Carpe Diem

by Autumn Cornwell

  Although Bounmy had set up our bedding with our heads touching the bamboo wall, in line with the rest of the adults, I quickly repositioned myself so my head was nearer to the fire.

  A few minutes later, Bounmy tiptoed over and said, “Please sleep this way, if you please.” He moved me back around like the rest of them. “Use backpack for nice pillow. See? Most comfortable.” He placed my backpack against the wall.

  I was too tired to protest.

  My backpack was lumpy. I couldn’t get comfortable. My head itched. What if the opium addicts had lice? After a good scalp scratching, I jabbed in my earplugs, pulled on my eye mask, put on my face mask (no need to inhale any lingering hashish fumes), and willed myself to feel drowsy. But the icy night air slipped in through the bamboo slats and froze my head. Why had nobody informed me that it could drop to arctic temperatures at night? I’d have words with a certain No Road Travel representative when I returned.

  Forget this. I sat up and turned back around so my head was nearer the fire. Much better.

  A few minutes later I dimly heard soft foot patter, and Bounmy’s small frame leaned over me. “Please, madam, you must please turn around.”

  I removed my eye mask, face mask, earplugs, and retainer. “But I’m freezing! I need my head close to the fire—”

  “It is disrespectful. You must turn around. Please comply.”

  Muttering under my breath, I did so. Then put all my nighttime accoutrements back in place.

  Bounmy padded back to his mat and I soon heard his childish rhythmic breathing mingling with the snores of Mr. and Mrs. Ly. Not one of them had a clear nasal passage.

  I shivered and pulled my meager covering up around my chin, trying to eliminate air pockets. Finally, I forfeited one of my shirts to wrap around my damp head, keeping what little body heat I had from escaping. I must have finally dozed off when a couple of creatures skittered across my legs! Rats? Lizards? Centipedes!?! I didn’t want to know.

  My head shirt was soaked from the outside moisture. I slid off my eye mask and glared at Grandma Gerd’s slumbering form with the anger that only a nonsleeper can have for the sleeper. Why hadn’t I taken the Xanax? At least I’d be getting REM cycles instead of the flu. How could the fact that I merely wanted warmth constitute “disrespect”? It made no sense. I wiggled back headfirst toward the fire, crawling as close as I could without singeing. Ah, warmth!

  My body being taken care of, my mind could now roam. And roam, it did—to Hanks. (Flip-flop! That kiss! Wait until Denise, Laurel, and Amber heard about it. Would they be jealous—in a good way. My first boyfriend ever! Now, if I could only somehow bring him home with me … . )

  Then it roamed back to the letters. DTAEDOP. PODEATD. EATDDPO.

  The letters formed, fragmented, then reformed. Each letter was branded into my brain. A kaleidoscope of—

  I gasped.

  It couldn’t be. I tried it again. That had to be it.

  I FIGURED OUT THE CLUE!

  But it made no sense. What did it mean? How could it possibly be referring to me?

  Bubble … birth … too young … rubber ball … dying … egg …

  How did the clue apply to those words I’d overheard?

  I reached over to tap Grandma’s shoulder. But she was in such a deep sleep with a peaceful half smile on her lips, I didn’t have the heart to wake her.

  I’d just have to wait until morning to reveal my intellectual prowess.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Sleeping Wrong

  The next thing I knew, someone was tugging on my ankle. I heard a distant, muffled voice in my dream saying, “Miss! Please, miss! Wake up, please, miss!”

  Groggily, I pulled down my blue eye mask to see Bounmy, Mr. Ly, Mrs. Ly, and the rest of the stoners clustered around me, along with Stick Girl, who was still clutching—yep—her bundle of sticks.

  A full minute passed before I comprehended this was indeed happening and not a dream. I tried to focus my non-contacted eyes on Bounmy, who was babbling wildly and waving his hands. Ly stood with folded arms, stone-like, with no expression whatsoever. My first thought was: I hope they didn’t mistake it for lemonade! Then I realized I was now in the other village—in the village opium den.

  Bounmy babbled on and on in pure gibberish until I plucked out my earplugs and heard:

  “You turn around again! I warn you! I warn you three times! Three times I must tell you to turn around! Three times I tell you please must sleep head here and feet here! And now you anger the spirits! You disturb the spirits!” His former verbal dexterity was gone. He no longer looked like a confident boy but a scared child.

  I slowly sat up. My joints were stiff from sleeping all tensed up. I removed my face mask and retainer. “What are you talking about?”

  Bounmy pointed dramatically to the grim Mr. Ly. “Family much angry! Much, much angry! He see you sleep wrong! He see you disturb spirits by sleep disrespectfully! Disturb the dab nyeg—the spirits. He wake up and see you like this! Now …” Bounmy looked physically sick. “Now he say you … you must pay!”

  I was an actor onstage who didn’t know my lines.

  I squinted at my Angkor Wat-ch: 5:03 a.m. I realized the shirt-turban was still wrapped around my head and I yanked it off.

  “Hold on, hold on. Let me wake up Grandma.”

  Grandma Gerd looked like a bag lady stuffed with miscellaneous bits of clothing. She, too, had a shirt wrapped around her head. She lay motionless in the deep slumber of the self-medicated.

  I nudged her. “Grandma Gerd! Wake up, Grandma!”

  No response.

  “Grandma Gerd?”

  No response.

  “Grandma!”

  This time I shook her. Hard. With both hands.

  “Grandma-Grandma-Grandma-Grandma!”

  Grandma Gerd’s head lolled around like a doll’s head. Her arm flopped onto the dirt floor.

  My heart drummed. Panic welled up in my throat like bile.

  Dead!

  Thick. I felt thick. Thick and slow and protracted. Numb. Fuzzy.

  I couldn’t think. No thoughts were forthcoming.

  Eventually, my mind slowly warmed up, the wheels greased themselves and began to turn.

  I am in a hut. In a remote tribal village. On a mountain. In Laos. In Communist Laos. And my grandma is dead. And my grandma is dead. AND MY GRANDMA IS DEAD!

  What-to-do? What-to-do? What-to-do!?!

  And that serene smile was still on her face.

  How dare she do this to me! And just when I’d figured out The Big Secret!

  Then shock gummed up my mental machinery. I couldn’t feel anything but that … thickness.

  I wish I’d been more supportive about her rice bag skirt.

  Thinking about her rice bag skirt thawed my frozen emotions, and I burst out crying.

  The surly group standing at the foot of the platform took a collective step back.

  Bounmy exchanged knowing looks with Ly, then said solemnly, “See? You make spirits very angry.”

  “Grandma! Grandma!” I grabbed Grandma Gerd’s body and tried to lift her up with the superhuman strength born of tragedy, but she slipped out of my hands and her head whapped against the thick bamboo leg of the platform.

  “Whaaaaaaaaat!?” A garbled moan came from Grandma Gerd’s body.

  I dropped her onto the dirt floor.

  “She’s alive!”

  Her right eye slowly opened. Then the left.

  “What’s … what’s going on? Who hit me? Why am I on the floor?”

  She untangled her long limbs and stood up, pulling the shirt off her head. Her hair stood on end, like she’d been electrocuted.

  Thanks to the Xanax (and NyQuil gel tabs, it turned out she’d also taken), it was a good ten minutes before Grandma Gerd had completely grasped the situation and her place in it.

  “Grandma Gerd! I thought you were dead! Dead!!!”

  “Well, I’m obviously not, Frangi. But I was dead to the world, fin
ally getting some solid sleep, when someone whacked me in the head and threw me to the ground.”

  Same ol’ Grandma Gerd. Well, I’d never take her for granted again, that’s for sure. A rush of appreciation flooded me—appreciation for my grandma with all her colorful shadings.

  Realizing she was lucid, Bounmy frantically gestured at her.

  “Your granddaughter not listen to me! I tell her three time! Three time I tell her to turn! I tell her, she not listen! She anger the spirits!”

  He then turned to me. “I tell you this, I tell you this. Why do you not listen to me? Family very upset, very upset! You have brought a curse upon hut and village!”

  Grandma Gerd just stared at him as if he were an organ grinder’s monkey.

  I turned to Bounmy incredulously. “Curse? For sleeping the wrong way?”

  “It big disrespect! Which you do three time! Three time! Bad number. And now you must pay!”

  I was fed up. After having to endure uncomfortable and inhumane circumstances, I was now being harangued for simply wanting to be near the fire. I jumped off the bamboo platform, my growing sense of injustice spurring me to action.

  “Are you crazy? It was survival! I was freezing! You gave us no suitable blankets and expected us to be able to sleep! My head, when it was turned toward the wall, was soaking wet! I’m sorry, but self-preservation is more important than sleeping protocol!”

  Grandma Gerd turned to me. “Really, Frangi. I thought you knew the importance of respecting local tribal customs.”

  Oh, now she was going to lecture me? Miss Medicated Stupor Sleeper?

  Bounmy was wringing his hands. “But now you must pay, miss. You must pay owner for sacrifice so the family can purify hut and village. Very important they purify to appease angry spirits since wife … how do you say … pregnant. They not want baby cursed.”

  Oh, please.

  “Maybe it’s not the angry spirits messing up their kids but maybe, just maybe could it be … their drug use!?!?!”

  Grandma Gerd murmured to me, “Calm down. You must save face. Now, for Bounmy’s sake, I think we should pay them. It would be worth five or ten dollars to smooth some ruffled feathers.”

  I took a deep breath and exhaled. Then I turned to Bounmy, who had developed a nervous tick in the corner of his mouth. “How much?”

  Bounmy consulted Mr. Ly, then translated: “Three hundred and fifty dollar.”

  Our mouths fell open in unison, like two puppets. That was a large sum—for the U.S.! For a tribe in the jungles of Laos with no running water or electricity, where a family survived on barely a hundred U.S. dollars a year—it was astronomical.

  “Seriously, Bounmy,” Grandma Gerd said. “How much would do the trick?”

  Bounmy inhaled deeply on his fourth cigarette of the morning, his hand shaking. But the chain-smoking was doing nothing to alleviate his tension, or his twitch. He was obviously intimidated by the Hmong hut owner. After all, this was a lot of stress for a twelve-year-old.

  “The owner say three hundred and fifty dollar,” rasped Bounmy as he segued into a coughing fit. Grandma Gerd patted his back.

  I asked as calmly as I could, “How in the world could the monetary equivalent of ‘sleeping wrong’ equal three hundred and fifty dollars? Why that specific amount?”

  “Family must purchase bull for sacrifice for two hundred and fifty dollar. And a rooster to chop off head—fifty dollar. Bull and rooster blood must be thrown in air outside hut and around village. Also must pay for chief of village to oversee ceremony, twenty-five dollar. And a txiv neeb—a medicine man, shaman—to chant, sing, dance cost twenty-five dollar. More if he must make txib neeb, metal rattle.”

  Grandma and I were both dumbfounded. But she finally asked: “How can a cow be worth two hundred and fifty dollars?”

  “A cow support whole family in mountain tribe. Take much savings.”

  “Balls! There’s no way we’d pay that—even if we had the money.” Grandma Gerd rummaged around in her backpack and pulled out her echinacea with golden seal. She chewed a handful. The sharp odor made my eyes water.

  Bounmy interpreted this for Mr. Ly, who literally snarled at us.

  At this point, Bounmy became completely unraveled: “But … but you must please pay! If you do not please pay, they hold you hostage until they get money! Oh, Bounmy in much trouble! Much, much, much trouble!”

  Hostage? Now it was just getting wacky. Where was the accordion music, the balloons, the bearded lady?

  “Bounmy, is this all a big joke?”

  “No joke! He lock door and not let you out.” As if on cue, Mr. Ly slid a piece of wood across the only door (once again: one hut, one door!).

  Bounmy whimpered. “They say you have disrespected the spirits and you must pay for purification.” Then, in a whimper: “Please pay, miss! Bounmy be punished, very punished. Oh, such a very bad tragedy.”

  “But I have no money! We were going on a trek—why would I bring large amounts of cash with me? All I have in here”—I pointed to my money belt—“is my passport. And even if I did have the money, I wouldn’t give it to them. It’s wrong. It’s extortion! We weren’t warned about the spirits or religious customs in this tribe. It is No Road Travel’s fault. They are the ones who should pay—if anyone!”

  “Take it easy, Frangi,” Grandma Gerd murmured.

  “They hold you prisoner!” Bounmy was almost hyperventilating. His hand trembled so hard, he could hardly hold his cigarette to his lips.

  “They couldn’t really hold us here—”

  “Yes, yes! They are tribal people with machetes and no modern knowledge as I have!” Then he moaned to himself. “I tell her … I tell her three times … .”

  “I don’t for one minute believe they’d try to hold us hostage,” said Grandma Gerd and walked towards the barricaded door. Two of Ly’s male relatives stepped forward, casually wielding machetes.

  “I stand corrected,” she said, backing away.

  I whirled around to face Bounmy. “This isn’t the village we were supposed to homestay at, is it? Is it!?!”

  For a moment he seemed about to protest, then he crumpled. “Bad Bounmy, bad, bad, bad. He make lovely ladies lost. Such travesty!”

  “And the only place who’d take us in was the local opium den, is that right?”

  “So very misfortunate!”

  “And,” said Grandma Gerd, suddenly realizing, “you have no idea where the Iridescent Ruffled Beetle is, do you!?!”

  Bounmy hung his head. “No, no, no!”

  Mr. Ly spoke gruffly to Bounmy, who turned reluctantly toward us.

  “Ly say: Old lady go back for money, girl stay.”

  I stared at him blankly. Grandma Gerd said, “Why not let us all go back and let Bounmy return with the money—”

  “No good. He not trust you. Americans shifty, he say.”

  “Shifty!?! Where does he get off calling us shifty!? He’s the one robbing us!”

  Grandma Gerd nudged me. “Face, Frangi, face. The indignation routine that works in the States won’t work here.”

  Bounmy stubbornly repeated, “He insist: Old lady go, girl stay.”

  Seething, I watched Grandma Gerd stuff her daypack. She handed me a plastic bag of Crunky bars and her extra clothes. “Those and my blanket should keep you warm tonight … .”

  Tonight! Tonight I’d be sleeping alone in this creepy opium den!

  I will not cry I will not cry I will not cry! My mantra kept my face frozen. I couldn’t speak or I’d dissolve.

  “Buck up, Frangipani.” said Grandma Gerd. “I’ll be back before you know it. Shouldn’t take more than a couple days down the mountain. And once we’re back in Luang Prabang, I’m sure we can hire that helicopter to drop us back on the mountain so we won’t have to make the climb a second time. Isn’t that right, Bounmy?”

  He stared at her balefully. “Very dangerous to fly—”

  Grandma Gerd hurriedly cut him off. “See this as an opportunity to gat
her more material for your novel. Why don’t you start with the smells of opium and hashish.”

  “It’s not funny.”

  “I’m not trying to be.” Her voice cracked.

  It dawned on me she was masking fear. She was putting on this jovial buck-up act so that I’d forget to be scared. But the normally invincible Grandma Gerd herself was scared stiff.

  I threw my arms around her. She bear-hugged me back. Then reluctantly released me and hoisted her daypack over her shoulders. I grabbed her arm.

  “You can’t go before telling me The Big Secret!”

  “Why don’t we wait until—”

  “You’ve made me wait long enough and you know it,” I said. “And it would make my imprisonment a whole lot easier.”

  But we both knew these were just words. The subtext was: You’d better tell me now because you may never see me again.

  She put down her daypack. And I removed the letters from the front pocket of mine.

  Bounmy moaned impatiently at the hut door. Grandma Gerd ignored him.

  “Frangi, sit down. Or at least squat …” She gently pushed me onto one of the carved wooden squat stools.

  “A-D-O-P- T-E-D,” I said as I placed each letter in the dirt.

  “Good work,” she said.

  I cleared my throat. “I know Dad was adopted, but how does that apply to The Big Secret? The blackmail?”

  She placed both hands on my shoulders, squeezing them so tightly, her silver rings dug into my flesh.

  “Vassar Frangipani Spore: You’re adopted.”

  CHAPTER NINE

  Who Am I???

  Grandma Gerd gently shook my shoulders. “Frangi? Did you hear what I said?”

  I blinked rapidly.

  “It shouldn’t come as that much of a shock,” she continued. “You look nothing like either Leonardo or Althea. And you were a head taller than both of them at fourteen.”

  “But … not all children resemble their parents.”

  “True. But hasn’t it hit you whom you resemble most?”

  Wait.

  It couldn’t be.

  “Not …”

  “Excuse me, madam, we must go.” Bounmy’s strained voice seemed miles away.

  “You?”