Fire Girl, Forest Boy

by Chloe Daykin

  The scream comes from Rosa.

  I look down and see the sky is raining on her. And Charles. Not water, but light. Light like snow.

  Soft. Round. Glowing and falling from the trees like gold dust.

  It’s raining light balls.

  The balls hiss and scorch as they touch the earth. Disappearing when they land, like bubbles. Bouncing on to the bodies of the two sweaty kidnappers, who try to dance out of their way, but can’t.

  The balls keep coming.

  Soft and gentle.

  Falling and hissing, like coal dropping in ice.

  Burning the kidnappers.

  Rosa screams, Charles roars.

  Me and the sloth look down and smile.

  ‘Go on, light!’ I whisper. ‘Go on!’

  Raul

  I walk into the airport and take my rucksack off. A bottle top sticks out the top. Inca Kola. The drink of the gods. I lift it up. A roll of cash falls out too. Diane must have put it there. Diane and Elena are angels.

  I check out the departure board and walk over to the flight desk. It’s so red and shiny I feel like running my tongue over the edge. But I don’t. The woman behind it stares at me.

  ‘How much is a ticket for Iquitos?’

  ‘For today?’

  I nod.

  She taps into the computer. ‘Eight hundred and seventy sol.’

  I don’t think Mum and Dad even earn that in a year.

  ‘You want one?’ She looks at me and I back away, looking at the floor.

  ‘No.’ I shuffle back. ‘Thank you.’ I’ll have to find another way.

  My phone buzzes and I pull it out. It’s Matias.

  How long? he says.

  I don’t know, I type.

  It has to be tonight, he says.

  I know, I reply and shove it back in my pocket. The phone bangs into Aiko’s parcel like a reminder and I shudder.

  Entry to Iquitos is plane or boat only. Canoe from here takes weeks. I can’t paddle that long. I don’t have that long. I don’t have a canoe anyway.

  I could stow away on a plane? I imagine falling out of the wheel arch and splatting on the tarmac. Or getting arrested. No way I’m doing that either.

  Sometimes things take more planning than you think.

  I should’ve planned this better.

  I’m stuck.

  I put my trust in the gods. I put my fate in faith.

  Something bangs into me from behind and I turn round.

  ‘Hey!’ I yell, and see a pile of delivery boxes on wheels. I see a head with a smile behind the boxes. A big grin. Waving at me. ‘Raul?’ the head yells.

  No way. I clutch my pocket and wonder what kind of magic Aiko’s dad put on that parcel.

  ‘Omar?’

  He skids round the boxes and hugs me like a bear.

  Dad and Omar have been friends since I can remember. When we left the jungle we went together. My family, Omar’s family. We travelled in the same truck. Cut out of the trees and into the city. We stuck together and tried to turn the pain of what we’d lost into something new.

  Dad and Omar used to work together when we first came to the Sacred Valley and Dad had to shoe shine before he got a job as a cook. Earning one sol a shoe.

  One sol. Not even enough for a bag of cancha chulpe.

  They earned a little, laughed a lot and we all squashed into a one-room apartment. I remember the first time we turned on a hot tap together and squealed at the magic. Omar’s grandma refused to use it. His grandad got into the bath and grinned.

  Omar used to come home after work and do the chicken dance with us and made us laugh till snot came out of our noses. Then he moved on and so did we and we haven’t seen each other since.

  Till now.

  ‘What you doing here?’ we say and slap each other.

  ‘Where’s your papi?’ he says.

  ‘Work.’

  ‘Your mami?’

  ‘Home.’

  He raises his eyebrows.

  ‘It’s complicated.’ I look at my feet. I can’t tell him what I’m doing. He’ll say it’s stupid. He’ll say it’s dangerous. ‘You delivering boxes now?’ I kick my foot on the lino.

  ‘Kinda.’ He grips my shoulder tight. ‘It’s so good to see you.’

  I want to ask him how he lives with what happened to us. It’s something we don’t talk about, not at my house. Not ever. We just get on, and the pain swells inside us till one day I think we’re going to explode.

  ‘You sure grew up quick, Raul.’ He whistles and shakes my hand, and then we have to wheel his boxes out of the way of two people in big hats and the security guard who’s yelling at us.

  ‘I did some changing too.’ He grabs the handles and smiles at me. ‘I went to college.’

  ‘Seriously?’

  ‘Seriously. I’m a pilot.’

  ‘No way.’

  ‘Way.’

  I grin and look down at the box on the top of his stack.

  ‘H. Anderson,’ it says. ‘El Dorado Hotel, Plaza de Armas, Iquitos.’

  Iquitos!

  I nearly jump out of my shorts.

  Maya

  The sloth blinks and turns its head at one mile an hour for a better view. We’ve got the best seats in the house up here.

  In the trees, animals crawl to the edges of branches, gathering together, looking down in wonder. The light balls keep falling.

  Opposite us two furry things hug each other, peering out of the canopy. Out of the dark.

  The small one screeches and tries to touch a ball and pulls its arm back and jumps on to the belly of its mother.

  All week I’ve heard these guys, but I haven’t seen them. Now here we all are. Together. The forest doesn’t let the fire touch us. Not a ball drops on anyone but Charles and Rosa, who turn and run. We hear the trails of their screams like music bouncing over the leaves.

  Until they’re so far away it stops.

  Me and the sloth hang in chirruping, buzzing silence. Its moon eyes shine. I pull myself round the branch and sit up. Beetles’ feelers droop over the edge of leaves, tasting the atmosphere. Frogs sit and stare at each other. And out of the blue, a howler monkey screams in my ear and I scream.

  And slip.

  And fall.

  Badly.

  Raul

  ‘Got room for one more?’ I look up at him and grin.

  ‘For you?’ Omar looks me over.

  I nod.

  ‘Your butt’s got big but not that big,’ he says and smiles and does the chicken dance right there in the middle of the airport. I could hug him. We laugh, but are pushed on by the security guard who has a gun and no sense of humour.

  ‘You going home?’ I ask him. Hoping he might be and I don’t have to do this alone.

  ‘Nah, I just go for business. How about you? You going home, chico?’ he says and his eyebrows meet in the middle.

  ‘Kind of.’ I look away. ‘You ever go back?’

  ‘No. I don’t want to see it. I keep my memories in here.’ He taps his head. ‘What’s past is past. Nothing new there I care to see.’

  We wheel his parcels out the door and over to a white two-seater with red wings and one propeller.

  I’ve never been in a plane before. Never wanted to. ‘How long you been a pilot?’

  ‘You don’t trust me?’ Omar grins and waves at a guy in orange overalls. ‘Your papi knows you’re here, right?’

  ‘Sort of.’

  ‘Sort of how?’

  ‘I left a note.’

  He gets out his phone. ‘I’m ringing your papi.’

  ‘Don’t. Please. I’m going to help Matias, all right? He needs me.’

  ‘Matias?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Why?’ His phone hovers halfway to his ear.

  ‘He needs help. He said if I didn’t come I’d regret it for the rest of my life.’ I don’t say I’ve got enough regrets already. There isn’t space for any more. I hang my head and don’t look him in the eye.
>
  The guy in orange overalls starts yelling at Omar and waving his arms. Omar yells back and throws his arms over his head. ‘OK, OK,’ he says and slams the hold door shut. ‘Let’s go.’

  We climb into the cockpit and strap ourselves in.

  Omar puts headphones over my ears. ‘For the noise,’ he yells and starts the engine. My stomach and my teeth vibrate. I can’t believe we’re going up in the sky in this. The doors feel as thin as a tuna tin. We wheel along the tarmac and my knuckles go white from clenching.

  ‘Relax, chico.’ Omar pats my back.

  I try to unhunch my shoulders. They stay by my ears.

  The plane bumps along the runway.

  Omar looks out the windscreen. My eyes are wide. The buildings and the mountains speed by. Everything turns to blur and we lift up.

  Maya

  I land.

  Badly.

  When I wake up it’s dark.

  My face is tangled up in brown bits that turn out to be roots. I’m in the base of the tree.

  A voice is calling.

  Pain is screaming down my leg.

  The voice lifts my head up.

  It’s light again.

  I look into a face with long brown floppy hair. Brown skin. Not the frog guy. Younger. A face that seems happy in the trees. With no shoes on. He has a vest that was white once and a monkey with small green eyes on his shoulder. The monkey screams at me and runs away.

  ‘You fell out of the ficus tree,’ the face says. ‘You’re probably cursed. Or diseased.’

  The sloth looks down and smiles.

  ‘Light balls fell out of the sky,’ I say.

  ‘That’s nice,’ he says, and lifts me out of the roots and over his shoulder.

  My arms hang down his back. The leg pain makes my head buzz.

  His shorts light up.

  ‘Your phone is ringing.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Aren’t you going to answer it?’

  ‘No.’

  Who are you?’

  ‘I am Matias,’ he says.

  ‘That’s nice,’ I say, and then the pain makes everything go black again.

  Raul

  We land bouncily and I throw up.

  I chuck my clothes in the bin of the airport toilet and get out my only clean set and wash my face.

  And ring Matias.

  There’s no answer.

  It’s typical. Matias is older than me and lives alone. He lives how he wants, does what he wants. He likes to think he’s the boss. No one can make Matias do anything.

  We’ve hung out since forever. ’Cos he was older, he looked out for us in the forest. He looked out for everyone. We used to play round his house and he taught me scorpion kicks, and Alessa and him played hide-and-seek. ’Cept he wasn’t Matias any more when we played like that. He was the Mapinguari – the forest spirit ogre with a turtle shell and big green Cyclops eye. Alessa used to run under the house. Shrieking so loud the rats ran out.

  Omar bangs on the door. ‘You OK?’

  ‘No.’ I come out.

  ‘I’m sorry, man.’ He slaps me on the back. The heat is thick and heavy. I stand by an air fan and let the cold blow over my head. When it catches the water it’s like an ice fountain on my face. The cold is delicious. We wheel the parcels through the airport.

  ‘You want me to retake my exams?’ Omar says.

  I smile.

  ‘When I was learning I used to chuck up every day,’ he says.

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Nah.’ He smiles. ‘It’ll pass.’

  ‘It better. This is my last shirt.’ I roll my eyes.

  He opens his bag and slips me a clean shirt out of sight. Way too big. But good. At least it’ll stop me from stinking after a couple of days. ‘Thanks, Omar.’ I open the bottle of Inca Kola from Diane and it sprays all over the floor. I dance it out the way of my trousers and drink the fizz out the top.

  It’s the best. Like yellow ice cream with bubbles.

  Omar looks round the airport like he’s searching for someone.

  ‘Matias is upriver,’ I say. ‘He won’t come into town.’

  ‘Same old Matias,’ he sighs.

  I nod. We stand there for a minute drinking in the heat, looking out the door. ‘Do you miss it?’ I say. ‘The way things were.’

  ‘Back home?’ He puts a hand on my shoulder, slow, like someone at a funeral. I nod. ‘Yeah,’ he says. ‘I miss it. I miss it every day. You want to know a secret?’

  ‘Like what?’ My head’s so full of secrets I don’t think I’ve got space for any more.

  ‘When I’m up there, looking down, I talk to it,’ he whispers.

  ‘The forest?’

  ‘Yeah. I ask it to forgive me for not sticking up for the trees. For not being there.’

  ‘It wasn’t your fault we had to leave,’ I say.

  ‘It wasn’t yours either,’ he says.

  I look at the floor.

  He sighs. ‘I tell it about my life now. What’s going on. Sounds strange, huh?’

  I shake my head. No, it doesn’t. The forest’s deep in all of us and no one can take it out. Like if you cut us open there’d be coils of it in our stomachs, like we’re part of each other. ‘Does it talk back?’

  He laughs. ‘Nah,’ he says. ‘Don’t you think that’s kinda rude?’

  Actually, I think it’s probably best. I think if it could talk back it’d be screaming.

  ‘Can I get a lift in with the parcels?’

  ‘Sure,’ he says, and dodges a woman freaking out at a spider.

  ‘Thanks, Omar.’ I dodge the spider too and we wheel the boxes out through the doors into the thick jungle heat.

  We look at each other and shut our eyes and breathe deep.

  ‘Feels good, right?’ he says and from his voice I know he’s smiling.

  ‘Yeah,’ I say, and I feel like the cloud forest’s pouring clouds back into my lungs. Till the DHL van comes and pumps out diesel.

  Omar goes to ask the guy to take me as a special delivery and we do our made-up handshake and he helps me into the back and passes me the parcel for Eldorado Hotel. ‘Hold this for me, chico.’

  ‘Sure,’ I nod and sit on a crate in the corner.

  ‘Keep in touch with me, right?’ he says and we swap numbers. ‘Let me know when you need me. If stuff gets …’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Serious.’

  We know serious. We’ve seen it. We’ve seen what’s out there.

  I know the kinds of things he means and wish I didn’t.

  ‘Just ring and let me know you’re OK. OK?’ he says.

  ‘OK,’ I nod.

  And Omar’s smile becomes a face in the crack in the door, and then darkness as the door is slammed and I bounce off to Plaza de Armas.

  Maya

  I wake up on a table in a tin-roof hut with a wooden floor and a creature that looks like a half rabbit, half weasel with teeny ears, sitting up on its back legs staring at me.

  I try to stroke it and it leaps off the table on to a workbench and starts hitting my boots with a pencil.

  I look down at my feet. My boots must’ve been taken off and laid out there.

  One ankle has been strapped up in a bandage and the blood has been cleaned off my legs. Scratches run down from my knees and I feel an egg on my elbow swelling into a big blue bruise.

  A head pops up from under the table.

  I scream.

  ‘Hi, I’m Matias.’ The head climbs out and becomes a person.

  I stare at him.

  ‘Last time we met you were delirious and tried to bite my arm.’ He points at his elbow.

  Matias. Right. I remember. Sort of. I don’t remember the biting part.

  I sit up and fold my arms.

  Is he one of the bad guys? Is he keeping me here for them? My heart beats.

  I look round the hut for weapons or an escape route.

  CLICK. I see that the wooden floor leads out to an open-sided veranda. Cris
s-crossed wood makes a balcony and a wall between the hut and the outside.

  CLICK. I see a door carved out of the wood at the back of the shack on the left.

  Creepers hang by a long open window. A blue bird with a beak that looks way too big swings on a branch and flies down.

  We’re not on the ground.

  We’re high up.

  On a platform.

  He looks at my leg and smiles. ‘You can’t jump from here.’

  I grab my boot and hold it over his head. The creature attacks the other one. ‘Who are you? Are you one of them?’

  ‘Who?’

  I wave the boot and my arms to try and get the words out. ‘The people who kidnapped my dad.’

  ‘They kidnapped your dad?’ Matias walks over to a stool made from a tree trunk and sits. ‘That’s news to me.’

  ‘You know him?’

  He nods.

  I look hard at his face. Try and work out if he’s one of the guys from the lodge and I just didn’t notice. ‘How?’

  ‘I just do.’ The creature stops attacking the boot and runs on to his knee and chirrups.

  ‘What is that?’

  ‘An Agouti paca.’ Matias scratches between his ears. ‘I call him Steven.’

  ‘That?’ I point at a bowl and arrangement of leaves. The leaves go all around the table. Where my head was.

  ‘They’re soaking up your curse.’

  ‘I’m not cursed.’

  ‘Not any more.’ Matias shrugs. ‘Ficus trees usually curse or disease people. It takes a while to wear off.’

  I remember the beliefs our guide taught us. About the powers of trees and the spirits who guard them. About stilt walkers who walk through the forest at night. And lupuna trees whose mothers hide in their bellies and get revenge for disrespect if you so much as wee on them.

  I look at the workbench piled up with pencils and notebooks. Piles and piles of books.

  Steven runs on to the table and nicks one of my leaves and runs out the door screeching.

  Matias picks up a glass off the bench. ‘Drink this.’

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘Water.’

  ‘Oh.’

  I thought it might be some sort of potion. I look at his face. His eyes are smiling. His fringe is floppy. He doesn’t look like one of them. But how can you tell? I trusted Dad till he disappeared. And he’s meant to be the person I trust most in the world.