Eruption at Krakatoa

by Katrina Charman

  Melati remained on the island for as long as she could. Since she had discovered the bubbling lava inside Perboewatan, she had debated whether to stay or go back to the jungle and tell the others what was happening… or not happening. Every day she checked each of the mountains in turn. Danan and Rakata were as dormant as ever, slumbering quietly beside their simmering brother. But Perboewatan continued to smoke as the lava bubbled inside. The fishermen, she noticed, had ceased coming close to the island, and even the steamers seemed to be keeping their distance, taking a longer route through the strait. Melati couldn’t blame them. Some of the humans who had grown up in Sumatra believed that a spirit—Orang Alijeh—watched over the mountains, and she wondered whether the spirit had been angered somehow. It was not normal for a mountain to behave in such a way. At least, not on Krakatoa.

  Over a week later, she had just begun her morning ritual of foraging for her breakfast when the rumbling started up again. The few birds that had ventured back to their nests, as Melati had, scattered at once, flying away from the island in a swarm of colors. This time, Melati didn’t have to investigate to see where the disturbance was coming from.

  Above Perboewatan, a huge white cloud billowed, rising higher and higher until it filled the sky above. She flew into a tree, wanting to wait awhile longer before she was forced to leave her beloved island for good, but the ground trembled, the mountain roared, and her tree shook. She took off, intending to head toward Sumatra, but the sky was filled with dust and ash. Melati coughed, trying to catch her breath as she flew on, but it was no use. She had to turn and fly in the opposite direction. She chanced a quick glance behind her and almost fell from the sky with shock as she saw huge flames erupting from the mountaintop. All around it, trees burned, while the ashes continued to fall from the sky, covering the island in something that looked like snow but burned hotter than the sun.

  Melati flew on, tears leaking from her eyes from the sting of the harsh ash-filled air and the pain of seeing her island in such a state. Her feathers trembled and she had to work hard to not fall from the sky in fear. When she was finally out of the cloud and back into fresh air, she wheeled around, heading across the Sunda Strait toward Sumatra. The crashes and rumbles continued behind her as she flew, and the smoke, which had risen straight up into the air, was now spreading out like a giant mushroom, until there was no blue sky to be seen.

  Melati flew and flew until her wings ached and she felt as though she had no more breath inside her. Then she dived down, crashing into the trees and landing on the ground with a thud, letting her eyes slowly close.

  “Melati? Can you hear me? Melati?”

  Melati opened her eyes to see a blurry gray shape leaning over her. She blinked a few times, trying to focus.

  “Dewi?” she mumbled, her mouth dry and her voice croaky. “The mountain.”

  “Have some water,” a louder, deeper voice spoke from beside her.

  Melati sat up to see Dewi and Budi looking down at her, their eyes full of concern. She gratefully drank from a broken coconut shell filled with rainwater, then tried to speak, to tell them what had happened to her island, but all that came out was a loud sob.

  “You see?” Budi said to someone behind him. “The monkeys warned us that something bad was coming, but you didn’t listen!”

  “Melati, what has happened?” Dewi asked softly.

  “The mountain,” she said. “Fire is coming from inside the mountain.”

  Dewi gasped, and suddenly the ground shifted. At first, Melati thought she was dizzy from the smoke, but then the ground shifted again and she saw that the others had felt it, too.

  Melati screeched as the earth shuddered beneath her. Dewi lifted her in her paws and held her close. The rumbling subsided after a few seconds, and Melati saw who Budi had been talking to: Raja.

  She waited for a sarcastic remark or a taunt, but the tiger’s usual arrogance was nowhere to be found. He took one glance at Melati and remained silent.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Raja

  May 21, 1883

  Southern Sumatran Rain Forest

  Raja tossed and turned restlessly as he tried to sleep. He couldn’t get the image of fire out of his mind—the parakeet, Melati, telling them about the fire that burned deep inside the mountain on Krakatoa, her face filled with terror. He knew that feeling well.

  His mind wandered as he slept, and he tried to bring it back to something happier—chasing his tiger friend, Surya, through the jungle, play-fighting with the cubs, teasing Budi. But every dream… every nightmare turned red. Flames flickered across his vision until it was all he could see and the terrifying feeling of heat against his body returned. The smell of his fur melting as it burned away. The look on the human’s face as he waved his flaming torch at Raja. Then the searing pain as the fire scorched his fur, his body, and the terror he felt when he chanced to be near humans ever since.

  “Raja! Wake up, Raja! You are dreaming.”

  Raja woke with a start and instinctively glanced down at his side. He wasn’t burning. The fire was gone. Just a dream, he told himself, although the fear lingered. He looked up at Budi, who stared down at him, his face filled with concern.

  “The fire dream again?” Budi asked gently.

  Raja nodded. “This business with Melati and the island… the fire. It brings back memories.”

  Budi nodded. “You are safe now, Raja,” he said. “Nothing like that will ever happen again.”

  “Of course it won’t,” Raja snapped. “Because I will never go near the humans again.”

  “Not all humans are bad, Raja,” Budi said. “Just as not all animals are good.”

  “I was just a cub!” Raja growled. “I would have died if you hadn’t saved me. My father…”

  Budi lowered his head. “Your father died trying to protect you. He wouldn’t want to see you so bothered by the humans.”

  “How do you know that?” Raja asked.

  “Because your father was my friend, just as you are. He would want you to be as courageous as he was.”

  Raja lowered his head onto his paws and sighed. “Maybe I am not as brave as he was,” he said. “I’m not the leader he was. The animals listen to you more than they listen to me.”

  Budi smiled. “That’s not true,” he said. “The monkeys pay me no attention at all! Do you know how many times I’ve had poop flung at me?”

  Raja laughed. “What about this mountain?” he asked. “What shall I do about that? Do you think there is a real threat to us?”

  Budi shook his head. “I don’t know,” he answered. “That is for you to decide.”

  “I don’t want to make all the decisions, Budi,” Raja said. “I just want to stay here in my jungle and forget the world outside exists.”

  Budi lay down beside Raja with a yawn. After a while, he fell asleep. Raja listened to his rumbling snores and came to a decision.

  “I’ve always been safe in the jungle,” he told himself. “The jungle is where we will stay.”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Melati

  May 27, 1883

  Ketimbang

  Everything had quieted down on Krakatoa. Despite the hot lava bubbling away inside the crater of Perboewatan, and the thin plume of smoke that continued to rise from its summit, there were no more tremors. The fire had been enough to discourage Melati from wanting to return to the island, though. She had decided to stay closer to Ketimbang to see how the humans reacted. As Raja had said—if they were unafraid, then there was no need for the animals to be concerned.

  She had made a nest in a mango tree near Johanna’s house. It made sense to Melati that should any news arrive about the island, Johanna’s father would be the first to hear about it. Sure enough, after a few more quiet days had passed, Johanna’s father left early one morning and headed down to the harbor.

  Isaak came running out after his father. “Can’t I come with you, Father?” he begged. “To see the volcano.”

  Melati flew fro
m tree to tree to get a closer look. “I’d rather not go myself,” his father replied, “but I have to make a report to send back to the governor.”

  “It’s not fair!” Isaak shouted, kicking at the dirt with his bare foot.

  “I’ll tell you what,” his father said, relenting, “I’ll see if I can find you a piece of pumice to show your friends.”

  Isaak brightened at this, then frowned. “What’s pumice?”

  “It’s a type of rock,” his father told him. “It comes from volcanoes.”

  Isaak nodded eagerly, then paused. “It is safe now, isn’t it?”

  His father gave him a strained smile and ruffled Isaak’s blond hair. “Of course, Isaak. Look after your mother and sister while I am gone.”

  Isaak and Melati watched as he set off down the hill toward the harbor. After a few moments, Melati followed, wondering what Johanna’s father might find on Krakatoa.

  He met a fisherman and another man at the dock. They set off across the Sunda Strait in a small wooden fishing boat—heading for Krakatoa, between Sumatra and Java. Melati followed. There were a lot of steamers out on the open water. Many more than usual. The Sunda Strait had always been a busy shipping channel, but some boats seemed to be sailing purposely close to Krakatoa island. Melati felt queasy. The humans had always stayed away from the island—with the exception of the fishermen. Why would the boats be sailing near Krakatoa when it posed a danger?

  Spurred on by a growing sense of dread, Melati flew down to the shore. Johanna’s father and the two men had moored their boat in the clear blue shallows and were now wading through the water to get to the beach. Melati was watching them when she heard the familiar sound of the horn of a steamer.

  She followed the noise, her heart pounding as she flew closer to Perboewatan. As she neared the summit, she squawked in shock. The entire side of the mountain was bare, stripped of any green it once had. The devastation had spread to the other mountains, too. Only Rakata, the highest of the three mountains, had some green left, right at its very peak. The mountainside was littered with charred, smoking tree stumps and a dark layer of rock and ash.

  Melati landed on the beach, feeling as though her heart was breaking. She would never be able to return home now. It was a blackened shell with few trees, no fruit, and no companions.

  What would she do now? Where would she go?

  She decided to go and see what Johanna’s father had discovered. As she flew, a foul stench filled the air. Like rotten fruit or rhino dung. Melati tried not to breathe it in, in case it was toxic, but it was everywhere, choking her.

  Johanna’s father frantically scribbled down notes on a piece of paper while the fisherman stayed near the shore. The third man, close beside Johanna’s father, paced back and forth, glancing up at the mountain, then out to sea. He seemed to be as uneasy about being on the island as Melati felt.

  A giant hunk of pumice sat on the beach as though it had always been there, but Melati knew for certain it hadn’t. It was as wide as a fishing boat and almost as tall as Johanna’s father was. Johanna’s father sketched a rough drawing of the rock, then gestured to the summit of Rakata. To Melati’s relief, his companion shook his head and pointed out at the boat. The two men had been quarreling for only a moment when there was an almighty cracking noise. Melati flew into the air, startled, as the ground rumbled and shook. A large, deep crack appeared, snaking this way and that, moving closer to where the men were standing. The fissure turned into a gash and the beach split in two.

  The men came to their senses and hastily half swam, half stumbled toward their boat. The fisherman had already started to row away. They shouted out angrily and he slowed enough for them to haul themselves into the boat. The moment they were in, the fisherman resumed his frantic rowing, taking them far away as fast as he could.

  Melati followed. When she felt she was at a safe distance, she turned to look at the island. What had once been a beach was now two halves of a beach.

  PART TWO

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Melati

  August 26, 1883

  Southern Sumatra

  Melati awoke from her perch with a start. She had dreamed of Krakatoa. Of its beautiful trees, which provided the perfect shelter from both sun and rain. But then everything had turned black and the home she had once known was nothing but a dark, smoky wasteland.

  She shivered, and ruffled her feathers, trying to shake off the fear that swelled inside her. In the distance, she spied the seemingly endless stream of smoke that continued to rise from Krakatoa, neither worsening nor receding. Nothing more had happened since she had left her island. No more tremors or explosions. But Melati still felt the pull of her home and the hope that one day she might return to Krakatoa.

  She was glad to be closer to Dewi, but the jungle never slept. There was always something happening—elephants trumpeting to one another or trampling through the trees. The leopards and tigers hunting. Their prey screeching and scrambling for safety. There was no peace, Melati thought. Not like there had been on her island.

  Melati decided to pay her human friend a visit to take her mind off her home. When she arrived at the pretty white house, all seemed quiet. There was a lot of noise farther down the hill, where Melati could see humans bustling about in the village. As she perched on the porch, a few more humans passed by, sitting atop horses pulling wooden carts heaped with sacks of fruit and rice.

  Melati was thinking she might follow them when she realized that the sky overhead had suddenly darkened. She looked up to see if a storm was coming, but to her alarm, she saw Isaak’s grinning face looming above her as he threw a heavy sack over her head, yanking it tightly closed.

  Melati squawked inside the sack, flapping her wings and trying to claw her way free as her heart raced in her chest. She was caught! She was caught and she might never get free. She squawked more loudly, thrashing around in the darkness in the hope that Johanna or her mother might come to her aid, but the sack was bobbing up and down now as though the boy was running. The movement jostled Melati in a jumble of feathers until her head was dizzy and she didn’t know which way was up and which way was down.

  Finally, the movement stopped. The sack opened and a sliver of bright light blinded Melati as she was grabbed, too tightly, around the chest by two sticky human hands. Before she could even attempt to fight back or escape, she was shoved roughly inside a cage and the door was tightly shut behind her. She spun around, furious and terrified, to see Isaak’s smirking face leering at her.

  “What will Johanna do now that her precious bird has left her?” he jeered, poking at her with a thin stick through the bars.

  To Isaak’s surprise, Melati grabbed the stick with her beak and yanked it out of his hand, spitting it onto the floor.

  There was a shout behind Isaak and he spun suddenly, throwing a blanket over the cage to hide it. Melati squawked loudly and Isaak roughly banged on the side.

  “Be quiet!” he said through his teeth.

  His command made Melati shriek all the louder. “Johanna! Johanna! I’m in here!”

  But it wasn’t Johanna who had been calling her brother. The soft, low voice of an older lady spoke, the sound slightly muffled.

  “Your mother has been searching for you everywhere!” the lady chided. “Your father is opening the new Sunday market today and you must be there to support him.”

  Isaak sighed loudly, then followed the lady, grumbling and complaining the whole way until his voice and footsteps faded.

  Melati waited for her heart to calm. When she was certain the coast was clear, she reached her beak between the cage’s narrow bars and pulled at the blanket, yanking it from the top of the cage until it slid to the floor. She surveyed her new surroundings. She was in a small room with a bed, a wooden wardrobe, and a desk, which the cage had been placed upon. She was examining the cage, trying to find a gap she might be able to squeeze through, when she noticed a glass jar on the desk beside her. Inside was a large butterfly. It
s wings were red, orange, and black, and it was the most beautiful thing Melati had ever seen. She was peering closer, trying to catch the butterfly’s attention, when she realized that it was completely still.

  Melati closed her eyes for a moment, trying to quiet the tremble that ran through her body. Then she took a deep breath and examined the cage again. She wondered how Johanna could be so gentle and kind while her brother was such a brute.

  The cage was made of bamboo woven together with long strands of dried grass. It was well put together, but Melati was sure she could bite her way through the ties. She found a piece of grass that was a little looser than the others and began chewing at it, working her sharp beak back and forth until small strands began to break free.

  Finally, with a satisfying twang, the tie broke loose. A couple of the bamboo sticks shifted and Melati squeezed her head through the narrow opening, but she found herself stuck. She panicked for a moment as her neck was caught.

  Calm down, Melati! she told herself.

  She took a deep breath and used her claws to pry the bamboo a little wider apart. With one more push, she tumbled out of the cage, landing on the hard floor below. She stood and searched for a way out. Luckily, Isaak had left his door open, and she hurried down the hallway. She had just reached the door that led out to the porch when there was a massive explosion outside. Melati was thrown back with the intensity of the sound and lay dazed on the floor, her ears ringing.

  There was a deathly silence for a moment, and all Melati could hear was the pounding of her own heartbeat inside her head. Then, as her hearing gradually returned, she heard it.

  Screaming.

  The terrible sound of hundreds of humans, coming from the village.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Budi