by Karen Rispin
I could see a green tangle of vines and roots in the top of the hole. Already she could almost reach them.
I didn't want to lose her now, especially after I'd sent David for Mrs. Barnes. I braced my hands on both sides of the hole she'd gone up, then jerked back in pain. "Ouch!" That sharp Coral had hurt.
Lisa heard me and looked down. She was halfway out already.
"Just go away!" she yelled and kicked a rock back at me. The rock bounced down past me, and Lisa's fancy American running shoes disappeared up through the hole.
The coral bit into my bare feet, but I didn't stop climbing. By the time I got out the top, I couldn't see Lisa anywhere. But I could hear her in the thick tangled bush behind the coral.
"Lisa, wait!" I called, "It's full of snakes in the bush."
"Go away, liar! I hate you, and I hate your rotten country," she yelled. I could hear her keep on going straight in.
I wasn't lying. At the coast, the bush is full of poisonous snakes. Since I didn't have shoes on, I was a bit scared when I started picking my way off the sharp coral. Lisa had gone a lot faster with shoes on. Once I got into the bush there wasn't sharp coral underfoot, but the bush was thick and tangled and thorny. After a minute of pushing through the bush, I came to a path. I couldn't see Lisa, but her tracks showed on the sand. I ran after her, and in a couple of seconds I saw her ahead of me.
Just then a terrific pain shot up my leg. Snake! I thought and fell flat on my face. I was so scared when I fell that I couldn't even scream.
All I could think was that it only took five minutes to die if a mamba bit you. I waited for my vision to black out or for pain to fill up my whole body, but nothing happened except my foot kept on hurting.
Maybe I'm not dying after all, I thought. Finally I sat up and looked at my foot. There was a chunk of stick on it. I poked it. It was connected to my foot by this huge thorn in my heel. A wave of relief poured over me. Just a thorn. Who cared how big it was, it was just a thorn.
I reached down and took hold of the stick and tried to pull it off. Man, that hurt!
"Lisa!" I yelled, "Lisa Barnes, please come back!"
She didn't answer. A flash of fury at Lisa washed over me. What an absolute, complete, and total despicable-horrible-gross jerk Lisa Barnes is! I thought. At least she could have stopped.
After a second, I stood up and tried to walk down the path. I didn't want to sit there long enough to really meet a mamba. Not that they usually bother you, but thinking I'd been snakebit still had me scared. Unfortunately, every time I took a step the stick would get jerked and hurt like mad. I sat down and put my head in my hands.
It wasn't fair. I was trying to do what God wanted, and here I was with a huge thorn in my foot, all alone in bush full of snakes. Besides that, mosquitoes were whining around my ears and biting me, and my foot really hurt. Tears stung my eyes, and a second later I was really crying.
I rubbed my fists in my eyes and shook my head. No way was I going to be a crybaby. I tried to pull the stick off again. It hurt too much. I needed help.
"Mom!" I yelled. "Mommm!"
Nothing happened. I yelled again. Only silence and the whine of mosquitos answered me.
I'll probably die here before anybody finds me, I thought. That scared me even worse, and finally I thought of asking God for help. "Please, God, you've got to help me! Please!" I prayed.
I just had to get rid of that stick. This time I grabbed it with both my hands, shut my eyes tight, and yanked hard. It came halfway out, but it hurt so much it made my chest heave with sobs. I grabbed it again and jerked even harder. It came all the way out. I grabbed my foot and rocked back and forth, my teeth clenched. After a minute it stopped hurting so much.
"Thanks, God," I whispered. I stood up and picked up the stick. I wanted to show people how big the thorn was so they'd believe me. I started limping down the path, watching out for snakes.
A second later I heard people talking. I could tell what they were saying, but I couldn't see them because they weren't on the path. I don't know why, but instead of calling them I just stood still and listened.
"She was in there—she was!" It was David Stewart talking. "Lisa Barnes was partway up that hole in the roof, and Anika was talking to her."
"Now don't worry your head, honey pie." Nobody could mistake that slow sugary voice for anybody but Mrs. Barnes. "We've just got to find where they have got to now. My, but there's a lot of mosquitoes in here. Ouch! These thorns are a nuisance. Why would Lisa ever come up here?"
"They have to be up here. There were no tracks coming out of the cave but David's," Mr. Barnes said in a sort of muted roar. "Hush and keep your eyes open. If Lisa doesn't hear us she won't have a chance to run off again."
Right. You could have heard him a mile away. In fact, it sounded like more than three people by all the noise they made, and it seemed like they were going to go right past me.
"Hey! I'm here!" I yelled.
"Lisa?" bellowed Mr. Barnes.
"No, it's me, Anika. I'm here on a path."
David and Alex got to me first, then Traci and Sandy. Mom and the Barneses took longer to get through the bush. Everybody but Daddy was there.
"Is Lisa here, too, Anika?" Mom asked, still pushing her way through. Nobody had even noticed I was hurt.
"No,but look." I showed her the bottom of my foot. Mom rushed over and held my foot to look at it. It was all bloody and dirty and everybody stared, which made me feel better.
"I don't know where Lisa is," I said kind of hopping on one foot to keep my balance. "She was ahead of me on the path, but she got away when I stepped on this." I waved the stick. "She never even stopped."
Mom wasn't impressed. "Maybe she didn't know you hurt yourself, Anika. Besides, you should know better than to go into coral or into the bush with bare feet. I don't know what we're going to do with you."
"But Mom, I wanted to help Lisa."
Everybody was still asking questions, most of which I didn't know the answers to, when we started down the path. I walked on the toes of my hurt foot, slowly. Maybe Lisa really didn't know I was hurt, I thought. Then I remembered I'd only yelled at her to stop. I hadn't said why. Maybe she was too far away to hear by the time I'd yelled for Mom. Gradually my anger at Lisa started to go away again. Besides, she was going to be in enough trouble for hiding all morning.
A few minutes later the path led us into the clearing around the house.
Daddy was still sitting in a lawn chair out front. "Joey," he called, "your daughter came back a few minutes ago and went into the house."
Mom had to fix my foot up, but I could hear Mr. Barnes yelling at Lisa in the front room.
When I finally limped out with a bandage on my heel, Sandy and Traci were looking righteous because they were making lunch. They didn't have to look so holy, because it turned out Daddy had told them to do it. It was just hot dogs anyway, and anybody can boil a hot dog.
When Lisa was marched out to lunch between her parents, she looked like a prisoner of war being taken to be executed. Her face was red and puffy from crying. She wouldn't look at anybody.
"Lisa would like to apologize to all of you," Mr. Barnes said.
Lisa muttered something that sounded sort of like "Sorry."
"Lisa! You apologize properly. You've caused every one of us a lot of trouble today." Mr. Barnes's voice seemed to fill up the room and push at your face.
"Joey, let her be. Can't you see that she's about worn to a frazzle?" pleaded Mrs. Barnes.
"No, she will apologize!"
But Lisa twisted out of his grip and ran to our room. We could hear her crying.
"She can apologize later," said Daddy. "Come and sit down, Joey." Daddy didn't say it loud, but you could tell from his voice that he didn't want Mr. Barnes to go after Lisa. I was sure glad he was my dad and not Mr. Barnes. I looked at him sitting there and loved him so much it almost hurt. If only he'd hurry up and get better.
Daddy asked the blessing for th
e meal, and he prayed for Lisa, but he never asked God about making him well at all. Nobody said much. I noticed that Daddy only ate one bite of his hot dog. About halfway through, Mrs. Barnes went and got Lisa. She came out and sat there, looking down and picking at her hot dog.
"Well, I know what I'm going to do this afternoon," Mom said. "I'm going to take a nap. In fact, I think most of us could use one." She smiled at Lisa and said, "This has been a bard horning for everyone."
Sometimes I think she does it on purpose.
Anyway, everybody laughed and that made me feel better.
I finished reading my book, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, that afternoon. Then I actually went to sleep, which I don't usually do.
"Come on, Anika, wake up," Sandy was saying.
I sat up feeling as limp as melted cheese and rubbed my eyes.
"Come on. It's high tide. We're going swimming. Get your stuff." Sandy just had her head stuck in the door. As soon as she saw I'd heard, she left. She was already in her swimsuit.
No way did I want to miss the first high tide swim. I got out of bed in a hurry. Ow! My foot hurt when it touched the floor. It felt better by the time I had my suit on, and I made sure I wasn't limping when I walked out the door. Even so, I had to beg and beg to get Mom to let me go swimming.
"OK, Anika, if you insist," she said. "On one condition. You know that ocean water can cause infections. You can swim if you promise you'll soak your foot in hot water and Epsom salts afterward. It's your foot, and infected puncture wounds are no joke."
"OK, OK, I promise!" I said and headed out the door. Because of the fuss with my foot, everyone but Mom was at the beach ahead of me. The beach at Bilge Water isn't the best beach around. It's too steep for the waves to be really good, and there are round, light red chunks of coral in the sand, about as big as your hand. These wash back and forth in the waves and bash you on the shins.
I didn't care. It was great to be in the ocean at high tide. I swam out past the breakers and floated on my back. The waves pushed up under me, then dropped me down their backs with a rocking swoop. Every now and then, one would swat me in the face with a small splash just for the fun on it. I was lying there with my eyes half-shut, enjoying the ride, when, wham! a huge hand landed on my face and shoved me under.
"Ha, ha, ha! I got you good, Anika," boomed Mr. Barnes as I came up, spluttering. I gave him a sick grin, did a surface dive, and swam underwater away from him. He didn't catch me again, but he was dunking everyone. He even dunked Mom, and she hates that. I mean she can swim, sort of, but she hates getting her face wet and she's always a little bit scared.
What with playing in the waves and watching out for Mr. Barnes, I hardly noticed Lisa. I guess she stayed on the beach most of the time. I really felt sorry for her with a dad like Mr. Barnes. Daddy had stayed back at the house resting, and I missed him. He usually played in the water with us.
On the way back up to the house, Sandy and Traci caught up to me. "Wait till you see what we did to Lisa's bed," said Traci.
Sandy nodded. "She'll be sorry for making us walk all the way down to the mangrove trees, when she was right by the house the whole time."
"What did you do?" I asked, feeling all weird inside.
"You know those really sharp three-cornered burrs? Well, we picked about a hundred and stuck them in her sleeping bag. See?" said Traci, showing me her pricked fingers.
"But what if you make the Barneses go back to the States like Mom said, because of Lisa?"
"I don't care!" said Traci. "Mr. Barnes dunked me three times."
Sandy wouldn't look at me. I could tell the whole thing was mostly Traci's idea.
By the time I'd gotten showered and soaked my foot, it was supper time. Mom had bought the fish from the fisherman who came by this morning, and, boy, was it good. Ali kept his word and brought out a little dish of deep-fried octopus.
Mr. Barnes took some and Alex said, "Gross, you're gonna eat that!?"
He grinned and took a bite and made a big deal of chewing it, saying, "Mmmmmmmmm," really loud.
Alex stared at him with his eyes all screwed up. Then, believe it or not, Lisa actually said something. "Don't be a geek, Alex. I've had octopus at home at Nykono's."
Lisa sure thinks she's hot stuff and knows everything, I thought. I took some octopus, too, though. It tasted good, but it was chewy.
After supper we played Monopoly, but I kept thinking about Lisa. I ended up landing on Park Place and was out of the game about halfway through. I went back to our room and tried to start reading a book called The Silver Chair. It's part of a series of books by a writer named C.S. Lewis, all about some kids and another world they find, and a huge, majestic lion named Asian. I loved the books! I'd just finished The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, which was the book that came just before the one I was starting to read. But I couldn't pay attention to my book, either. A Bible verse kept bugging me. You know, the one about loving your enemies and being kind to those who are mean to you?
I looked out into the other room. Sandy and Traci were still playing Monopoly. Lisa must have been in her mom's room or somewhere. I opened up her sleeping bag and started picking out the burrs. Some of them were really stuck in the cloth. Pretty soon there was a little heap of them on top of Lisa's suitcase.
I'd finished one spot and was just starting on another one when somebody yelled, "Hey!" right behind me.
I dropped a burr and swung around. Lisa was there staring at me.
"Some friend you are," she said and then yelled, "Mom, come here and see what this geek is doing to my bed."
Mrs. Barnes and everybody else crowded into the room and stared at me.
"But, but, I didn't…," I said and stopped. I wasn't a tattletale.
"Anika, you go to our room," a stern voice said. It was Daddy. "Sandy and Traci, clean out that sleeping bag. If there's even one burr left in there, you'll have cause to be sorry."
In Mom and Dad's room, I just sat there and let them lecture me. There was no use saying anything. I just picked at some dirt under my thumbnail. Every time I tried to do something right, things just got worse. Daddy started accusing me of being rebellious because I wouldn't explain to him why I'd done it. I felt even worse, because halfway through he sort of stopped and sat down. I could tell he was feeling sicker.
"Now you apologize to Lisa and her parents," Mom said, after an anxious glance at Daddy. "Tomorrow is Sunday, and we all need to be ready to worship God together. This kind of tension is not helpful." She sounded sad and disappointed. I could hardly stand it.
By the time I finally got out of there, the other kids were in bed. I said I was sorry to the Barneses and went to bed, too. Nobody said a word to me when I came into the room, even though I could tell they were all awake.
I was almost asleep when I heard Sandy get out of bed and sneak out of the room, but I was too sleepy to pay much attention.
The next morning, I went down to the beach again just before dawn. The wide, quiet ocean made me feel better right away. Even if it seemed like everything went wrong, I could tell God still loved me.
I started running along in the edge of the water, where it touches the beach. Glittering sprays of sea water went up from my feet. The cool splashes hit my face and felt good. They tasted salty. These little black-and-white birds were wading in the edge of the water. They'd fly up and go a little way and land. Then when I got close again they'd do it all over. They came with me a long way down the beach.
It took me a lot longer to get back because I poked along looking in the sticks and seaweed and stuff that was along the top of the beach. I found a perfect reefing stick, round and hard and light white wood—just the way I like them. There were bunches of frayed-looking coconuts, little parts of thongs, cuttlefish bones, mangrove seeds, and other interesting stuff. I'd always wanted to find one of those big green glass balls they say float all the way from Japan, but I didn't that day.
By the time I got back, everybody was already at the br
eakfast table. I went in the house with a sigh. I sure hoped today would be better than yesterday.
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Chapter Seven
"Aunt Hazel, Anika's here," Traci yelled as soon as I walked through the door.
"Tell her to hurry up and eat and get ready. She's late," Mom answered.
"Hurry-up-and-eat-and-get-ready-you're-late!" Traci yelled in my face, grinning like a hyena.
I made a face at her and went and grabbed a banana. Its thin skin felt cool on my hand. I'd forgotten it was Sunday.
"Anika, as soon as you've eaten that, go and put a dress on," Mom said as she walked back in from the kitchen.
"Why do I have to put a dress on? We're having church here just with us, aren't we?" I absolutely hate wearing dresses. I don't think I've ever liked a single dress I've owned.
"No,"Mom said. "Do you remember Hasan from the Bible school? He's started a little church not far from here. We'll be going there."
"Dowe have to?" I moaned. That meant hours of listening to boring Swahili, sitting in hard wooden seats, and sweating. "Can't we kids stay home?"
"No, you can't," Mom snapped. It seemed like she was upset about something other than me because she walked off without even giving me a lecture.
When I went into the bedroom to get dressed, Sandy was the only one there. She was already dressed.
"Anika, I've got to talk to you." It seemed like everybody had to talk to me.
"What?" I snapped. After all, she had let me get all the blame for the burrs in Lisa's bed.
"You know I got up in the middle of the night?" she asked.
I just nodded.
"Well, I was going to tell Mom and Dad that Traci and I had put those burrs in Lisa's bed. But I never told them. I mean, like, I went to their door and all, but I never went in. Anika, Daddy was sick again last night. He was throwing up and everything."
I forgot all about getting dressed and sat down with a plop on my bed.
"Sandy, Anika, hurry up!" It was Mom calling. How could she just keep going like nothing was wrong? She sounded like she meant it about hurrying, though. Sandy went out right away, and I pulled my dress over my head. At least we didn't have to wear shoes and socks. I stuffed my feet into my thongs, grabbed my Bible, and went out.
