Episode 1 Chapt 2

Because of my tussle with the flu and a few other factors I've been tardy with this second installment, but I hope to do one most weeks until we all find out what happens to him.

Anak laki laki woke up when the sunlight slanting into the cabin fell on his face. He blinked his eyes and saw the gnats and midges dancing in the sunbeams. He often wondered how such tiny things could be alive. Why did they buzz around like that? What did they eat? What did they think about? He rocked back and forth in his hammock. It was so comfortable and pleasant he didn't want to get up. But he was hungry, and he wanted his breakfast. Where was his Ibuku? She was at the well house getting water. Then she would make breakfast. He should go and help her, he knew, but he didn't feel like getting up. Besides, it was funny to watch the very comical lizard stalking crazily in the bamboo rafters. Colored the same as its surroundings it was hard to see, but Anak laki laki's eyes were very keen. First he would lift his right legs in the air and stop, and then when you got tired of looking he set them down and raised his left legs in the air. Eventually it made its way from one end of the bamboo pole to the other. All the while, one eye would roll in one direction while the other eye would roll in another direction. Suddenly the lizard froze and didn't move at all, not its eyes, not its legs. And then his long red tongue shot out so fast Anak laki laki could hardly see it and plucked a big, glittering blue black beetle that was minding its own business doing nobody any harm. It just seemed to be washing its legs and head. The poor beetle's legs wiggled while the lizard chomped on him happily. That's how it worked. Sometimes you ate breakfast, sometimes you were breakfast.
Anak laki laki tried sticking out his tongue to catch a passing fly but he missed. Maybe he didn't really want to catch it. That wasn't the kind of breakfast he had in mind. A bowl of rice with papaya juice and and coconut crab meat was what he liked best. He himself had caught the coconut crab a few days ago and they had been eating him ever since. He was very proud of that exploit.
Where was his Ibuku? He was tired of laying in the hammock. He would go and help her get the water. But first he would climb on the roof and see if he could see his Bapak's prua coming into the lagoon. It had been so long since he had seen his Bapak that he had trouble remembering what he looked like, but he knew he would recognize their prua from among all the rest if he saw it. From the roof top he could see the lagoon down below and the little beach covered with black sand that got so hot he could hardly walk on it. A series of terraces led down from where the two mountains of his island joined and widened down to the lagoon. Anak laki laki's cabin was about half way to the beach and there were three more terraces to go. They were high enough so no tidal wave could wash away their cabin, high enough so that a breeze helped keep them cool, but not so close to the mountains that they would be in danger of a landslide if there was an earthquake. Nobody knew who had built the terrace walls, they had been built long, long ago, of huge blocks of black basalt, and were carved all over with strange designs.
Anak laki laki was a happy boy, mostly. The island he lived on was a paradise for an active boy like him. Palm trees waving in the wind invited him to climb them, a lagoon of calm warm sea water full of all sorts of creatures was at his doorstep, an overgrown jungle was full of colorful birds, snakes and lizards to catch and chase. Some of the lizards were almost as big as he was, and once in a while a meat eating monitor bigger than he was would jump out of the shrubbery. But Anak laki laki wasn't afraid. He had his spear and if that failed he could run pretty fast. There was no such thing as school where he lived and so he could run and play all day, every day. Nobody besides him, his Ibuku and his aunt lived on the island and so he didn't have any playmates, but he wasn't lonely. In fact he didn't know that he should be lonely.
The only thing that made him gloomy was that he missed his Bapak. He had gone out fishing one day many months ago and had never come back. His Ibuku said he would be back any day, but that was many, many days ago. How many days would he have to wait? He missed his Bapak. So every morning he climbed up on the roof of their cabin and looked out over the ocean to see if a prua, his Bapak's prua, the fastest prua in the islands was coming into the lagoon or pulled up on the shingle. Sometimes he would see one sailing in the distance and he hoped and hoped it would turn out to be his Bapak.
He was always disappointed, but he never stopped hoping, and this morning he climbed up on the roof just like he always did. The sun was already high in the sky. The islet that stuck up like a black tusk at the entrance to the bay smoked a little more than usual, but not much more. Someday Anak laki laki knew he would have to go over there and find out for himself if it was haunted like his aunt Bibi said. He wasn't thinking about that today. He wasn't thinking about much today. A small fleet of pruas, tiny in the distance, skimmed the waves. They were out fishing. How Anak laki laki dreamed of going fishing and catching the biggest tuna anybody had ever seen. If only his Bapak was here to take him out on the ocean and show him how to hook a line, how to spread a net, where to go to find the giant tuna. His Bapak would sail faster than anybody else, he knew, he just knew, and he would sing his fishing song to attract the giant tuna and make him happy to come into the boat.
That was what Anak laki laki was dreaming about as he watched the pruas sailing on the ocean so far away they looked as small as the gnats and midges that danced in the sunbeams.
So he didn't hear at first his Aunt Bibi's voice calling his name.
"Where has that boy gone?" he heard her say just below him. He was very quiet, afraid she would have a job for him. There was nothing he hated worse than cleaning out her chicken house. But he liked the eggs she brought sometimes. And he liked it when they had chicken dinner. He thought it was the funniest thing to see the chicken run around the yard after its head had been chopped off. But he didn't like to clean out the hen house.
But just then he saw something that made him forget all about chickens and his Aunt Bibi. Around the Smoking Isle a fast prua sailed into the lagoon and ran up on the beach.
"My Bapak," he shouted at the top of his voice, "my Bapak has come home."