In the Trees

by Pauline Fisk

  Emerging into the fresh air came as a relief. Kid moved on to the wash-house where he found bowls, jugs, soap and that most Western of all commodities – toothpaste. When he came out, he looked up at the stars. The sky was alive with them and the air around Kid was alive with moving dots of phosphorescent light that were almost emerald green.

  Kid had never seen fireflies before. He span round, and everything on every side of him – on earth and in the heavens too – seemed to be starry.

  Back in the house, Lydia had retired to bed, taking one of the candles with her, and so had Renata who’d taken Renaldo with her and was curled up with him on a mat beside the open hearth. Only Reuben sat up, wanting to make sure Kid had everything he needed and to wish him a good night.

  ‘I hope you will be happy with us,’ he said.

  That word again, happy. Kid had never heard it used so many times in just one day.

  24

  TORTILLAS

  Kid awoke before first light to a rumbling noise that seemed to fill the house and make its walls shake. First there was a quick blast of sound, then it stopped, then it started again. Kid checked his watch. It was only five o’clock. Wide awake and curious, he climbed out of his hammock and tiptoed across the floor, anxious not to wake anybody up. At the door, he slipped the latch and crept outside. The sound came from across the village, but he couldn’t see where from.

  It took Renata, coming up behind him, to explain what was going on. Kid asked what the noise was and she said it came from the electricity generator that powered the corn mill.

  ‘What, at this hour?’ Kid said.

  Renata smiled. ‘This hour is when we grind our corn,’ she said, holding up a metal drum. ‘That’s what I’m doing now. If you want, you can come and see.’

  Kid returned inside for his shoes, then followed Renata through the village. The air was mild and soft. It mightn’t be light yet, but it was a good time to be out and about. In the distance, he could see the edge of the Maya Mountains standing against the sky, wreathed in veils of mist. Somewhere across the village, a solitary bird set up a sharp chachalaca sound.

  Kid passed dark houses were people still slept, passed wash-houses, bird-houses and tall silent trees. As he grew accustomed to the darkness, he noticed other shadowy figures up too. Some of them were heading in the same direction as him and Renata, but others were heading down to the track where a truck was waiting for them.

  Kid saw figures throwing themselves into the back of the truck and then, headlights blazing, being driven away. Renata explained that they were going to the logging company, which was where most of the village men worked. It was where Reuben worked, she said, but he also worked on his farm and sometimes on his parents-in-law’s farm, when they were too sick to do it for themselves.

  They’d reached the corn mill by now, and Renata stopped outside to put down her drum. From the sort of noise that had awoken him, Kid had been expecting a substantial building, but the corn mill was just a simple thatched dwelling, no different to all the others in the village. Renata led the way into the darkness inside. As Kid’s eyes grew accustomed to the gloom he saw a rickety-looking iron monster, complete with belts and wheels, chains, chutes and a huge bucket-mouth. He also saw the miller – an old woman in a tartan frock, who smiled toothlessly.

  Renata introduced Kid to the miller in Kekchi-Mayan. The old woman eyed him with the degree of wariness that he was eyeing her machinery. Kid smiled, and she inclined her head.

  ‘I’m not that scary, am I?’ Kid said.

  Renata shook her head. The miller wasn’t scared of anybody, she said. She handed Kid the drum of corn. The miller gestured for him to step forward.

  ‘What am I meant to do?’ Kid said.

  Renata gestured for him to tip the corn down the chute into the waiting bucket-mouth, which was hungry to get chomping. He watched as it disappeared in a stream of cream-coloured pebbles, far removed from the soggy yellow sweetcorn that came in cans. The machinery jiggered about and the corn jumped and juddered its way through the system. The air was full of dust. The miller’s face was white. Kid had to wipe his eyes, but the pricking that bothered them didn’t seem to bother hers.

  By now several other women had appeared, standing in the door eyeing Kid shyly. When the mill stopped grinding, Renata introduced him.

  ‘This is our boy,’ she said in English, so that Kid would understand. ‘His name is Kid. He’s going to teach in our school.’

  She pronounced it Keed. The women tried it out, as if testing it for size. They smiled, said, ‘Hello, Keed’ carefully, as if they didn’t often speak in English, then returned to Kekchi-Mayan. Kid guessed they were talking about him, and wondered what they were saying. Later, leading him back through the village, Renata explained that they’d been commenting on the fact that he looked more Creole than English, teasing her and asking if she was sure she’d been sent the right boy.

  Kid smiled at that. He said his father was a Belizean, and explained about coming all the way from England to find him. Renata seemed to find this confusing. Here in Blue Bank Springs, if you didn’t have a father, then you lived with your brothers and sisters, or aunties and uncles or at least your xa-an, which was the Kekchi-Mayan word for grandmother. That was what had happened to her. When her father had died, and her mother not long afterwards, she’d moved into her brother Reuben’s house.

  ‘Don’t you ever feel in the way?’ Kid asked, thinking about Nadine back in England.

  Again Renata seemed to find this confusing. ‘Why would I feel that?’ she said. ‘My brother’s home is mine. The only way I’d leave is if I found a husband of my own. Then he’d go into the forest, like Reuben did for Lydia, and cut down trees and build me a house.’

  Kid asked if Renata had anybody lined up for this labour of love.

  She laughed and shook her head. She was still waiting, she said, but so far no one matched up to Reuben.

  ‘He’s a good man,’ she said. ‘Better to live with a good brother than a bad husband.’

  By now, light had broken in the sky, and the village was coming to life. Cockerels hollered. Doors and shutters banged open. Voices called out to each other. Children rushed about, revelling in the cool air before the heat later on. Renaldo came rushing across the grass to greet them, shouting was-yur-name over and over like a CD on repeat. Lydia yelled at him to come here and get dressed for school, but he took no notice. She was up and dressed ready to make tortillas for breakfast.

  Feeling like a spare part, Kit watched her light the fire, slide an iron griddle over it, then take the freshly milled corn and start turning it to dough. When it came away cleanly from the sides of the bowl, she formed it into little nut-sized pieces which she beat beneath her palms into perfect spheres. Finally, when the griddle was hot enough, she tossed the spheres on to it to cook on both sides, and ended up with tortillas.

  Kid watched in silence, impressed by her skill. He’d seen plenty of griddle-action in his time at Jet’s, but never anything quite as fast as this. Lydia’s hands moved like lightning. By the time the sun had risen high enough to shine into the house, he was seated at the table with his breakfast in front of him. Through the open door, he could see the bird-house where chicks were bathing in an old tyre and an aged turkey was wobbling about. He could also see a bus chundering along the track in a cloud of dust.

  It was only the second vehicle Kid had seen that morning, so he watched with interest as it drew to a halt immediately beneath the house. An enormous Creole woman with a bag of books disembarked. She headed up the grassy path towards the houses, and children everywhere disappeared indoors. Her shadow only had to fall across them, and they were gone.

  Kid finished eating breakfast and guessed that he should get dressed too. Somewhere in his rucksack was a letter of introduction to Miss Elizabeth Brandon-Atkins, Head Teacher of Blue Bank Springs School. Unless he was mistaken, this person passing through the village, inflicting good behaviour on all its children without
a word being said, had to be her.

  ‘That woman,’ he said, just to make certain. ‘The one who just got off the bus – who is she?’

  Renaldo ran round and round, resplendent in grey shorts and a snow-white shirt. Lydia looked up from trying to grab him for long enough to tuck it in. Her expression said it all. You’ll know soon enough, it said.

  But she answered anyway. ‘That’s Teacher Betty,’ she said.

  25

  TEACHER BETTY

  Kid hurried through the village, accompanied by Renaldo. According to him if Teacher Betty rang the assembly bell and he wasn’t there, he might as well not bother because he’d be in so much trouble. Kid clutched his letter, his stomach churning for the first time since arriving in Blue Bank Springs. Was Teacher Betty really that fearsome? He hoped not.

  The school was a single-storey, tin-roofed, concrete structure built on a ridge above the river. A shady veranda ran along the front of it, facing a flagpole, and it was here that all the pupils were lined up for assembly. They were immaculately dressed, the girls in colourful frocks with not a crease in sight, the boys like Renaldo in shorts and fresh white shirts.

  Kid felt scruffy by comparison, and he was late as well. Renaldo ran to join his classmates, but Kid stood to one side as one of the children rang the bell which signalled the raising of the Belizean flag. At this, everybody snapped to attention, hands over their hearts, and started singing their national anthem.

  Kid had never been much of a one for patriotism. He thought that things like anthems were a waste of space. To his surprise, however, this anthem contained no gracious queens or glorious victories. This anthem had guts. There were coral islands in it, and blue lagoons, angels, stars and the moon. There were even a few pitched battles thrown in for good measure, and there were invaders being driven back by valiant behaviour.

  ‘O, Land of the free by the Carib Sea,’ the children began, and, ‘For freedom comes tomorrow’s noon,’ they finished off.

  Kid felt like singing along. Who wouldn’t want to, with a swash-buckling anthem like that?

  Assembly finished at last, the children filed into their classrooms and the woman whose appearance had caused such a dramatic effect earlier came and introduced herself. As Kid had suspected, she was Miss Elizabeth Brandon-Atkins.

  ‘Named after de Queen,’ she explained, adding – in case there was doubt about who she meant – ‘Queen Elizabeth II. Once she was yur queen, but now she’s ours. Jus’ like Bileez. Once it was yurs, but not any more. By de way, you don’ have to call me Miz Brandon-Atkins. My staff know me as Teacher Betty, or jus’ plain Lizabeth to friends.’

  Kid couldn’t imagine being a friend of Teacher Betty’s. Gripping his shoulder with her enormous hand, she marched him indoors. He tried handing over his letter, but she said she didn’t need it. Everything she needed to know about him she’d find out for herself. And she didn’t have the time to read letters anyway, because she had important matters to attend to.

  ‘… which is why I want yu to meet my class. Yu’ll be in charge of dem dis morning.’

  Thirty Kekchi-Mayan boys and girls, aged between nine and eleven, stared up at Kid in perfect innocence. He stared back, panic-stricken. Teacher Betty introduced him as Teacher Kid and everybody giggled as if there was something funny about it.

  After that, things went downhill quickly. Teacher Betty left Kid with a series of tasks for her class that she obviously didn’t think needed explaining. Her parting words of advice to Kid were, ‘Dere’s nothing to it. Jus’ stand dere an’ keep order. Dese are Kekchi-Mayan children, which means dere bright. If dere are any problems Teacher Pat next door will help.’

  Kid felt sick with apprehension, but there was nothing he could do. Teacher Betty disappeared to attend to whatever was more important than helping acclimatise her latest classroom assistant to teaching, and immediately thirty Kekchi-Mayan children erupted. ‘Was-yur-name, was-yur-name, was-yur-name?’ they wanted to know, taking it in turns to run up and touch Kid as if he’d just landed from another planet.

  He tried to quieten them down, but with no success. Everybody wanted Kid to know how good they were at football, or whose sister, brother, cousin or friend they were, or which house they lived in. They also wanted to nick each other’s books and generally lark about. It wasn’t long before Kid had to call in the services of Teacher Pat. Not that she was much better at controlling children. Her younger children didn’t stay at their desks any more than Kid’s older ones did.

  In the end, Teacher Betty came storming back, shouting at both classes, ‘Yu wan’ I beat yu for being naughty?’ waggling a ruler at them as if to illustrate what she meant. The din subsided immediately. Obviously Teacher Betty carried out her threats. Books came out and were opened up, and pencils started scratching across pages. But as soon as Teacher Betty had gone again, the noise level started rising. Who wanted to do sums when the sun was shining outside, the air was full of clouds of butterflies, half the village dogs were wandering in and out and a new young teacher was in charge?

  Nothing Kid did or said could keep his pupils at their desks. By lunchtime he was exhausted and, by the end of the school day, he was sure he’d never make a teacher. Teacher Betty assured him that there was nothing to it once he’d got into his stride. All he had to do was shout.

  Next day, however, things were just as bad. Even with Teacher Betty in the classroom, the children only had to look at Kid to start mucking about. And the following day, when Teacher Betty put him in with the oldest children in order to help them with their English, things were even worse. For all her insisting that, by their age, they’d all grown up, Kid spent the day with them running amok.

  It wasn’t just the novelty of a new teacher, he realised. It was him to blame, Teacher Kid himself. He was useless. His pupils didn’t muck about because he was a stranger. They mucked about because he was weak.

  Kid tried shouting, like Teacher Betty had told him. But, as if they didn’t believe he meant it, the children took no notice. He tried getting alongside them and being their friend, but that only made them worse. He even tried toughening up and becoming the teacher from hell. But everybody laughed in his face.

  Nothing Kid did made any difference. His mere presence seemed to set the children off. Teacher Betty supervised Kid to see where he was going wrong, and tried correcting his mistakes. But finally she concluded that perhaps he wasn’t cut out to be a teacher and his placement in the school had been a terrible misjudgement on somebody’s behalf.

  Kid felt a fool. Teacher Betty stuck it out for a whole week, but at the beginning of the second week, she put him in a back room out of view of any children and charged him with the task of cataloguing books and making a school library.

  Kid set to immediately. Here at last was something useful that he could do. In the morning he organised all the books in sections, listed alphabetically. Then in the afternoon, drawing on his bunkhouse building skills, he put up shelves and arranged the books on them.

  By the end of just one day, the library was complete. Teacher Betty had thought she’d got rid of Kid for at least a week. But now here he was, on her hands again – and she plainly didn’t know what to do with him.

  That afternoon, instead of feeling proud of a job well done, Kid trailed back through the village feeling utterly pathetic. Everybody in Blue Bank Springs had a job to do – the men at the sawmill, the women sitting sewing in their doorways, or nursing their babies. Everybody had a purpose except him. Back in his jungle days, he’d had a purpose, too. But now he felt like a spare part.

  Returning home, Kid found Lydia preparing supper and Renata sitting in the shade sewing a shirt which she said was for him. It was a lovely shirt, he said, but he couldn’t take it because he hadn’t earned it.

  ‘What do you mean?’ Renata said.

  ‘Everybody here works,’ Kid tried to explain. ‘Everybody is useful except for me. I’m beginning to think I ought to leave.’

  Renat
a looked up from the sewing machine. Sometimes her English wasn’t very good, she apologised, but she still didn’t understand what he meant. Kid explained about school, and how useless he was. In fact, he didn’t just feel useless, he said. He felt ashamed.

  Lydia came out when Kid said that. So what if he wasn’t cut out to be a teacher? That was nothing to be ashamed of, she said.

  ‘But I want to play my part,’ Kid said. ‘I want you to be proud of me, and I want to be proud of myself. But here I am, taking your food and hospitality and giving nothing back.’

  ‘But you’re our guest.’

  ‘Even so, it isn’t fair.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because you can’t afford it. Because you’re poor.’

  Lydia smiled when Kid said that, but went back inside and didn’t say another thing. Renata started sewing again and didn’t say anything either. Embarrassed to realise that he’d caused offence, Kid would have taken back his words if only he could. But they hung between them all for the rest of the day.

  That night, after the candles had been lit and supper eaten, Lydia’s father made an appearance. The door opened and in he came, a small, thin man dressed in a patterned shirt of faded cotton. Streaks of grey were mixed up in his black hair, and his face was lined. His name was Joseph, and he was the founder of the village.

  ‘I thought that it was time you and I met,’ he said.

  Kid sat up straight as if in the presence of royalty. For all that Joseph might look stooped and tired, there was fire in his eyes. Kid only had to look at him to understand his daughter’s queenly demeanour. Dimly he was aware of the others sitting up straight too, and even sleepy Renaldo coming back to life.

  Joseph pulled up a wooden chair and settled himself in it, right in front of Kid, his hands on his knees. ‘I’ve come to tell you the story of our village,’ he said in a quiet, steady voice. ‘The story of Blue Bank Springs. It happened like this.