Ask the Bones (4 page)

One morning, the mother and father walked down to the village temple with their small son. They stood before the door and listened to the prayers being chanted inside by the old priest. They waited until the chanting stopped. Then they knocked.

The priest came to the door and asked what he could do for them. They told him they wanted the boy to become his student. The old man smiled. He would enjoy teaching such a bright and eager boy, so he invited him to live at the temple.

The boy tried hard to think right and speak right and do right. He learned to recite important prayers, and he kept the temple free of dust—but he couldn't keep his mind on his studies.

He had to draw cats.

When the sun set and crickets chirped in the grove around the temple, the boy would open the writing box, grind ink, mix it with water, and draw. He could hear the voice of the old priest reading scriptures on the other side of the temple, accompanied by the tinkling of bells. The boy knew he should be studying, but his hands could not be stilled. He drew cats everywhere, even on the walls and on the floor.

The priest was not pleased.

“You have an excellent mind,” he told the boy. “You could learn everything a priest needs to know. But I cannot keep you as my student. Your heart is in your drawing. You must become an artist.

“But take my advice,” the man said. “Avoid the large at night, keep to the small.”

What did the priest mean? The boy was too upset to ask. Early the next morning he said good-bye and walked out the temple door.

He wanted to go home to his family, but what would his parents think? They expected him to follow the ways of Buddha. How could he tell them he had failed?

So he wandered down the road to the next village where there was a larger temple and more priests. Perhaps they would welcome a young student.

When he reached that temple, he was aware of a strange silence. No insects buzzed in the nearby bamboo grove. No temple bells rang. And there was no musical droning of voices from within.

The boy knocked at the door, but no one answered. He knocked again and the door swung slowly inward, so he stepped inside. He was amazed to see that the temple was filled with cobwebs and dust. “The priests need my help,” he thought to himself. “I'll wait until they come back.”

What he did not notice were the pawprints on the floor. Huge pawprints and the marks of sharp claws.

All he noticed were large white screens, set here and there in the temple. He hurried to the writing box. Never before had he seen such magnificent places on which to draw cats.

The hours flew past while he was drawing. Hundreds of cats now decorated the temple. Cats with every marking imaginable, contented cats and snarling cats, huge cats and newborn kittens.

It began to grow dark, and still no priests returned. The boy decided to spend the night there, hoping the priests would come back in the morning. He peered around the dim temple. It was the largest place he had ever seen. Suddenly he felt his hair stand on end.

“Avoid the large, keep to the small.” That's what the old priest had said. What did the warning mean? The boy didn't know, but he hurried about looking for a small place—and safety.

It was growing so dark he could hardly see, but finally he found a small cupboard. At first he thought he couldn't squeeze in, but he wiggled through the opening, pulled his knees up to his chin, and just barely managed to pull the cupboard door shut.

There was a decorative grating in the cupboard door, a perfect peephole. He wanted to keep watch that night, but it was far too dark. Besides, he was tired, and before he knew it, he fell asleep.

He had barely closed his eyes when something quietly pushed open the temple door and crept inside. Its claws clicked across the floor and its nose swung this way and that, sniffing, sniffing, sniffing. It smelled boy! And it wanted boy for dinner.

It began to scratch at the cupboard door, hooking its claws in the grating, trying to pull it free.

The boy woke up to the wildest, screechiest battle he had ever heard. The whole temple was awash with shrieks and howls, the gnashing of teeth, the slashing of claws.

The boy couldn't see a thing through the grating on the cupboard door. So he squeezed his eyes shut and curled up even more tightly than before.

The terrible battle continued. Wetness splashed through the grating and onto his face. When the boy licked his lips, he thought he tasted
blood.

It was almost more than he could stand. He now realized that his parents would have welcomed him home. They never would have wished such a terrifying night on their small son.

Just when he thought the howling and shrieking would never end, it stopped, just like that. And an eerie silence fell over the temple.

The boy didn't get another wink of sleep that entire night. When the sun finally rose, he peered through the grating in the cupboard door.

He could scarcely believe what he saw. There were great clumps of hair on the floor and blood was spattered everywhere. Scarier still was the monstrous carcass lying against the far wall. It was bigger than a cow and had the most hideous face the boy had ever seen—the face of a goblin rat.

Now the boy understood why the priests had fled from the temple.

But what on earth could have torn the goblin rat apart? The boy pushed open the cupboard door and crawled out. He rubbed his aching arms and legs and looked around. Except for the gory mess, everything in the temple looked just as it had the evening before.

Or did it?

The boy looked at the cats he had painted on the great white screens, and he saw that every mouth of every cat was stained with blood—the blood of the goblin rat.

 

 

 

Y
usef had always avoided the man with cruel eyes who came to the outdoor market to hire young servants. But now the boy was desperate.

He could no longer run errands for the old woman who'd sold vegetables, because she had died. His coins were gone and his hunger pangs were unbearable.

Yusef watched the cruel man buying silk and spices at a nearby stand. And when the man took money from his pouch, two rubies tumbled out. The man quickly scooped them up.

But Yusef had seen them. Surely such a rich man could buy good food for his servants. Yusef tugged at the man's cloak.

“Well?” asked the man harshly.

“Could I work for you?” Yusef stammered.

“I can always use another boy,” the man said. “But where's your family?”

“I have no family,” said Yusef.

The man's eyes glinted more cruelly than before. “Come along, then.” And he loaded all his purchases into the young boy's arms.

When they arrived at the man's home, he showed Yusef a place where he could sleep in the barn. At least the straw was soft, and there was a roof overhead.

The boy was given food each day, scraps, really, from his master's table. But to Yusef it was a feast. In return, he cared for the man's livestock—cows, calves, bulls, and camels.

The man had hired other boys before, but none lived there now. Yusef wondered where they'd found work.

All went well for almost a week. Then the man asked him to kill a bull and skin it. It was a miserable, bloody task, but Yusef gritted his teeth and did what he was told. And no sooner had he wiped the gore off his hands and face than his master ordered him to prepare two camels for a journey. “One for me and one to carry the hide of the bull.”

Yusef thought they would travel to the outdoor market and sell the hide there. Instead they headed toward a wild and lonely plain. The boy grew more uneasy by the hour. He walked behind the camels with the sun beating down upon him. The stones were sharp underfoot. Up ahead, a mountain rose like a needle into the sky. Its sides were incredibly steep, and there were no footholds in sight.

Yusef ran alongside the camel that was carrying his master. “Why do we need a bull's hide out here?” he asked.

“No questions,” the man said. “Just do what I tell you.” And his eyes looked colder than ever.

By the time they reached the base of the mountain, Yusef was sick with fear, and with good reason, for the man ordered him to spread the bull's smelly hide on the ground and lie on it.

The boy knew that the man was stronger than he was, so he squatted on the hide, ready to jump if necessary. But the man knocked him flat and tied the hide around him so quickly that Yusef hardly knew what was happening. Then the man hid behind a rock.

Within moments Yusef felt himself rising into the air, the hide clutched in the talons of a giant bird. He landed with a jolt on the mountaintop.

The bird began to rip off the remaining bits of the bull's flesh. It punctured the hide and raked its sharp beak across the boy's shoulder. He panicked. Kicking and punching, he fought his way out of the hide and frightened the bird away.

His legs were shaking, but he walked to the edge of the mountain and looked down.

“Hurry,” the man shouted from below. “Throw me the gems that are around your feet.”

The boy was amazed. Diamonds, rubies, and emeralds covered the ground. He threw them down by the handful.

The man grabbed some empty sacks from behind his saddle, filled them with gems, and laid them across one camel's back. Then he mounted the other camel and began to ride away.

“Wait!” cried Yosef. “How do I get down?”

“That's for you to figure out,” shouted the man. “Don't ask me. Ask the bones.” And off he went.

What bones?

The boy lay down, with his head over the edge of the mountain so he could peer at its sheer walls. He felt something hard beneath his chest. He dragged it out and stared at it with horror. It was a skull. A skull about the size of his own. He looked around and saw bones all over the mountaintop. There were leg bones and arm bones and finger bones and toe bones. And skulls everywhere. A few tears streamed down Yusef's cheeks. How many boys had the cruel man abandoned there? And how long would it be before his own bones were picked clean by the giant bird?

He turned the skull over in his hands and looked into its empty sockets. Suddenly he was furious. He would not let the cruel man destroy him.

He explored every inch of that mountaintop. And when he found the bird's nest, he knew there was hope. He hid under the nest's rim and waited until the giant bird landed. Then he jumped up and grabbed its legs.

The bird let out an ear-splitting squawk. Then it soared into the sky, with Yusef hanging on beneath. It spiraled upward, gliding on the currents of hot air that rose from the sun-baked earth. Yusef's arms began to ache. His fingers cramped, but he held tight, waiting for the bird to dive low. And when it finally did, he closed his eyes and dropped to the ground.

He landed hard, tumbling over rough sand and stones, but he was safe. So he picked himself up and began walking back to the man's house.

His plan was dangerous, but he was too angry to care. When he finally reached the man's door, he knocked and asked for work.

“Of course,” said the man. “I can always use another boy. ”

Just as Yusef had hoped, the man didn't recognize him. The boy's face was bruised and swollen from the fall. Besides, the man would never imagine anyone returning from the mountaintop.

Soon after, the man sent Yusef to kill a bull and skin it, and it wasn't long before they traveled back to the base of the mountain. Again the man ordered the boy to lie down on the hide.

“Show me how,” said Yusef.

“What? You want me to ruin my cloak on that bloody hide?” roared the man. He lunged forward, but the boy slipped aside, tripping the man with his foot.