Middleworld

by J; P Voelkel

  A little boy was sitting in a tree at the water’s edge.

  It was Och.

  Little Och sat on another branch, lower down.

  Max waved to them, but they didn’t wave back.

  Lola waved and they waved back enthusiastically.

  Max pretended not to care. He dumped the chicken cage on Lola, put on his sunglasses, and stared fixedly upriver.

  He was glad to be leaving this crazy village.

  His stomach was empty and his heart was, too. He felt like an alien, a hungry alien who didn’t speak the language. He longed to be home in Boston, playing video games with characters who followed the rules. In real life people were irrational, unpredictable, annoying, and bossy, bossy, bossy.

  An early-morning mist enveloped the boat, and Eusebio concentrated on steering. They zoomed along in silence for an hour or so, until a weak sun broke through and the mist cleared.

  “Time for breakfast,” said Eusebio, cutting the motor in midstream.

  He pulled out a small cooler from under the chili baskets.

  Inside were some bottles of water and two tortillas stuffed with beans.

  “I am sorry,” said Eusebio. “I did not know you were coming, so I did not bring extra food. But you are welcome to share what I have.”

  “That’s very kind of you,” said Lola, looking meaningfully at Max, “but we had breakfast at Utsal.”

  “Speak for yourself,” said Max, taking one of the tortillas and gulping it down in three greedy bites.

  “For you, Ix Sak Lol?” said Eusebio, offering Lola the remaining tortilla.

  She shook her head.

  “If you are sure,” said Eusebio, about to take the tortilla for himself.

  “I’ll have it,” said Max.

  “No!” yelled Lola. “I can’t believe you, Max Murphy! A wild pig has better manners!”

  “What have I done now?”

  “You were going to eat all Eusebio’s food.”

  “He offered.”

  “He was being polite.”

  “How was I supposed to know?”

  “Well, try thinking about someone besides yourself for a change! You spoiled the party, you threw away Och’s breakfast, you insulted everyone at Utsal—”

  “What about your manners?” demanded Max. “You made me eat the soup, you dropped a scorpion on me—where I come from, we’d never treat a guest that way.”

  “I’m surprised you have any guests—or any friends at all! The world doesn’t revolve around you, you know. The villagers at Utsal work hard every day of their lives. If they like to play their little joke on pampered tourists—and, by the way, the tourists love it—it wouldn’t hurt you to laugh along. You could have made a lot of friends last night. But you only know how to make enemies. You’re the most selfish person I’ve ever met!”

  “I’m taking care of number one,” Max yelled back. “Isn’t that the law of the jungle?”

  “Stop,” said Eusebio. It was the first time Max had seen him without a smile on his face. “You are squabbling like baby parrots.”

  Lola hung her head. “I’m sorry, Eusebio,” she said, but her apology was drowned out by the sound of the boat starting up again.

  Max expected to continue upriver but, to his surprise, they made straight for the bank.

  Eusebio cut the motor. “Please get out,” he said.

  “But Eusebio—” began Lola.

  “It is the only way,” said Eusebio. “Out. Please. Now.”

  When Max and Lola had reluctantly climbed ashore, Eusebio tied the boat to an overhanging branch and jumped onto land himself.

  “Follow me,” he said.

  As they tramped through the forest, clambering over tree roots and ducking under branches, Max and Lola exchanged angry glances.

  Eusebio paid them no attention. He pointed up at some drab flowers garlanding the branches of a tree. “Look, my friend,” he said to Max. “This is the rare black orchid. In your country, they fuss over it like a newborn baby. So how does this delicate little flower look after itself in the treacherous jungle?”

  The boatman reached up to pick one, but he wasn’t tall enough.

  “You’re not supposed to pick them, Eusebio,” said Lola. “They’re a protected species.”

  “So much for looking after itself,” muttered Max.

  Eusebio waved his hand airily. “My point is,” he said, “that the little orchid has trained itself to be the perfect guest. It lives on the tree, but it feeds from the air and the rain. It takes nothing from its host.”

  “I knew this was about the tortillas,” said Max.

  But Eusebio had moved on. “Over here,” he was saying, “is the trumpet tree—so called because my ancestors made wooden trumpets from its hollow trunk.” He handed Max his machete. “Hit it,” he instructed. “And stand back.”

  Max whacked the tree as hard as he could.

  An unappetizing smell of blue cheese and coconut filled the air.

  “It is the smell of angry ants,” said Eusebio.

  Even as he said it, hundreds of ants emerged from the trunk and swarmed toward the machete marks. “The tree makes a nectar for the ants to eat, and in return they act as bodyguards for the tree.”

  “Can we go back to the boat now?” asked Max.

  But Eusebio had found another specimen, a sinister-looking tree with black tarlike patches on its trunk. “The mighty poisonwood!” he cried. “Its sap burns worse than pepper soup, and the only thing that soothes it is the bark of the gumbo-limbo.” He indicated a nearby tree with a flaky crimson trunk.

  “They call gumbo-limbo the tourist tree,” added Lola, “because it’s always red and peeling.”

  Max didn’t laugh.

  “The point is,” gabbled Eusebio excitedly, “that gumbo-limbo and poisonwood always grow side by side! It is the same for people. On the surface we are different, but our roots are intertwined. We are connected in ways we cannot see and we must use our talents to help each other. Looking after number one may be the law of the concrete jungle, but it is not the law of the rainforest.”

  “But I’m from a concrete jungle,” said Max wearily. “This is not my world.”

  “Ah,” said Eusebio, “so you’re a tourist? A guest that takes without giving? Then you are like this strangler fig.” He pointed to a huge tree with thick, buttresslike roots. “This started life as a vine in the top of another tree and grew down, stealing its host’s food and light, until it reached the forest floor. When it was firmly rooted, it tightened its death grip around its host’s trunk and became a living coffin.”

  “It was only a tortilla!” protested Max.

  “And you are welcome to it, my friend,” said Eusebio, slapping him on the back. “But have you learned anything from this walk?”

  “Yes,” said Max ruefully. “I learned that I should’ve brought sandwiches.”

  Eusebio roared with laughter. “Come,” he said, “let us return to the boat and share that last tortilla.”

  As they walked along, Max fell into step with Lola.

  “I guess I have been acting like a tourist,” he said.

  “Yeah,” said Lola, “you did lose it a bit in Utsal. But hey, maybe I’d act like a tourist if I came to Boston.”

  “You’d hate it there,” said Max. “No snakes, no scorpions, no rat on a stick.” He looked at her pointedly. “And the people are normal, too.”

  She ignored the insult. “You didn’t give Utsal a chance.”

  “They don’t have cell phones or laptops or cable TV. That’s all I need to know.”

  “They choose to live without them. Once you join the consumer society, you have to keep making money to buy things you don’t need.”

  “But surely you don’t want to live in a shack with no electricity?”

  “I think you can have the best of both worlds. I respect the old ways, but I also believe in women’s rights and a college education.”

  “What does Chan Kan think about tha
t?”

  “He’s hoping I’ll get it out of my system and come back and marry some boy he’s picked out for me.”

  “You wouldn’t, would you?” said Max, horrified.

  She shrugged. “Who knows what the future holds?”

  “All aboard!” called Eusebio from the riverbank.

  “Race you back to the boat,” called Lola, disappearing down the path.

  As they thrummed along between high walls of jungle, the boatman pointed out the passing wildlife. It was like traveling through the pages of a children’s picture book. There were freshwater crocodiles floating like logs, turtles sunning themselves on rocks, a bright orange iguana on a tree branch, a frigate bird with a chest like a plum tomato, kingfishers, storks, scarlet macaws, and always the clouds of yellow butterflies fluttering along the banks.

  It was all so lush and unspoiled and peaceful that Max could easily imagine he was the first explorer ever to navigate these waters.

  His fantasy was soon disturbed by a whiny, nasal voice.

  “Would ya look at that! See the cute monkeys on the canoe?”

  Max looked back in the direction of the voice and saw a white cabin cruiser speeding up the river behind them. Its deck was thronged with overfed passengers in orange life jackets, and every passenger was weighed down with photographic equipment.

  As the cruiser passed, it listed to one side with the combined weight of the shrieking mass who rushed to the railing to zoom in on Chulo and Seri.

  And then they were gone, leaving Eusebio’s boat rocking in their wake.

  “What just happened?” asked Max, in shock.

  “Tourists!” said Lola. “They’re on the Mystery of the Maya cruise. They dock at Puerto Muerto, take a quick trip upriver to Limón, stop at Utsal for lunch, and tick San Xavier off their list. They’ll be having margaritas in Mexico tonight.”

  “It should be called the Mystery of the Tourists cruise,” said Max.

  “You should know,” Lola teased him.

  Yeah, thought Max, I should know.

  In that moment, Max saw the tourists through the eyes of the villagers at Utsal and he understood the pepper-soup trick. He saw himself, last night, sweat pouring down his face, trying to impress the natives.

  Yeah, it was funny.

  He was glad the rowdy boatload who’d just passed would soon be forcing down the fiery broth. That would quiet them down for a while. And even if their fancy cabin cruiser had a snack bar and a restroom with soft toilet paper, he’d rather be in this hollowed-out log with Lola and Eusebio.

  It was time to take sides.

  As long as he kept comparing San Xavier to Boston, he was no better than one of those tourists. Like it or not, the jungle was his home right now, and he had to make the best of it. Besides, playing video games alone in his room seemed kind of lame compared to zooming up the Monkey River with the wind in his hair.

  He leaned back against the chili baskets to consider this momentous revelation. The sun was getting higher, the day was getting hotter. He closed his eyes. Soon, lulled by the throb of the engine, he fell into a waking dream. It was a parade of disapproving faces, a lineup of everyone he’d upset, offended, or alienated recently—his mom, his dad, Oscar, Raul, Lucky Jim, the entire village of Utsal, especially Och—all set against a hip-hop sound track of Uncle Ted saying, “He’s a spoiled brat,” over and over again.

  Then a new sound joined the beat. A rhythmic no, no, no.

  He opened his eyes.

  “No, no, no!” yelled Eusebio, gesturing frantically from the back of the boat. “Get your hand out!”

  As Max had dozed, he’d dipped his hand lazily over the side of the boat. He pulled it in quickly. It wasn’t the smartest thing he’d ever done, to trail such juicy bait in a river full of crocodiles. But then again, he reflected, perhaps he’d done a few things lately that weren’t too smart.

  It was late morning when Eusebio pulled the boat into the riverbank. Chulo and Seri leapt off and headed into the trees.

  “They know the way,” said Lola, laughing. “They’ll be there before us.”

  She hugged Eusebio, thanked him profusely, and showered her blessings on his family. Then she picked up the chicken cage and climbed out of the boat.

  Now it was Max’s turn to disembark.

  He was dithering over whether to shake hands, when the boatman solved his dilemma by catching him in a suffocating bear hug.

  “Good-bye, Max Murphy, all blessings,” he said.

  “Good-bye, Eusebio.” Max took off his shades and handed them to the boatman. “Here, you need these more than I do. You’re headed into the sun.”

  Eusebio put on the shades, slapped Max on the back, hugged him again, kissed him on both cheeks, and roared off upriver.

  “That was nice of you, Max,” said Lola.

  “You can call me Hoop, if you like,” he said.

  Almost as soon as they began to walk, the rain started bucketing down. It was going to be another wet, miserable slog through the mud.

  Then Max remembered his new positive attitude. Determined not to be a whiny tourist, he fashioned a rain hat out of a large leaf, gritted his teeth, and followed Lola in stoic silence.

  After an hour or so, the vegetation thinned out a little and he could make out a narrow path snaking to and fro up a steep hillside in front of them.

  “Nearly there,” called Lola. “Are you okay, Hoop?”

  “Me? I’m fine,” replied Max, as jauntily as he could from under his leaf.

  Lola looked at him suspiciously. “Why aren’t you complaining about anything?”

  “It’s the new me,” he said. “I’ve changed.”

  Lola laughed. “So how does the new you feel about climbing that hill?”

  “Lead on!”

  When they reached the top, the rain stopped suddenly as it had started, and the sun came out.

  The view was incredible. The forest spread out in every direction, from the banks of the Monkey River to the distant purple mountains. But all Max’s tired body could focus on was the fact that they were not actually at the top.

  There was one more hill to climb. On its summit, the upper terraces closer to sky than earth, were the partially excavated ruins of a huge stepped pyramid.

  “That’s the Temple of Itzamna,” said Lola.

  She started to run up the path. Then she stopped and came back. “By the way, there’s something you should know before we go up there. …”

  “What?”

  “Hermanjilio is a little”—she searched for just the right word—“eccentric.”

  “What do you mean eccentric?”

  But Lola and Thunderclaw had taken off up the path to the ruined city.

  Chapter Fourteen

  ITZAMNA

  Max followed behind, huffing and puffing up the hill until he reached the Temple of Itzamna. As he got closer, he came face-to-face with a line of monstrous carved faces. One had a pig’s snout, another had pop eyes and buckteeth. It wasn’t quite the welcoming committee he’d hoped for.

  “Lola?” he called.

  “Over here, Hoop.”

  He followed her voice around the side of the pyramid and there, spread out below him, was the glorious ancient city that had once ruled the Monkey River.

  Spread out below him was the glorious ancient city.

  It wasn’t what he’d expected at all. He’d thought Itzamna would be another boring archaeological site like the ones in his parents’ photograph albums—a hodgepodge of taped-off trenches and rubble and piles of old stones, meaningless to anyone but the experts. But this place was at once magnificent and welcoming, like coming home to the most beautiful city in the world.

  The temple was built into the hillside. They were standing on a platform halfway up, about fifty feet above the central plaza. The top of the pyramid was another fifty feet above them. On this side, steep steps led down to the overgrown plaza. Through the middle of the plaza, a raised stone causeway, flanked by more r
uins and grassy mounds, ran to another massive structure at the far end of the site. This, too, was only partially excavated, and trees sprang from its upper terraces. But against the hazy backdrop of the forest, with the afternoon sun bathing its white stones in pinks and purples, it looked like a precious jewel on a bed of dark-green velvet.

  “That’s the royal palace,” said Lola proudly. “It was built over a thousand years ago without metal tools or wheels.”

  “The Maya didn’t have wheels?”

  “We had them,” said Lola, “but we only used them for children’s toys.”

  “Really? You guys weren’t as smart as I thought.”

  “There’s not much point in making wheeled carts if you don’t have draft animals to pull them,” she sniffed. “Besides, we were busy inventing the Maya calendar, the concept of zero, rubber balls, hot chocolate, chewing gum—”

  Max’s ears pricked up. “Chewing gum?”

  “We call it chicle. It’s made from the latex of the sapodilla tree. While you’re here we could—”

  Max gripped her arm. “It’s a ghost!” he hissed.

  She followed his eyes down to the plaza, where an ancient Maya king had just emerged from behind a pyramid. He wore a richly embroidered tunic, belted at the waist with a woven sash. His straight black hair was pulled into a thick ponytail on top of his head with a gold ornament. Jade spools bobbed from his ears as he walked.

  “Hermanjilio!” screamed Lola happily, handing Max the rooster cage and running down to meet this apparition.

  “Biix abeel?” Hermanjilio shouted up to her. “Are you okay?”

  “Ma’alob, ma’alob,” called Lola. “I’m fine!”

  “I’ve been expecting you! Chulo and Seri got here ages ago!”

  “It’s so good to see you,” said Lola, hugging him. “And I’ve got something for you!” She opened her backpack to show him the Red Jaguar.

  “But how …?”

  “It wasn’t easy! I’ll tell you everything later. …”

  As Lola and Hermanjilio chatted on, Max tried to take in every detail of the archaeologist’s extraordinary appearance.