Humble beginnings of escapes and escapades.
“The coast is clear.”
Gen had no idea how they had come to use this phrase when Derri was landlocked to the hilt. They must have picked it up from studying the Chronicles. But yes, the coast was indeed clear - no parents or tattletale village elders in sight. They had timed their escapade exactly at the change of shifts, knowing through calculated observation that the latter attendant had the habit of running a few minutes late, giving them a window of opportunity.
Peering around a corner at the intersection of the marketplace, and having red earth smeared all over their blue tunics, the two boys watched for an opening to make an inconspicuous exit. The bustling marketplace was the only thing standing between them and the village gate.
Before they could make a run for the gate, Gen felt a tug at the back of his tunic. They turned around and were shocked to see the little girl standing there guilelessly.
“Leia! You were supposed to keep Ma busy!” Gen said, exasperated.
“She’ll lead your Ma right to us!” Tymas yelled, annoyed. “She’s always foiling our plans…,” he added under his breath, stomping his feet in the dirt and crossing his arms.
Leia’s face puckered and tears welled up in her eyes. Gen tried to pacify her while Tymas stood brooding over the missed opportunity.
Sure enough (and soon after), Ma pushed through the crowd towards them, looking frantic. When she saw Leia on the verge of tears, her heart sank further.
“Thank goodness, I thought I lost you,” she said, setting her basket down and pulling Gen and Leia to herself. “Tymas, your mother is worried sick,” she continued, and Tymas pulled a face.
The boys were escorted home and told to stay within supervision. Since their houses were side by side, they would usually hang out at one of their yards. Today Gen was over at Tymas’.
“C’mon Ty, she’s only four. She just wanted to be part of our adventure.”
“That’s what you always say, Gen. But it’s not helping our escape one bit.”
“Shhh. Don’t call it that…it’s not an escape, it’s more of …exploring,” Gen grabbed Tymas by the shoulder and looked around to see if any adults were within earshot.
Just then, a man climbed over the fence into the yard in one swift motion, carrying a net bursting with fish on his back.
“Uncle Drewe!” Tymas lit up, getting to his feet and running towards him. Gen followed excitedly.
“Tell us about the outside!” Tymas said as Drewe set the catch down in a basket.
Drewe chuckled as the boys gathered around him starry-eyed. “Well, the men were lucky to have a bountiful catch today. Got a marvellous haul of sky pearls too.” Tymas’ uncle was one of the few privileged ones to be called to the fisherman trade, who were ‘allowed’ to spend most of their days outside the village walls without having to ask for permission - he had a special patch on his tunic. This elect group was commonly referred to as ‘the men’.
“Not about the catch, uncle. We want to hear about the outside,” Tymas continued, “Did you manage to see beyond the hills today?”
“Didn’t go far enough, but I did see a cloud that looked like a mushroom in the north,” he grinned. The boys laughed, tickled by Drewe’s sportive answer. Drewe would say the same thing each time - that he didn’t go far enough to see anything new, then add some inconsequential observation. Yet the boys never got tired of asking.
Then Tymas’ Ma walked past, returning from the neighbours. She frowned at Drewe, “Please stop igniting the imaginations of the young ones. The fisherman trade isn’t for everyone.”
Drewe gave her a waggish salute and mouthed a ‘yes ma’am’ under his breath before picking up the catch and heading into the house. As he passed the boys, he raised a finger to his lip. Gen and Tymas looked at each other and shrugged in sync. They didn’t need Uncle Drewe to spark their curiosity about the outside, they had other (secret) ways.
That evening as Ma was busy preparing dinner, Gen noticed that Leia was unusually quiet. She was sitting on the edge of the bed, chin down, and swinging her legs back and forth absently.
“Hey, what’s the matter?” Gen asked. When Leia remained silent, he guessed that she was still upset about what happened at the marketplace earlier that day.
“The tiger isn’t angry with the rabbit. He wants to be friends and play,” he said, handing her the wooden rabbit and nudging it with his tiger figurine, making roaring sounds. That made Leia smile, then burst into giggles.
When Ma called for dinner, there was no response from Gen and Leia. She stood puzzled, looking over the unusually empty and quiet house. It was only when Pa walked through the door did they suddenly jump up from behind furniture to greet him.
“What were you two doing?” Pa asked, chuckling as he welcomed them into his arms.
“We were playing hide and seek!” Leia chirped.
“Really? But both of you were hiding,” Pa laughed and tousled their hair. Gen and Leia erupted in disbelief and laughter. “There you two are,” Ma came to Pa’s side, and brushed the sawdust off his tunic.
After dinner, when the night was still young, Ma ushered them to bed. She gently refused their pouting faces and persuasive pleas, reminding them about school the next day (or rather, Gen was the one going to school, Leia would simply follow Ma around on her errands).
It was just the time when the neighbour men would come over to eat, drink, and jest. Gen and Leia would hear bits of their exchanges and jarring laughter through the walls and wonder what adults talked about. Were they talking about work? Or about their children? Better, or worse still, were they sharing adult-only secrets about the great outside? On most nights Gen remained in ignorance, on the special few when he was feeling bold, he would sneak out, steal some nuts and raisins from the communal bowl, and grab an (out-of-context) piece of conversation to savour in the darkness.
Tonight was one of those nights. Leia watched him fumble around, her eyes sparkling like jewels in the dark.
“Wait here, I’ll be back with some raisins,” Gen whispered and caught Leia’s subtle nod. Off he went, strategically avoiding Ma who was going from room to room, about her mysterious nightly routine.
He moved about in the shadows like someone highly skilled. In reality, it was his childish frame and light footfall that enabled him to go unnoticed.
Pa and the neighbour men were seated on logs, gathered around an oil lamp. They seemed to be in the midst of some serious discussion.
Gen sneaked behind Tymas’ father, careful not to be seen by Pa who was seated across from him. Reaching into the bowl sitting between two of the men, he quickly grabbed a handful of whatever was in there and darted away, but not before hearing a snippet of their conversation.
“…He wants to burn them, said they were cursed,” Tymas’ father said.
Gen would have liked to stay and listen on, but he knew the longer he stayed, the more likely he would get caught. So he decided against it and returned swiftly to the house.
Back in the safety of the room, Gen opened his palm and found four raisins and a peanut. He gave Leia three raisins for she liked those, and they both hid under their blankets enjoying the stolen treat.
Despite the thrill and satisfaction of another successful escapade, what Gen heard from the adults troubled him. He regretted not staying to hear the rest of it and ruminated on what the words could mean all through the night. What was cursed? Who wanted to burn them?
The next day at school, Gen and Tymas sat distracted, in their usual spot at the back of the class. Not that them being distracted was anything unusual - they were known to daydream and talk between themselves, much to the helplessness of their teacher Miss Enka. But this time they had more profound matters on their mind.
“Chief Whiner came over to my house yesterday to talk to Ma and Pa,” Tymas whispered to Gen not so discreetly. ‘Whiner’ was the nickname the boys gave to the leading authority of the village, Chief Wyer. They were pretty sure he hated children, especially those with the gift of imagination, and they maintained that his favourite pastime was to go around complaining about those who dared defy the village rules.
“I don’t know what they talked about but it sounded serious,” Tymas continued.
“Last night I heard your Pa say something about burning a cursed thing!” Gen chimed in, careful to lower his voice so that their classmates wouldn’t hear. “Do you think it’s related to what they were talking about?”
Before they could continue speculating, Miss Enka called them to attention. They had come to the end of class and it was time for the routine recitation of the village creed.
“There is safety in staying and obeying. The village walls protect and preserve our people. No one leaves the village unless there is express permission from the Chief.”
As always, Tymas was adamant and refused to repeat after Miss Enka. Gen wasn’t one to outrightly defy, so he mouthed the words, but there was no conviction.
If not for the lake and the fishing trade that sustained their people, the Chief and elders would probably have sealed the village gate, or not built a gate at all. As it is, the gate was the only connection between Derri and the outside world, that is, if the outside world did exist. The Chief and elders squashed all notions of anything beyond the hills but two spunky children knew better.
“I bet it’s got to do with Chief Whiner…I’ll try to find out more from my Ma and Pa,” Tymas said as they left the classroom and began their walk home.
That evening during dinner, Gen tried his luck getting a ticket to the outside. “Pa, when do you have to go collect special wood again?”
“Gen, that was for the Jubilee Festival. I got a special permit for that.”
“When’s the next Jubilee Festival?”
“Let’s see..,” Pa did some counting, “...in 47 years.”
Gen choked on his soup. He couldn’t wait 47 years to get a chance to see the outside again. He was fortunate to have Pa bring him along the first time. But he was only four back then, and didn’t quite know to seize the momentous opportunity.
“Then can I be a fisherman when I grow up?”
This time Ma interjected, walking by to refill his bowl, “We’ll talk about this when you’re older.”
The next day after school, the two boys gathered in Gen’s yard. They were drawing with sticks in the dirt.
“I asked my Pa about collecting special wood. We can forget about that…the next time is in 47 years,” Gen sulked.
“Do you really not remember anything about the outside?” Tymas persisted.
“Only tall grass. And dragonflies. Nothing that Uncle Drewe didn’t already tell us,” Gen replied, carving a giant dragonfly into the ground.
“I didn’t have any luck with my Ma and Pa either. Ma said Chief Whiner came to borrow some tools. I don’t believe her. There’s something fishy going on…and I’m not referring to the catch Uncle Drewe brought home yesterday...
Looks like good weather today, not a lotta clouds. Wanna go on my roof? We may be able to catch something on the horizon,” Tymas suggested, looking up at the sky.
“Let’s go.”
With ease, the boys scaled the decaying ladder onto Tymas’ roof. They were the only ones who had access to the rooftop - the ladder could hardly support an adult’s weight - and the space quickly became exclusively theirs. Their parents had no idea what they had going on up there.
The rooftop air was usually still or the breeze warm and dusty. Today there was an invigorating waft from the East.
The boys squinted into the distance and could barely make out the village gate. Beyond that were indistinct patches of green, brown, and grey stretching into the distance and spanning the horizon.
“I want to get a better look,” Tymas said, looking around the deck for anything he could stand on. Apart from papers, sticks, and canvas, there was nothing of considerable height. Except the hefty tome.
It was a wonder - no, a mystery - how the boys had hauled it up the ladder and onto the roof. Tymas dragged it towards the edge and climbed atop it.
“Be careful, Ty, this is ancient…
Do you see anything?”
There was a break in the clouds slightly northward and a keen ray of sunlight graced an area faraway. Seeing how mesmerised Tymas was, Gen gently pushed him aside to make space on the tome. He wanted to get a look too.
“That must be the Golden Hills,” Tymas said, in a tone softer than usual.
Both boys stayed balanced atop the ancient texts for mute moments, captivated by the capering beams upon the lands beyond, until their mothers called for them.
Gen and Tymas hopped off the tome, dusted it down, and got to covering it with leaves and canvas. One, to shield it from unexpected rains, and two, to keep it from the thieving eyes of distrustful adults should they master the crumbling ladder one day.
They must have taken too long, for when they peered over the edge of the roof into the yard, Tymas’ Ma was looking up at them with the beginnings of a scowl on her face, hands on her hips.
“See you tomorrow,” Gen said as he hopped off the last step of the ladder and scurried back home.