boars—and to comfort myself. The gibbons sing back at me: Hoo hoo hoooo, hoo, hoo.

  All the rain we’ve had has brought out fungi. It’s suddenly everywhere I look: Bullet-shaped fruiting bodies thrust up from the leaf litter and push big leaves and twigs off the ground. The forest floor is covered in a cream-brown fungus.

  I wonder if it’s edible. Better not try it.

  I’m still shaking from my tiger encounter, but it’s more from excitement than fear. What a story to tell! I imagine a press conference, being interviewed by a handsome reporter. Lots of reporters, from all over the world. Bonnie MacDonald, intrepid explorer and survivor. A TV documentary in which I lead some of the world’s most famous naturalists and archaeologists to the cave… But from nowhere, a feeling of unease, nausea that has nothing to do with food, rises in my stomach. There’s such a thing as knowing too much, I think.

  My elation now feels embarrassing, shaming—that’s not the person I want to be. I wonder how everything could have gone so wrong. It’s only days since I idolized Mrs. Campbell, hoped I’d be something like her when I grow up. Now I question everything about her; I wonder whether anything she’s told us is true.

  What made Mrs. Campbell go wrong? Lose her Quality? If she ever had any. We took her word that she was a survival expert, though I can’t actually remember when she said that. We believed her when she said she knew the Beatles and the Rolling Stones. That’s probably a lie, too. She was trying to impress us. She said her husband was a well-known musician. How do we know that was true? Has she ever been honest?

  How do we recognize when a crossroads is reached and we have to make the right decision or ruin our lives forever by taking the wrong path? Why did we have to come to Thailand? Why did Dad join the SAS and get deployed to an American unit in the American war against the North Vietnamese? Why did my mom choose to go to a party rather than come on this trip? She could have saved us all, probably, except Sandy. Nobody could have stopped the hurricane from sweeping poor Sandy away to have her head smashed on that palm tree.

  Why did the boatman die? Was it because he didn’t maintain his boat engine properly? Perhaps he was like Phaedrus’s friends, who knew nothing about motors and didn’t want to learn. Or was it simply that the extreme weather conditions caused his boat to break down?

  But Natalie… she was Mrs. Campbell’s responsibility. Mrs. Campbell should have used her alcohol supply to clean Natalie’s leg wound. She made the wrong decision, a selfish decision. She wanted to escape reality, to drink rice whiskey and smoke pot, or whatever it is she was using. She is immoral—or is it amoral? Both, probably. Not a good person. Natalie died because of Mrs. Campbell’s lack of Quality. I feel anger rising in my throat again. At my next stop for water I write.

  I hate Layla Campbell. I hope she dies.

  How does anyone in power make the right decisions—Quality decisions? When did the U.S. president decide to send military to Vietnam? What was the point of no return? Was it President Nixon’s fault, or was it the fault of the president before him—Lyndon Johnson?

  Maybe I’ll study politics, become the first woman prime minister of Great Britain.

  We are in a sort of war zone on this island. I am in survival mode; I’ve become like a wild animal—no time for kindness, empathy, sympathy; I have only to survive.

  twenty

  My mind is so busy with questions that I forget to collect the ribbons, and I come to a clearing I don’t recognize. Have I gone the wrong way? How could I have taken the wrong path? The strands of towel are white, easily visible against the dark of the forest.

  I go back a little way to find the last ribbon I saw, on the lowest branch of a rattan palm. I’m sure it was here. No. Not here. Okay, don’t panic, Bonnie, where is it? Where, where, where? I turn 360 degrees but can’t see a ribbon, or any rattan palms. My heart’s hammering. I hear my pulse pounding in my head.

  I crouch on the leafy floor of the forest to get my breath back.

  Calm yourself, Bonnie. Do some slow breathing.

  I think of home, my bed, my blue curtains, the ceiling fan; Mom calling me to supper; Lek’s cooking; Dad coming home looking exhausted. He’s probably risking his life every day for us, for me. And I’ve been horrible to him. He never calls me Pumpkin anymore. He hardly talks to me at all. My eyes mist over with tears. What would they do if I were lost forever? Even if someone comes to rescue us they’ll never find me, lost in the middle of a forest. I’m like one of the ants scurrying across the leaf litter, living by instinct. If I keep on climbing downhill I’ll come to sea level, but it might be on the wrong side of the island.

  If only the sun were shining, I’d be able to tell which way was which. The forest is thick here, and what sky is visible is dark and dreary, with no sign of lightness in it. I look for moss on the tree trunks. I remember learning that it grows only on the north side. Or is it the south side?

  Here’s a strange rock face I don’t remember passing before. In a cleft a little wooden house has been built, like a doll’s house. It must be for the forest spirits—pee bah. A jasmine wreath shaped like a ring with a tassel lies inside the shrine. The jasmine is so old that it has turned brown and smells of old socks. But who put it there, and when? I look around for something to offer the forest spirit. Anything to get me back to the others. Among the leaf litter I find an orange leaf covered with a beautiful white fungus, like a miniature coral. I think the spirits will appreciate it. Perhaps they’ll feel sorry for me and help.

  I have no more water. My feet feel as if they’re on fire, and my arms and legs are scratched and bleeding. Mosquitoes browse on my arms and legs. The tick and chigger bites itch like mad. My head hurts and behind my eyes blood is pounding. I want to lie down and sleep forever.

  Shadows jump at me. The folktales Lan Kua tells to amuse and frighten the little ones come back in a rush. They don’t scare me at all when he tells them in the light of a bright, sunny day; in fact, they make me laugh. But now… in the dusk… scary stories of forest ghosts and spirits swim around my restless brain. There are guardian spirits and tree spirits, so many of them: Pee-gong goi—a ghost that jumps around the forest at night on one leg! It sounds so silly, but I’m sure I can hear it stomping around in the dark undergrowth nearby. Pee Grabang is a male demon with a long tail. Pee Pong prowls during rainfall. Pee Pret haunts graveyards and lives on blood and pus. The worst one is Pee Graseu—an ugly old woman spirit that eats raw flesh and human feces, her entrails trailing behind her. Oh, yuck—I wish I hadn’t remembered that one. Thai folktales are gruesome. Lan Kua’s brothers and little sister must have nightmares all the time.

  A terrible wailing makes my blood run cold. The Thais say that a woman who betrayed her lover was turned into a gibbon and forced to roam the forest forever. That is surely her, full of noisy remorse.

  A sudden low oom, like a foghorn, stops me in my tracks. I can’t see anything. No blazing eyes, no black stripes, no powerful, low-hung red body. I take one step forward and there she is. The camouflage is so complete she was invisible. She stands and stares at me from about fifteen feet away. I stare back. She bares her fangs. Terror roots me to the spot.

  I bend my knees slowly and pick up a rock, then stand and throw the rock at her and scream “Scram!” as loud as I can. She bounds off, heavy paws pounding hard, invisible after a second, lost in the trees.

  Trembling, I run blindly away from the tiger, through the thorny rattan, climbing figs, bamboos, and bushes, tripping over roots and rocks, setting off a ripple of fear through the forest, sending monkeys and gibbons screaming. Toucans clatter, bush turkeys scatter, parrots yell. The entire forest wakes and screams
in terror, deafening me.

  I’m lost now, with no idea where I am, where I’m going. I struggle through the tangled undergrowth, the thorny creepers, my flesh stuck with spiky rattans. I scramble over slippery roots and leaves, no solid ground beneath my feet, and suddenly I’m falling.

  Falling.

  Tumbling over and over… jerk to a sudden stop… backpack straps caught on something. I dangle over a dark deep hole… grab at branches, rocks, and lianas to stop myself from falling… but I can’t… it’s no good… I fall out of the straps…. I’m falling into a deep, dark chasm, a rocky ravine… mud paints my clothes red, or is it my own blood? I slither… hit rocks. My shoulder, legs, hands torn… thorns spear my flesh, pain everywhere… I fall faster and faster… and then…

  twenty-one

  Shadows… sharp stench… animal… gold… black… black. Moisture at my lips… long shadows… orange…

  Pain… head… arm. Legs, my legs. Green above me… around me. Swinging gently. Black, orange… huge face… gentle golden face. The sweet sour smell of rotting leaves… green, cool, water, animal smell, stench. I vomit. Black…

  I’m in a boat, swinging on the small waves, sun then shadow on my face.

  An extremely tall, skinny man with a shaved head, wearing faded orange robes, sits nearby. At his feet lies a tiger. The skinny giant smiles at me, a gentle smile. He pours warm liquid into my mouth, holding a cloth under my chin to catch the drips.