Walking the Tree

by Kaaron Warren

  They pulled my shoulders back too far into the ground and they covered my mouth. I felt the stick against my stomach like an ache after too much fruit.

  My friends watched. Not helping. I wriggled my fingers at Rham, hoping she would tell them to stop.

  The short boy lifted the stick with a great roar. At the last minute, the other children let me go and I rolled aside as he thrust the stick into the ground. It went doing from side to side.

  "I wouldn't have got you," he said. But he would. He really would.

  None of us felt well the next day. There was something wrong with the fruit wine. It made us all feel sick.

  The teachers were not very well, either. Lillah and Melia laughed a lot, still. They'd made a new friend, a man called Phyto. He's really funny and Lillah and Melia spend a lot of time with him.

  Luckily we didn't have to leave until the next day. I couldn't have walked very far.

  We have a new teacher called Gingko, taking the place of Agara. I hope she's okay. People in Cedralas make me laugh so I hope she is the same.

  Phyto and Lillah talked quietly as we were leaving. The next thing I knew, he had a bag with him and he was coming with us. "I hope you don't mind, children," he said. "But I'm going to walk with you for a while. There are people I need to be with in another community. We'll be able to learn a lot from each other."

  Zygo seemed the happiest about it. I'm happy, too. Lillah seems to like Phyto. At least she talks more when he's around.

  Cedrelas — RHADO — Thallo

  We call it Lillah's Mum's Place.

  How many days did we walk? How long? Every day seems like the last.

  Lillah finally spoke to me. I thought she forgot I was there. But then, because we were heading into the village her mother came from, she wanted me to listen to her.

  She was really nervous. I felt sorry for her. I didn't know if she liked her Mum much or what, but she would still want her Mum to like her. "Is your Mum really going to be here?" I asked her.

  "I don't know. I hope she's safe, wherever she is."

  "Why did she leave Ombu? Didn't she love you anymore?"

  Lillah looked at me and I felt bad for saying that. I didn't want her to feel sad because of something I'd said.

  "Is it because of me? Because your dad is my dad too?" I said. Lillah's mother… I didn't know her. I only knew the women who were friendly with my mother.

  "I don't think there was any reason. Some women just decide they want to return to their home communities."

  "I don't think they should. I think that's cruel."

  "Well, everyone can choose."

  "Every woman, you mean."

  She nodded. "Yes, every woman."

  "I hope she's here," I said, and that seemed to make her feel better. Sometimes you can say one kind thing and make another person happy.

  Still she looked worried, so I played the fool.

  I tripped over on purpose, rolled around in the sand, getting as covered in the grains as possible. The kids laughed but Lillah barely noticed.

  So much for distracting her from being worried.

  After all that, her mother wasn't there. Melia and the other teachers stood by Lillah. I think she was shocked.

  "We don't know were she is," the people told her. They were not kind people. Not friendly to us at all. I don't know about Lillah's mother, but I wouldn't want to stay here forever.

  There is one good thing about Rhado. Usually we have to be so careful when we eat, but here you get to smash plates on purpose. Zygo did it the best; he'd jump up high as he could go and throw the plate with all his strength as he landed.

  Borag did this great dance around, tossing the

  plates as she went. We were tired and dusty after all that smashing, and the others ran to the water to swim. I thought of my mother.

  My mother. Always scared of the water and what your mother is scared of, you are scared of for a long time. Then you get older and realise you don't have to share the fear.

  I tried to step into the water and swim without any of the other children noticing because I knew they would laugh at me, clumsy as a land monster in the water. Heavy as a special stone. Rham noticed first and didn't laugh. She came and stood beside me, held my hand.

  "Here, I'll help you walk in. You'll love it when your head goes under water. It's really refreshing."

  I wished she wouldn't talk. I pretended I did this all the time. That I had not been scared all my life.

  The water is so huge, it goes on forever. When the sand drops from your feet, who knows how far down it goes? What lives down there with sharp claws like crabs? I do not like to eat crabs.

  It was nice, though, the water. Cool. Rham splashed my chest, then Zygo did it, but he wet my hair, made me angry, and when I splashed him back he dived under the water. Grabbed my legs and pulled when I didn't know what he was going to do.

  Once you're under you can't breathe. I knew it but I don't believe it. You should be able to breathe. I'm proud I swam at last.

  It seemed okay at Rhado. They were not very nice to Lillah, and she was sad because her mother wasn't here after all, but the food was good. Thea wasn't happy. She was cross with the other teachers for something. She came into our room and curled up on the floor. "What are you doing, Thea?" Rham asked her.

  "I can't sleep. Too many women. Too many men."

  Rham dropped a cushion on the floor for her. A cover.

  In the morning we saw she was a mess.

  "How is she a teacher?" Zygo said. "She's pathetic. Look at her hands. All cut up. What did she do, try to climb the Tree?"

  Thea clenched her fists and lifted her head, a look of such fury on her face we screamed and ran from her.

  No one listened to us, though, because there was something terrible happened in the night. A young boy was beaten to a pulp, beaten to death.

  "There's so much blood," Rham said.

  "It's too much for a normal person. And it's such a weird colour, don't you think?" Borag said.

  "I reckon he's a ghost. I reckon he was swapped at birth by the ghosts inside and they ate up the real boy." It was always Zygo who talked about ghosts.

  I stared into the ghost cave, looking for clues. I

  thought they'd come for me on their own.

  Nothing, though. It was awful when they hung that boy's body. From the ground he looked almost normal, although his feet were dark red and crusty with blood.

  They did it to save him from becoming a ghost.

  I feel like I have changed, seeing that boy dead. I will never be the same. Lillah cried a lot. I think she was sad that these were her people. They didn't even seem to care who killed him. But I remember Thea and her damaged hands. And we knew that she had told the adults a lie. She said that the boy, who was missing a toe, wanted to cut the toes from all the other men, so they would be equal. She told the adults that and so they killed the boy. We think she helped them.

  Rham told Melia what we knew about Thea. I think Melia believed her but we didn't know what to do.

  Thea helped the boy's family. Cooked all their meals. Took care of the younger children.

  Zygo said, "We should help her." He said it in a hard voice, like an adult who means a lot more than they say.

  "Yes, we should," Rham said. We all went to make sure Thea didn't hurt the children. She spat at us when she talked, but smiled her weak, helpless smile to the other teachers. Feeling sorry for someone doesn't mean you have to like them.

  • • •

  Lillah hugged me, hard. "Those people are my people, Morace. In a way they are yours, too, although we don't share a mother."

  "I don't want them," I said. "But are you sad your mother isn't here? Where do you think she is?"

  "I would have liked to see her. Maybe they would have been kinder to us if she had been here. I don't know where she might be, Morace. Perhaps we will meet with her on our journey."

  Phyto waited for us on the other side of Rhado. He doesn't
want to go into the communities. He listened while Lillah talked and talked. I felt jealous. I wanted my sister to talk to me like that.

  The other teachers seemed full of energy though Gingko used hers to try to force us to walk faster. Agara was much more interesting. I hoped she was happy in her new home.

  Rhado — THALLO — Parana

  We call it Clay People Place.

  Once Lillah had finally finished taking Phyto's attention, I got to talk to him.

  "Lillah ignored me the whole time in Thallo," I told him.

  "She had other things to think about, Morace. You know that. Think about how sad she must have felt that her mother wasn't there. And that the people she thought would be her family didn't welcome her. Think how you would feel if it were you."

  I have never been so scared. We saw these big rocks which looked scary enough but then they started to move. Rocks come to life. They looked hungry. Who knew what they wanted to eat? We ran backwards. Rham fell over and got up so fast it was like she hadn't fallen. Zygo pretended not to be scared but he really was.

  They came closer, closer. They had arms and legs,

  rocks with arms and legs, waving around.

  "Welcome!" they called to us. "Welcome!"

  It was people covered in clay.

  Why would people wear clay like that? So much clay they look like a rock?

  We were tired after our long walk and ready for a rest. So tired we got over our fright very quickly.

  I really hated it in Thallo. No fun. And they were weird about food. You had to eat every scrap, even the rubbish left on your plate.

  Borag loved to eat. She was the best eater; would try anything, cook anything. But she left the rind of her pawpaw on her plate. Who would eat that? She tossed it into a bush.

  One of the men hit her across the head. Knocked her down. She was so shocked she screamed.

  "Quiet, wastrel," this man said to her. "You throw our good food away?"

  "It was pawpaw skin," Zygo said. "Rubbish."

  He got a hit over the head, too. "Nothing is rubbish. Skins we cut finely for mixing with small fish, minced up for fish balls. You come from a place of such privilege you don't know what it's like to do without."

  This is by far the worst place we've been. We hate it here. It's a scary and horrible place. The more we're here, the worse it gets. There are children here who look exactly the same. Exactly. There is no difference and you can't tell them apart. It's wrong and bad. Sometimes they are in a different mood, so you see the same face with a different expression, the same child saying different words.

  They keep bones. They keep the inside bones of babies and people and they hang them up as if we want to see them. It makes me want to go to bed and stay there.

  All of us children were together, playing a game of drawing in the dirt, when one of the men came in.

  "You will need to clean yourselves. The Parade is about to begin."

  "What's a parade?" Zygo asked, ducking his head away to keep from being hit.

  "We dress up, and we walk around showing wondrous things," the man said. "It is a celebration of life. Of how life should be. And also how it shouldn't be. Come on, hurry up."

  We hoped none of our teachers chose to stay here.

  The people dressed in colourful leaves, with stiff vines around their necks. Lillah told us quietly, "We're not sure what we are about to see. It might be something frightening. Whatever it is, we have to remember that this is what they believe. We may believe something different. We may learn something from them."

  I will never sleep again. I will never want a baby. Why show us this? They lined up carrying large clay pots with lids. They didn't even warn us what was inside. They just showed up.

  It smelt so bad.

  Inside all the pots were babies gone wrong. Too many arms, or no legs, or empty heads or awful, awful things. They said this was punishment for marrying the wrong person. They screamed and waved these pots under our noses, forcing us to look.

  All of us were crying. The children from the village, too, all of them were crying.

  They were terrible, terrible people.

  It was strange, but the next day the villagers seemed happier. As if they saw the worst things and nothing else would be as bad. I even liked being there a bit. At breakfast they made a huge pot of porridge full of honey. You made a wish when you took your bowl. I hope mine comes true.

  I wished that I could finish school safely and make it home to Ombu without getting sick.

  Thallo — PARANA — Torreyas

  We call it Melia's Mum Place.

  It was good to see Phyto when we left Thallo. I could tell him about the terrible babies those people showed us.

  We got to a part of the island where the Trunk ran all the way to the water. High and thick. Someone had carved a tunnel in the wood so we could walk through, otherwise we would have had to swim out for a ways then back again. It was scary, walking through the tunnel in the trunk. When you go through a doorway you expect to be somewhere different at the other side. I felt as if we had gone somewhere which looked exactly the same as where we'd been. I thought, what if we walk through and I'm an adult? Or we've gone back in time to before I was even born? But it was the same place on the other side.

  We liked Parana even though there were not many

  children. The grown-ups loved to have us there and didn't treat us like we were immature, which was good. We ate well and were given all we needed. They told us how brave we were and strong for walking all that way.

  Lillah had been paying more attention me, but she found her old teacher here and it's like no one else exists. Melia is the same. Maybe they think they are little girls again. That's the way they are acting.

  The teachers didn't seem to like any of the men here so they stayed serious. Usually they relax and let us run around where we like, but this time they kept us close, maybe to give them an excuse not to talk to the locals.

  That Gingko; we wished she'd stayed where she was. We wished we still had Agara. Gingko makes mean jokes about the other teachers to try to make friends with us but she hurts our feelings at the same time. The other teachers don't seem to notice. They are very interested in themselves, that's for sure.

  Also, Melia's Mum came from here so Melia is acting strangely. She should be happy this is where she is from. Look at where Lillah is from. This place is much better.

  Maybe she's worried about whether they like her or not. Grown-ups worry too much about those things.

  In this place they let us weave our own mats for sitting. It was fun. Most places won't let you do that, thinking that children weave bad things into a mat. Here they let us weave for ourselves. Our lazy teachers don't want to do it. The locals think our teachers are no good. Rham heard them talking. We won't tell Melia. She would be too upset. I think they wish us children would stay and that the teachers would go.

  Because there aren't many children, they think everything we do is very clever. Zygo is making the most of it, inventing stupid games that the adults applaud. Don't they love him? I sit on a rock as if I were a rock myself, for all they care. The other children join him, going along with his rules, but if I join he changes the rules, bam bam, to make me look foolish.

  There are things they do here which frighten me. They have a reason for it, but it still frightens me. The teachers talk about it as well. They hurt the Tree, pulling off bark and leaving it wasted. They don't even use it. How can they treat the Tree like that and not be punished for it?

  There's another thing they do makes me really glad I don't live here. I don't know why they do it. They say why but it doesn't make any sense.

  They tie a red-hot ember to a cord and drop it into their throats. Burn themselves. Their throats are all scratchy and they can't talk for days afterwards but they are pleased that they did it.

  • • •

  Melia makes me worry. She's usually so funny and always listens to us, but here she is angry and strange. She
seems upset but no one will tell me why. I wish I were a grown-up so she could tell me what's wrong. It can't be just because she's worried what they think of her.

  Usually we have some warning of Leaffall. Smaller leaves come down first, as the person-size one begins to bend. Sometimes you hear a creaking noise, as if the Tree is twisting or stretching.