Layla

by Lacie Perry Parker

  Chapter 10

  When I woke up, I had forgotten all about everything. Until I moved.

  "Ouch!" I shrieked. I shot up and looked around. Wiping sweaty hair from my face, I looked at my ankle. It hadn't gotten any bigger, but it hadn't gotten any smaller. I gently rubbed my finger over the black and blueness.

  Then I remembered the carpet bag, and the soldiers! They were bound to be more than miles away. I forced myself to stand up. Another blast of pain ran up my leg. I grabbed the nearest tree branch and pulled myself up. Then, with a surprised gasp of relief I dropped myself again. The soldiers were camped right in front of me!

  Silently I plummeted to the ground and started to arrange a strategy. It was still dark, and they were snoring loudly. If I could crawl over the sleeping men, I could get to the horse on which my carpetbag had been kidnapped from its resting place in the leaves. I stood up again and tried to steady my shaking legs. The quivering wasn't from nervousness, it was from pain. I just bit my lip and tried to ignore it.

  On one foot I climbed from my hiding spot. The leaves crackled. I hushed them and tried to be gentler. Now out of the woods, I hunched over a bit. They were snoring very loudly. I sucked in my breath and stepped over a sleeping soldier. He didn't move, but I found it was easier to keep my balance if I was upright. Anyway, they were all asleep. They weren't going to see me.

  One man after another I crept over. I had one leg over a man, striding over him. He let out a few words, and I was ready to run. But he was just talking in his sleep. I was about to lift my leg to crawl over him the rest of the way, when he shot a hand up in the air. His fingers clamped and unclamped, searching for something. I scooted from his suspended hand and lifted my leg. Then he moved his arm, and grabbed my ankle. My marred ankle. He squeezed my ankle, which was swollen and full of fluid. My eye balls threatened to pop from their sockets. I held my throat and screamed with my mouth closed, resolving that out of all the pain I had endured so far this was the worst.

  My pounding head was screaming, "Let it go you daft combatant!!" I started getting woozy and swayed. Finally he let go, and I caught myself on the ground with one hand and one leg. Bit by bit I eased myself up to an upright position. Inches away from the horse that had my bag in cache, I bounced on one foot. I almost fell over, catching myself on the horse.

  "It's okay girl," I whispered. I was worried about the horse waking someone up. But it was I who ended up doing the waking.

  "Hey!" A sleepy groan startled me, thrusting a nervous feeling into my stomach. I spun around, and saw the commander pulling on his pants and pointing at me. "You?" My eyes darted anxiously from the commander to the horse. Commander to horse. The horse.

  With all the strength I had in my good foot I pulled myself onto the horse. "Yah!" I kicked the horse, with both feet. And oh, did it hurt. My body throbbed in agony.

  Quickly we kicked up dust. I looked back at the commander, who was yelling something. I read his lips. "I know who you are!"

  I turned back around to force down the lump in my throat. He knew who I was. And I still had to go back and get Clupint and Coca! My head spun. I was in a whole lot of trouble.

  After two miles I made a U-turn and started trekking through the woods. Mosquitoes threatened to bite and add to my misery, but my mood clearly threatened them in return. Pain had made me angry.

  I ran into a spider web. While I wiped it from my hair, my carelessness let a branch slap me in the face. A horsefly used my indolence to sting me on my arm. Life was becoming intolerable.

  I hung my head as the horse trotted along. Then I smelled something? like a fire. I took my carpetbag off the back of the horse and hooked my arm through the handle.

  "Get up!" the commander was rousing his men. I could see their fire in the far distance. The smoke reached my nose, climbed to my eyes and made them tear. I wiped the crusty blood from my face with a tattered sleeve.

  I urged the horse to be quiet as we approached them. The only thing separating us was a thin line of trees. Then the horse decided to get an attitude. It started beating the ground with its hooves, drawing attention to us.

  Suddenly a pair of beady eyes was laid upon me. "You ain't gettin' away this time!" The commander pushed through his soldiers as fast as he could, trying to get to me.

  My hand trembled as I tried to urge the horse on. It wouldn't budge. It knew its master! The commander clacked his tongue and made hand gestures telling the horse to stay put. It did. So did I. My head spun, knowing that I could not in a million years jump off and run. Not with my hurt ankle. My bottom lip started trembling.

  Then something started coming towards me, but it looked like a dream. My mind was hallucinating, seeing miracles. I thought I saw Clupint with Coca on his back, urging him faster. Impossible. I nearly laughed aloud. Then I could feel the ground beating beneath me. The mirage was now so close I could make out the flared nostrils on the horse. As it drew closer, and my eyes sought after the miracle, I started to believe! It was a real horse, and mine! As it flew by I took a leap of faith and fell off the commander's horse and onto my own. I lay across real sweet smelling, course hair that was so blonde it nearly blinded me. My Clupintisaur. I jumped off the commander's horse and threw my carpetbag onto Clupint along with myself.

  "How did you know? My sweet, smart?" My eyes drifted to Coca, and so did my hands. I gave him his share of praise and he leapt to my head. My heart leapt with him; my spirits began to soar.

  I did not wait long to turn around and head for the waters that would heal my ankle. It would be unfit for me to come home cripple.

  When the long awaited sparkling of healing waters came into view, I let out a sigh. I figured with all my recent bad luck, somehow the ocean would have dried up. But it hadn't. I fell off the horse.

  Now on the ground, I had to think of what mode of transportation to get to the shore. I could not use the horse because I was already off of him and had no intentions of pulling myself back up there, and I certainly could not run. The only thing I could think of was to roll. So I crossed my hands over my chest, and smiled somewhere deep inside.

  I was not sure how I did it, but I rolled all the way to the shoreline without my injured foot once touching the ground. I blew air out of my nostrils as I completely submerged my whole body. The water felt so perfect, so clean and crisp. I waded out far enough to where my weight had shifted to something lighter, and I could hold myself up easily on one foot. I grabbed a handful of sand from the water and started scrubbing, exfoliating all the filthy, dead skin away. After I was done, I thought it safe to put down my injured ankle- or actually, my previously injured ankle. It was completely healed. My head swam dreamily, and I felt better than I ever had before. I tugged my drenched body away from the water and back onto shore. The land felt good under my newly restored foot.

  After throwing the animals in to restore them for the rest of our journey, I curled up in a ball under a big tree right next to the water. Tomorrow I was going home.