The Gewgaws Adventure

by C. M. Bacon

  “I wish I could help, “Grandmother said, stepping between us, “but I don’t understand this totem’s power. Ours are different, and none have slowed the tide. The day’s sad news has taken a toll on us all. We can give you both dry, clean clothes to wear. You can rest before the evening meal.” Grandmother turned to Cara. “Take the strangers to see the mender. He’ll have something suitable.”

  “Yes, Grandmother,” Cara said, motioning for us to follow her. I placed the yellow balloon back into my pocket and followed Cara to the mender’s hut at the far end of the village.

  Nico called himself “the mender.” He was a sandal maker, a tailor, an ambassador, a scientist, and the other elder in the village. If something was broken, Nico would be ready to mend it back together. “I’m also a philosopher of sorts,” Nico proclaimed, stitching and talking, his belly jiggling as he worked to cover us in floral muumuus. Nico was Grandmother’s younger brother and, according to himself, a “highly respected man needed 24/7.”

  He was a little taller than me and a fair amount chubbier. His puffy feet barely fit into his leafy, green sandals. He had a round face filled with lines and wrinkles which stretched and relaxed as he talked about all his professions. The only thing larger than his muumuu-draped belly was his exuberant personality. He was cheery and kind, humming songs and telling stories as he sewed us into our muumuus. “I made it myself” or “It’s my own design,” he said at least four times, telling us about his many talents and theories.

  He chose to be the “indispensable man,” doing a plethora of jobs for which Cara said, “he did none of them well.” Yet, when villagers came to his workshop, he’d recognize each face saying, “It’ll be ready tomorrow” or “Drink this elixir every night before bed” or “It’ll fall off if you keep picking at it.” When the ocean began to rise, Nico begged his sister to let them all leave. Grandmother was the eldest, so she made the final decision to stay. Although he was indeed respected for many things, he could not protest in public against his sister. By the time he had created plans to rebuild their lost boats, the strongest trees had all drowned under the waves.

  “My sister used to be a wise woman, but her choice will end up killing us all,” Nico said.

  Arvin spoke to Nico while glaring at me. “I know how you feel.”

  When Nico finished sewing our muumuus and sandals, he took a step back to admire his work. “Beautifully finished,” he said, looking at his latest creations.

  “What are they made out of?” I asked, lifting up my feet to see large green leaves laced with thin red vines.

  “Banana leaves,” Nico said, pulling back his long, gray hair. “They’re great. You can wrap your feet to walk or fish to cook. Did I mention I’m a chef?” Nico asked, boasting again.

  I looked over to Arvin, who seemed to like his muumuu more than I did. The intense colors of the cloth and the vibrant green of the sandals contrasted against our pale white skin. But I had to admit, Arvin looked better; his fiery curls and emerald green eyes mirrored the colorful floral pattern on his muumuu. “Arvin, you look great.”

  “I’ll hang your clothes outside to dry,” Nico said, “but your sandals will take several more days. I’m not sure you’ll get a chance to wear them again.” He picked up our soggy pool clothes which were soaking into the floor and hung them on a rope outside his workshop door.

  “What’s this?” Nico asked, reaching down to pick something off the ground.

  “It’s a water balloon,” I said, seeing it in Nico’s hand. The balloon must have fallen out of my upturned shorts.

  “You can throw it at someone who used to be your friend,” Arvin said, staring me down.

  “Why would I do such a horrible thing?” Nico asked, examining the balloon in his hand, stretching and smelling, and even licking the rubber.

  “You wouldn’t and neither would I. Never again,” I said and mouthed “I’m sorry” to Arvin.

  Nico was more curious than Grandmother. “You say it’s magic?” Nico asked, focusing all his attention on the balloon.

  “Bad magic,” said Arvin.

  “Can you fill it with only water?” Nico asked, peering inside the balloon’s little opening.

  “Well, water was already in the balloon. It began filling itself after I picked it up,” I said. “That’s the magic part.”

  “Bad magic,” Arvin repeated. “Perry, I’m hungry. Let’s go eat with Cara. She said she would wait for us by the fire.”

  “Can I examine your totem for a little while? I’ll return it to you after the evening meal,” Nico said, his expert fingers exploring every millimeter of the magical balloon.

  “Okay,” I said.

  “You can keep it as far as I’m concerned,” Arvin said, pulling me out of Nico’s hut into the chilly night air.

  “Why did you say that, Arvin?” I asked.

  “Because I’m hungry, and I don’t want to be crushed this time.”

  After a brief bathroom break behind a palm tree, we arrived at the village center. The villagers were out of their homes, surrounding a roaring fire, and eating the evening meal of bananas and fish. As black as tar, they were invisible except for the faint glint of flickering firelight reflecting off the whites of their eyes. They crossed their legs and hunched their bony backs.

  “Why don’t they say anything?” Arvin whispered, tilting and nodding his head in the direction of the crowd.

  “Maybe there’s nothing left to say,” I said, walking to Cara.

  Grandmother walked from person to person, placing bananas and freshly cooked fish on the ground at their feet. I watched her smile as she fed the whole village, and I wondered how any leader could be so foolish. Did she think she had done what was right at the time? The villagers bowed their heads and, with shaking hands, unwrapped fish from the banana leaf and ate. They neither spoke nor showed any satisfaction as they were eating. They were broken.

  “Come. Sit with me,” Cara said, scooting over to make room beside the glowing fire.

  I sat down next to Cara. Arvin sat a little further away from the fire. As we ate, Cara leaned over to talk to us. “Grandmother says you may stay if you wish, though there isn’t much time for anything else,” said Cara. “She expects the tide to rise in the morning, pulling us all into the depths of the sea. I’m sorry for you both. You’re not one of us, but you’ll drown the same.”

  I turned toward Arvin, expecting to see his eyes burning a hole through me, blaming me for everything. He had turned away and was gazing into the fire. He looked as sullen as the villagers.

  “Perry,” Arvin said, transfixed by the roaring fire, “maybe we should try the balloon again.”

  I nodded.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Yellow Gewgaw

  After our meal, we asked Cara if we could sleep under the stars. She agreed and left Arvin and me to sit and talk. Everyone finished their meals and, one-by-one, returned to their homes, stumbled into their beds, and fell asleep. Arvin went to a nearby tree. Plucking off a few leaves, he went behind a hut to “do his business” in private. I sat close to the fire, warming my feet and hands silhouetted against the bright flames. Arvin returned after a few minutes but stayed away from the fire.

  “It’s too hot for me,” Arvin insisted, making a bed of banana leaves. “Be careful when you ‘do your business.’ I swear I heard a snake hissing at me.”

  “I hate snakes. I’ll be careful to look before I squat.” I changed the smelly subject. “Arvin, do you miss your mom?”

  “Of course. She must be out looking for me,” he said, looking up at millions of twinkling stars.

  “If you see a shooting star, make a wish to go home,” I said, yawning and stretching my arms.

  “I will,” Arvin said, unable to keep his eyes open.

  As I looked at the clear night sky, I listened to frogs croaking and shooed several buzzing mosquitos away from my ears. A cluster of faint white stars pulsed high above, reminding me of Emilia and home. They were not shootin
g, but I wished upon them anyway. Within minutes, I was slaying the dragons and serpents in my mind.

  “Perry. Arvin. Boys wake up,” Nico said in hushed tones, shaking my arm. “I figured it out.”

  “Figured what out?” I asked, rubbing my eyes to see the sun’s first rays peeking over the horizon. Arvin was snoring a few feet away. His wheezes and snorts downed out the croaks of mating frogs.

  “How to save the island. How to save us all,” Nico said.

  “What? How?” Arvin asked, returning to the real world, his teeth chattering in the chilly morning air.

  “The yellow balloon,” Nico said, holding it up for us to see. Arvin and I looked at each other.

  “The balloon?” Arvin asked.

  “What do you mean?” I said, giving clarity to Arvin’s brevity.

  “Watch this,” Nico said, grasping the balloon by its thin, circular opening. He gently pressed it to his lips and blew. The balloon expanded a little.

  “Congratulations, it’s a balloon. We’re all saved,” Arvin said, turning back to sleep. “Let it go before the ocean rushes out of the opening.”

  “Arvin, watch,” Nico said, insisting we focus our eyes on the balloon while he held shut its curled opening. It flopped over. The balloon stood straight up, startling Arvin and I. It shook and bobbed left and right, spinning as if it were trying to escape Nico’s grasp.

  “It’s growing,” I said, astonished.

  After a few seconds, it was the size of my head. Arvin and I backed away. Nico released his grasp on the opening, letting go of the balloon. It shot straight up, spitting out air with a high-pitched EEEEEEEE as It ran out of air, crashing down at my feet with an unsatisfying PLOP. I stared at the balloon, expecting water to follow.

  “See,” Nico said. “Whatever you seal inside will continue to grow. If it stretched to the size you say, I don’t see why it ever has to stop growing.”

  “We popped it. Perry and I,” Arvin warned. “It’s bad magic which put it back together.”

  “But you didn’t. At least, I don’t think you did. The opening must have unraveled at the exact moment you bit into it. All the water inside had to get out somehow. And since the balloon had grown so much, it must have turned itself inside out to do it.”

  “If you’re right,” I said, “how can we use it to escape the island?”

  “We’re not going to escape the island,” Nico said, smiling. “We’re going to pull it out of the water.”

  “Pull it out?” Arvin asked, shocked by the wild idea. “How do you think you’ll do that with a water balloon - even a magical one?”

  I realized Nico wanted to tie the balloon to the island somehow, blow into it, and tie it off - for good this time. I turned to Arvin, who was curling his red hair around his fingers. “Nico hopes the balloon can grow large enough to lift the island off the crumbling ocean floor,” I said, clarifying Nico’s plan to Arvin.

  Nico said, “We need the balloon to lift the island out of the water long enough for us to rebuild our boats, gather our food, and escape with our families. After we’ve rowed far enough away to avoid a whirlpool, someone will cut the ropes and let the island sink.”

  “What about the balloon?” I wondered if we could get it back after all.

  “If the balloon pulls my ropes to their full length, our arrows won’t be able to reach it. It’ll keep growing and rising into the sky and past the clouds to join the stars in the sky.”

  “Who’s going to stay behind?” Arvin asked. “Who would volunteer to die?”

  “My sister says if my plan succeeds, she will be the one to stay behind.” Nico lowered his head. “She’s old, but she can still cut the ropes when everyone is safely away.” Nico had frustration in his voice. “But since your totem does not belong to us, I must ask your permission to take it.”

  “Can’t we let the island float away?” I asked, hoping for something better.

  “Eventually, the island will float over the mainland. We can’t allow our crumbling home to destroy any more lives. My sister would never allow it,” Nico said, proud of his plan and the elder’s sacrifice. I didn’t know what to say, but Arvin did.

  “Perry, he’s asking us to stay with them, to give up our only way home. I hate that stupid balloon as much as before, but we have zero chance of getting home without it.”

  “I don’t know if we have a chance, Arvin,” I said. “We don’t even know if using it would take us home or kill us next time. You save worms from sidewalks, Arvin. He’s asking us to save over a hundred people. Saving people is better than saving worms, and you know it. Besides, you won’t have to clean chalky erasers anymore.”

  “I liked cleaning the erasers,” Arvin said, crossing his arms.

  “Arvin?” I said, pushing him for an answer.

  “I guess so,” he said, agreeing to Nico’s wild plan.

  The next afternoon, we returned to Nico’s hut to change into our own clothes, making sure to check my coin, five dollars, and Arvin’s twisted wire hadn’t fallen out of the pockets.

  “Yuck. This smells like fish poop,” Arvin said, inhaling through his dry rainbow tank top. “Perry, we should keep these muumuus on over our shorts.”

  I agreed and kept my muumuu on.

  While we were changing, Nico began setting up his attempt. He cleared away the remains of the cooled fire from the village center and made a circle of rope in its place. “This is where the yellow balloon will go,” he said. We helped join a dozen ropes together and spread them out in every direction. We tied the ends to the largest trees we could find using Arvin’s best knots.

  “Good knots,” I said, giving Arvin two thumbs up.

  “Yep. Dad taught me,” he said as he tied his last knot. We headed back towards the village.

  The moment we returned, a great rumble shook the island under our feet. The island rose then sank. The ocean flowed over the hills, uprooted trees like weeds, and spread out across the grass plain.

  CRASH!

  The waves slammed against the hill from every side, rising up, flooding into the caves and over the crisscrossing stairs below. The villagers cried and screamed with terror as the village became a single island in the middle of the ocean. “It’s time,” Nico shouted, seeing us return.

  Nico flailed his arms and hands as we entered the circle. “Perry, blow your hottest breath into the balloon.” I took the balloon from his hand and blew into the opening as hard as I could. It filled with my hot breath and began to grow. Nico took the balloon and tied the end into two tight knots.

  “One knot will keep it closed,” he said. “The other will hold it in place.”

  Nico released the balloon as we all took a step back. It twirled and spun, bobbed and swayed. It grew larger as air hissed and swelled from somewhere within.

  SQUEEEEEEEEEEE

  It sang out, growing bigger and bigger. When it reached Arvin’s height, it began to climb into the air, pulling the braided ropes up off the ground. It was as big as Nico, a tree, a hut, two huts, five huts. It rose high above the village, becoming the size of the village itself. It grew to cover the cloudy sky as if the sun had come down to float over the island. The ropes reached their ends, tugging on the trees.

  CRACK!

  One tree was ripped out of the ground. Its waxy leaves and dirty roots rained down on the village.

  CRACK!

  Another was snatched by its taut rope.

  CRACK-CRACK!

  Two more.

  “Nico,” Arvin shouted, pulling leaves and worms out of his curls, “I don’t think this is going to work.”

  BOOM!

  The island lurched up with a thunderous jolt, tumbling everyone over onto the dirty, leaf-strewn ground.

  BOOM!

  The island shook again. Everyone scrambled to the edge of the mesa to see the miracle. The waves were pulling away from the village.

  “It’s working,” someone shouted from across the village, followed by a series of joyful cries.


  “We’ve stopped sinking,” another bellowed. “We’re saved.”

  The balloon continued to grow double, triple, quadruple the size of the village. As we rose higher, the ocean rolled away. The salty water receded across the grass plains and palm-covered hills, rushing over boulders, revealing more of the landscape in the distance. Squinting to see as far as I could, I was surprised to see a large lake appear from beneath the receding waves. I turned to Cara, who was standing next to Arvin and me.

  “I forgot you said your island had a lake,” I said, smiling and pointing to the large oval lake.

  “Perry, Arvin,” she said, “that’s where I found you.”

  “I had no idea,” Arvin said, staring once again. Our ascent slowed as the island’s real beach came into view.

  “Look!” Grandmother shouted, having better eyesight than I would’ve imagined. She pointed two fingers to the far end of the island. “Our sacred boat trees are holding onto the hills.”

  The balloon had grown to twenty times the size of the island. The large blob turned the sky yellow. Everyone thanked us for our sacrifice as they left with their tools and Nico’s boat plans over the soggy ripped plains towards the beach. Over the next week, the villagers chopped down their great boat trees, cutting, sanding, and locking thick boards in place with tar and twine. As they worked, they thanked each tree for its wood and the yellow balloon for its magic. Forty large boats as big as village huts waited to launch by the end of the week. Each was filled with everything of importance: family, food, and water.

  “The last boat is for you,” Cara said, walking over to where we were watching it all. “A few of the boats will head for the next island. Nico has attached a rope from the lead boat to yours, so you don’t get lost. You should feel honored. It’s not often an outsider is allowed to accompany a lead boat like this.”

  “We are honored,” Arvin said, taking her hand and smiling up at her. In my head, I gave him five points for flirting. Cara smiled back down at him.

  Cara said, “But before you go with the first group, we’d like to return the gift you’ve given us. Grandmother is waiting on the first boat with something for each of you.”