I couldn't move. They were everywhere,
whirling all around me. They had huge
glaring eyes that stared at me, trying to blind me. ‘Almost as big as four
caimans’ I thought. Some seemed asleep though. Their eyes were still open but
no light coming from them. I shivered looking at them. It was as though they
had died right there and no one had even noticed.
Cars Sarah called them. “C-A-R-S” she
said. I tried to mouth the word but I was too distracted by the ferocious
sounds they made. It was like no creature I had ever heard. Each one was
different. From leafy colours to the colours of blue morpho butterflies. Sarah
opened a door of one of these cars for me and beckoned me to get in. I sat
down, hugging my knees as I waited for her. She got in on the other side and
gave me some candy. She had given me some back at home too when I had been
scared. They calmed me down then too.
Lonesome trees stood on lonesome streets.
Brown filled the village. There were brown blocks everywhere, encapsulating us.
Sarah said these were their houses. How could they live in them? There was no
wood or leaves. And they are so tall, which worried me. I like my hammock only
a few feet off the ground. I wondered how high off the ground they must be if I
could not see the top of the houses.
Only a few hours ago I had been
able to see the rooftops. The thing we travelled in was terrifying. Sarah
called it safe but I still screamed when I looked out of the little window. She
had said I was safe when I had found her too. Lifting off was quite a sight. Once
my ears stopped hurting and my tummy stopped feeling like it was twirling round
with the plane, I had become transfixed by what was outside. The jungle’s
treetops were far below us. Macaws nested with their young on the highest of
those branches; a sight usually exclusive to only the most daring climbers. Then
out of the layers upon layers of verdant mass, the long vein of the forest, I
had grown to know well, showed itself. I had been collecting water from it for
my family when the danger had come. I had ridden through its temperaments to
the serene, azure beds at the heart of the Amazon.
We got out of the car and, holding
my hand, she took me to a place filled with bright clothes, much like the ones I
saw Sarah wearing that day I ran out of the clearing. She bought me some
clothes like the other children here wore. I had been wearing rags when I met Sarah
but she gave me borrowed clothes when we had got to the airport. We passed more
and more people with bags full of strange entities along the street. Hunched
over a shop window was a lady looking inside with things hanging from her neck
that glistened in the light. There were no shells or bones but delicate rosy
and cerulean balls that she wound round her fingers. Catching my eye Sarah looked
at the burn marks on my arms and rushed us into the shop where there were even
more objects connected with silver string. Soon we left with my wrist dazzling.
While we carried on down the hard
black path sweet smells erupted from around a corner where Sarah said situated
a chocolatier, whatever that meant. I missed the animals. There were none except
a few grey birds blending into the background. There probably weren't any left
at my home now either.
Finally we made it to the last
building. Sarah said there were more children my age inside and a nice lady who
would look after me. It was going to be my new home. One that couldn't burn.
