Jungle Crossing (8 page)

"I can't wait." Barb sighed. "She's so pretty!"

The girl
was
gorgeous. Did Nando have a beautiful girlfriend in a white dress somewhere? Why did I even care? I liked Zach B. with his spiky hair and sense of humor, although he didn't quite match Dante or Luc in the body department. And he wasn't nearly as smart as Nando. I reminded myself of Fiona, always comparing, ranking, rating, and assigning numbers to everyone, for everything.

Alfredo's girlfriend watched, waving as the bus pulled away. All of us on the bus turned around to see her as we drove on.

Talia singsonged, "Alfredo has a girlfriend."

Alfredo took his hands off the steering wheel, put them over his heart, and pretended to swoon. "
Mi amor,
" he said. "
Quien nunca amó y nunca fue amado jamás nació.
"

"What does that mean?" Barb asked.

"He who never loved and never was loved was never born," Nando said.

Great—another thing to worry about. Love. Would anyone ever feel that way about me? Zach B. once lent me a pencil in third period, but that probably doesn't count. Fiona had said it was "oh-so ordinary," and nothing like the time Ian Pearl lent her a piece of notebook paper. I sat there fretting about Zach B., not realizing that my hand rested near Nando's neck.

"So, Kat?" Talia called out. "Who's your boyfriend? Is it—"

As girly giggles bubbled throughout the bus, I scrunched down in my seat, got out my journal, and penciled a rough drawing of Muluc riding out the storm.

We drove fast for another stretch and then slowed through a village. Children stared as the bus passed; a skinny dog lay sleeping in the road and almost didn't get out of the way, so Alfredo had to stop. Life seemed so slow out here.

Too slow. All that giggling. I swear I kept hearing my name. Oh, how I just wanted to get this day over with! I pressed my journal to my chest as we passed a small white cement-block building with Spanish words written all over the outside. A sign advertised
COLD COCA COLA.
Just when it seemed like we were traveling through some ancient period in time, something like that Coke sign would pop up and remind me of home. Would things even be any better at home? Or would I just exchange Talia for Fiona? I shoved my journal into my backpack. My drawings were stupid anyway.

We passed another small building. In the dirt yard, children dressed in blue shorts and white shirts ran around playing soccer.

"What's that?" Barb asked.

"School," Nando said.

Barb crinkled her nose. "It's so small."

"It's a small village." Nando looked back to watch the kids as the bus sped up again. "I went to a school like that."

"Shouldn't you still be in school?" I flew up from my seat as the bus hit a bump in the road. My fingers brushed Nando's shoulder as I grabbed the back of his seat, but I quickly put them in my lap. But not before Talia made some comment about me and
amor.

"I had to drop out," he said. "To help my family."

"My dad says we have to go to college," Barb said. "That's like going to school forever." She frowned. "I'd rather go exploring all day like you."

Nando's jaw tightened, so I gave Barb a warning look, but she ignored me as usual.

"You should be a teacher," she said. "You'd be really good at it. I'm learning so much from your story." She clapped her hands together. "Tell us more now, please?"

Nando sighed long and sad. "Where did we leave off?"

"Who cares?" I looked out the window at a tree bursting with orange blossoms—it was pretty, but it totally looked out of place in the mass of green plants. Just like me. Minus the pretty part. "It's just a dumb story, Barb," I said, loud enough for Talia to hear. Maybe she'd shut up about all the boyfriend stuff.

I glanced at Nando, ignoring the hurt look in his dark eyes, and stared back out the window. The orange tree was gone, and the rest of the jungle conformed to green, green, green.

"Don't listen to her. She's just being hormonal. Mom says."

I kicked the seat hard. "Shut up, Barb!"

Nando narrowed his eyes at me.

"Please, Nando.
Por favor.
" Barb actually put her hands on his cheeks and moved his face to look at her. "Muluc had just seen a shimmer of green," she said. "It has to be an island, right? Is it Cozumel? My mom and dad might go there and—"

"No." Nando took a deep breath, squaring his shoulders, and said, "It's just a small island on the Gulf side of the Yucatán. Not a tourist place."

"What's it called?"

"Isla Cerritos."

"Ooh! That sounds so pretty. If I get that stuffed turtle at the gift shop, I'm going to name it Cerritos. Okay, tell the story."

Nando leaned back in his seat with his shoulders slumped. "It was the day called Eb."

***

T
HE
D
AY
2 E
B

Rain and Storms

White clouds fluttered across the sky as Muluc's canoe landed on an island just off the shore of the peninsula. A flock of long-legged birds flew over the boat in a rush of pink. What strange land had she entered? Canoes lined the beach like big, lazy crocodiles, and crude thatched huts crowded together. In front of one hut, which was piled high with baskets of fluffy white cotton, two men argued. One pulled a flint knife and jabbed at the other man. Other men held them back, and they quieted. The man left without the cotton.

Muluc had never seen so many different kinds of people: men and women with tattoos and different markings on their faces; women with painted yellow skin; men with red skin; men wearing great capes; men with shaved heads; men with long hair; women wearing clothing with unfamiliar patterns in every color. Many wore coarse cloth, but others dressed in colorful stitching as elaborate as a king's tomb! And one woman's dress had been embroidered to look like jaguar spots. The simple shapes woven in Cob´ seemed plain by comparison. Was this the center of the world, where the gods created the different tribes of men?

As Snake unloaded the baskets and jars that had survived the storm, a man with blue streaks on his face came over. "How many captives did you lose?"

"Five or six," Snake said. "Fierce thunder."

"The gods also took three entire canoes filled with captives." Watching Snake grab Muluc's wrists, the man shook his head. "Separate her—she's elite. Look at her long forehead and lip plug."

"Ahh, but she's dressed like a commoner." Snake fingered Muluc's plain white dress, which had only a few embroidered flowers around the neck. "And her hands are rough." He lifted her hand to show the snakelike mark.

"That's a new wound." The man narrowed his eyes. "Only because you survived the storm will I let you keep her, but don't try to fool me again."

Gagging on the stench of urine, Muluc entered a small, dark hut. In the dim light she recognized the embroidery pattern of girls from Cobá, but there were many other girls as well, speaking different languages and wearing heavy fabrics Muluc had never seen before. Some girls collapsed and slept on the filthy sand floor; the others looked frightened, tired, and hungry. Muluc edged toward the back of the hut and reopened the cut on her lip until a few drops of blood fell into the damp, stinking sand. Would the gods accept such an offering, or would the foul surroundings offend them? Muluc licked her dry lips as she watched the other girls from Cobá cling together. How much of the city had been destroyed?

When the sun flew high in the sky, the door opened and a man with fierce eyes entered, holding a gourd. The other girls scrambled for their turns. With a mouth that felt like it had been stuffed with cotton, Muluc eyed the gourd greedily as it passed to the back of the hut. As she gulped the lukewarm corn gruel, it seemed like another lifetime when she had drunk chocolate and feasted on roasted meats and fresh fruits. When would the warriors from her village rescue her? She hoped a fierce young warrior would save her, fall in love, receive the king's praise with land and spoils, and marry her. She would raise fierce warrior boys whose images would decorate the murals of Cobá's temples. Muluc fell asleep, feeling foolish for fantasizing about some silly romance when she was in such danger. Men bartered outside the hut.

"I'll give you five girls—strong ones—for the basket of jade," Snake said.

"I'll take six, plus a jar of turtle oil."

"Fair trade," Snake said.

The door opened, and a man with long, braided hair entered, picking through the girls, shoving some aside. Muluc crouched against the back wall as the man chose two older girls with thick arms. He examined another girl's hands. "She knows how to work." He nodded.

He spotted Muluc, pulled her roughly to her feet, and brushed his hand across her forehead. She felt faint as her heart beat like a drum.

"Not her," Snake said. "She's going to Chichén."

The man laughed. "You'll never pass her off as a commoner."

Snake grinned. "She can work for me."

Muluc sat down and stared at her hands—the snake-shaped burn formed a hard crust across her palm, but otherwise her palms felt soft. The other captives looked like the slaves who cooked and washed with her mother and made dyes for her father. Where had they come from? They didn't resemble Cobá's children, and their foreheads had not been pressed. Muluc figured the gods had made them to be workers; she'd never once thought they might be stolen. New girls simply appeared in her compound. Her mother always told her to be kind to the slaves, but to expect them to work hard.

Muluc's head began to hurt with painful thoughts. Why wouldn't someone come rescue her? Wouldn't Parrot Nose come after his brother, if not for her? What if Parrot Nose had been killed? Images of warriors rampaging through her family compound filled her mind, but she stopped herself from completing those thoughts as the door swung open again, filling the hut with light.

Snake shoved Muluc and another girl outside. As her eyes adjusted to the bright sunlight, Muluc noticed that the other girl also had a long forehead and a stone in her lip, proving that the warriors had raided another elite compound. Muluc made hand motions to get the girl's attention, but she stared ahead with wide eyes as Snake led them to a canoe loaded with jars of glittering salt and baskets of jade that gleamed like the green lakes of Cobá. Muluc touched the necklace hanging beneath her dress. What had been traded for the jade around her neck? Cotton? Cocoa beans? Turtle oil? Girls?

After Muluc and the other girl had been packed amid the cargo, Snake went to a small hut on the sand and brought out several male captives, including Parrot Nose's brother. Muluc gasped when she saw the deep, festering cuts on the side of his face and the bruises up and down his arms. The canoe rocked in the shallow surf as Cobá's elite climbed in front. Crouched next to a bundle of damp-smelling feathers, Muluc pressed her face into her bent knees and cried, wanting nothing more than to be home in her mother's compound, fixing chocolate for her father.

As the canoe drifted from shore, Muluc saw that tall trees arched over the middle of the island. One tree blossomed with those long-legged pink birds.

***

T
HE
D
AY
3 B
EN

Maize God, Protector of Growing Corn

When the canoe reached land again, Muluc, the warriors, and the traders walked along a rough-cut trail into the jungle. Muluc feared she would collapse from thirst; all she'd had to drink was a bit of corn gruel that had started to sour. Her feet ached and bled from walking on such a rough path, so unlike the smooth white roads of Cobá. Rocks jabbed her feet through the dry dirt, and the sun seared through the thin covering of leaves. The jungle did not grow so lush in this foreign place—weedy vines struggled to grow among the short trees and stunted bushes. All the dust in the air tickled Muluc's nose with a sneeze. She'd heard people talk of other lands, but they always seemed more like stories than anything real. The center of the world was Cob´, wasn't it? A man stumbled ahead of her; the pot he carried cracked, spraying crystals of salt on the road.

"Stop!" Snake glared at the man who had dropped the container. "You will lose your share of salt." He untied Muluc and the other girl. "Pick it up."

Kneeling, Muluc plucked salt from the dusty ground. The other girl met her eyes, her face red with tears. Muluc tried to smile at her, but the girl absent-mindedly scraped her finger through the dirt. One of the warriors came up behind her.

"Faster," he said, nudging the girl with his foot. "I haven't seen my family since the last new moon."

The girl started sobbing. Muluc blinked away her own tears and concentrated on picking up the salt: one handful, two, and three, filling the basket with salt, salt, salt. Tears choked her throat. Salt.

"See, she's a good worker," Snake said, much to his men's amusement. "And she's strong. Watch her carry the salt."

Muluc's arms grew weak as they walked; she felt dizzy and unsteady on her feet. Ahead of her, the path looked hazy, and she shivered even in the hot sun. Pain pounded her head with every wobbly step. The scent of dust filled her nose, and its dryness blanketed her mouth. No shade. The trees grew too short. The road stretched too wide. The other girl stumbled and fell, but Muluc held the basket of salt upright.

"Weak girls!" Snake snatched the basket from Muluc's hands and dribbled water into her mouth.

The world went black.

Muluc woke in darkness. Howler monkeys screamed in the shadowy trees, like angry spirits haunting the woods, but Muluc concentrated on the sound of her breath, her heartbeat. Was she still alive or had she descended into the Otherworld?

Like an answer to her question, Snake emerged from a crude hut and tossed a few cold tortillas at the girls. Nearby, his men sat around a small fire, drinking from gourds and laughing. Snake ordered one of his men to guard the trade goods while the other men disappeared inside the hut. Muluc pillowed her head against a bolt of fabric, wishing that she had the strength to attempt an escape. Maybe after a bit of rest. The other girl slept with her head on Muluc's shoulder. In her state of half sleep, Muluc could hear the men bragging about their trades, while others played a game of chance. She fell asleep to the rhythm of the stones hitting the dirt.