Fiction

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Taylor licked her lips as she smelled the creamy chicken spaghetti sauce she knew was simmering on the gleaming silver and hematite coloured stove. She blinked, ungluing her sparkling blue-gray eyes from the television screen. Her stomach was more interested in the succulent sustenance that bubbled in the high sided skillet in the next room that the watered down zoological facts from Zaboomafu. Besides, these were reruns, and she knew all these things about lions from national geographic. She rolled off her velvety purple bean bag and followed her nose into the kitchen. The cool linoleum was refreshing under her feet in the hot mid summer. She glanced at the thermometer that hung outside the window. It read 25C°. She padded into the white and blue kitchen, and froze as her mother spotted her.
“Aha!” There you are, I was about to call you” Jane Mavericks was a medium tall woman of 34, dressed in jeans and a magenta tank top. Her shoulder length hair was pulled back into a sloppy ponytail. She passed a small pile of plates to her daughter as she bounced around the kitchen collecting salt, pepper, juice, and ice cubes. “Can you set the table for me? Thanks.” she said as she placed glasses on the table and filled each with juice and ice cubes.
“Sure mom.” Taylor placed each plate on the table, one on each end, one on the side against the wall and to on the opposite side.
“Mmmmmm.” John froze as he walked in. He had his eyes closed, and his nose up, breathing in the delicious aroma coming from the succulent meal that awaited him. He opened on eye; saw his mother coming over with a hand full of cutlery. He closed his eyes tight, and turned, almost as is he was sleep walking, and started walking away. He bumped into his father’s leg. He opened one eye, the other on this time, and looked up. Tyler Maverick’s 6 foot, Muscular frame loomed above him. His sawdust covered black sweats and grease covered white tank top and his goatee didn’t make his skeptical smile seem very friendly. John sighed, turned, and took the gleaming utensils from his mother. He placed them next to each plate.
Jane paused in her helter skelter preparations and said “well, that’s done, lets eat!”
“I'll get Travis.” Tyler said, turning towards the stairs.
“And change your clothes while you’re up there. You’re a mess.”
“Yes, Honey.” He called down, in what was half way between a “yes, worshipful master” and a “Ya, ya, I know.”
Jane rolled her eyes, and smiling to herself, placed the steaming pots of scrumptious food on the awaiting hot plates. She told her children to sit down, and took out the brownies she was baking out of the oven and set them on the counter to cool. Tyler walked down the stairs wearing bleached and frayed, but clean cut of jeans, carrying a wriggling toddler in his arms. His tan, muscular torso peeked out from behind the squirming youngster. His necklace, as always hung around his neck. It was a simple black cord made from some game animal’s leather, with a simple silver, Africa shaped pendant hanging from it. He sat Travis on the ground, and he raced towards the dining room. He watched the child go and smiled mischievously at his wife.
“No… go get a shirt on. Don’t you give me that look…”
He put his arms around her and kissed her gently on the cheek.
She smacked him on the shoulder playfully and shook her head. “Go get a shirt on before the food gets cold.”
He turned and jogged up the stairs, tossing a “yes madam!” over his shoulder.
“You guys ready to eat yet?”
A chorus of “yes’s” came from the dinning room.
She sat down as Tyler walked in, wearing a white t-shirt with a big red heart on the front with the words “I love my wife” written in big white letters.
She rolled her eyes and muttered “suck up” under her breath.
“Hey! You bought me this shirt!” He cut off any protests from her by beginning grace.
“Dear holy Father, I ask you to bless this food unto us, and that the energy and nutrience we receive from it may be used to your glory, and to further your almighty plan that you have for each of us. And help the announcement I am about to make sit well with my family, cause I can’t do this without them. All this we ask of you in your holy name,”
The table erupted in a chorus of “amen” from each seated, Travis’s coming last and loudest.
Jane Mavericks sat quietly with a half expectant; half scared look in her eyes as she gazed at her husband. “Well?” she managed to say through the lump in her throat.
“I have a very important announcement to make…” he paused and smiled at his wife’s impatient stare. “Pastor Hudgens has offered me a job…” He paused again for effect.
“But you already work for him…” Jane stared at Tyler as if he had sprouted another set of limbs.
“…as a missionary.” He watched her confusion turn to shock. “To Africa. Mozambique, to be precise…”
The room when silent. Travis and John looked confused, Taylor sat quietly, an interested look over came her features. Jane just sat, blinking, mouth half opened, struggling to find the words to say.
“What did you tell him?”
“I told him I can pack my bag faster than he can buy my plane tickets.”
“When do we leave?”
He smiled “14th of next month.”
“July! My birthday!” John exclaimed “Is it cool to have a birthday party in a mud hut, Daddy?”
“My poor child. You don’t know very much about Africa, do you?”
“Of course I know lots about Africa! There are lions and cheetahs and buffalos and leopards and elephants and giraffes and crocodiles and hippos and zebras! All the people have dark skin and live in mud huts. Oh! And there are lots of funny looking trees.”
“No, that’s not Africa.”
“Then is it Asia? I’m sure that it was Africa. Asia has panda bears and water buffalos and tigers, people always wear pointy hats and eat with chop sticks.”
“No,” Tyler chuckled at his son’s descriptions of the different continents. “Not Asia. The things you mentioned are in Africa, but are not Africa.”
John looked very confused at what his father was trying to tell him. He glanced at his sister, who he secretly thought she was a genius because she corrected Zaboo, but he would never admit it to her out loud. She smiled vaguely at him, her copper coloured hair framing her bemused aqua green eyes. She wanted him to think for himself, so she wasn’t going to explain it to him. She had tired of explaining every thing he wanted to know quite a long time ago. He needed to grow up some time or another. The sooner the better in her eyes. As he compiled a few different possibilities of the possible meaning in his head, his father began to try and reassure them.
“It’ll be fun… I promise.”

The small passenger jet roared low to the ground. It made two complete descending spirals before its landing gear made contact with the gravel run way. The shock jarred the jet’s passengers, then settled into a loud whine of the jets and a rumbling noise beneath, accompanied by a semi-violent quaking from below, which subsided as the jet slowed and neared the end of the run way.
Taylor yawned, attempting to ease the pressure in her ears. It didn’t work. She tried again, and the pressure decreased a bit. She glanced out the window. The gravely runway rushed by, gradually slowing down. In the median separating this runway from the next, tall golden grass grew, blown nearly horizontal from the jet wash. The plane came to the end of the runway, and turned down a narrow road towards the main building of the air port. A tractor attached it’s self to the front of the air craft and towed it to the arrivals/departures gate.
The stewardess opened the door and shouted to someone below in a language Taylor had never heard before. A ladder appeared from below, and the stewardess said, just above the sound of the dieing jets, “Bem vindo ao aeroporto international de Maputo, Moçambique. Quida su’s pisadas quanto saistist do aviao. Linhas Areas du Moçambique ceira saulda com uma boa viajem a todos. Welcome to the international airport of Maputo Mozambique. Please watch your step as you exit the aircraft. Mozambican airlines wishes all a good trip.”
Jane nudged her husband. “Welcome to Africa honey!”
He woke with a start. Travis looked around sleepily as people started towards the door way.
Taylor tapped her toe as she waited for her sleepy family to pull itself together.
“You guys coming’?”
“In a sec” her Mother replied.
“Can I wait for you guys out side?”
“No. Just wait.”
She stood waiting for what seemed to her like a miniature eternity. She tapped her foot and hummed a tune she knew but couldn’t remember were from. She stopped and sighed as they started walking. “What took you so long? I could have gotten married by now!”
“You’re still eleven” said John sleepily. “People don’t get married at eleven.”
“I’m so not!” she said sarcastically. “You have no sense of time! Travis. Tell him.”
Travis stared at his older sister blankly.
“You know what? Never mind. I haven’t found ‘Mr. Right’ yet any ways.” She walked towards the entrance. The heat and humidity hit her at the door like a boiling wave from a sea of unbearable warmth. She took a deep breath and closed her eyes, forcing her body to conform to the new environment. A trick she had learned from traveling between continents. She took another deep breath, inhaling the moist, hot air. The trick was especially useful when traveling between tropical climates and Canada. She inhaled again as she heard her brother cough in the humidity as her own lungs settled into the pattern of breathing required for this type of atmosphere.
The flight attendant grabbed her bag and tossed it out the door. Taylor walked up to the ladder and slid down, barely touching the hot metal as she descended, except to break her fall near the bottom. Three feet off the ground, she jumped horizontally and landed crouching to lessen the impact on her joints. She straightened and received her bag from a member of the ground crew, who scurried over to the base of the ladder to catch the next piece of luggage before she could even thank him. She waited for her family to finish their slow descents before heading towards a short, stout looking building with a glass door that had once been broken, and the pieces stuck together with clear packing tape. She opened the door gingerly, though she knew it would not fall apart with her touch.
She walked into a hot room and had to force her body to adjust once again. In one corner of the large, stuffy room packed with sweaty travelers, a small air conditioning unit stuck out of the wall, rattling its complaints at being worked so hard. Its size suggested it was meant for a room and eighth of this one’s size. She grabbed a hand full of forms from a small wooden box near the entry way. She grabbed one from the stack and passed it down the line behind her. She pulled her passport out from her back pocket and filled out the form before her, some details she filled out from memory, others she had to consult the gold leaf guilt document in her hand. She muttered to herself as she filled out the numerous boxes printed in black ink on the small white forms.
“ Name, Taylor Marie Mavericks. Passport number, BA207204. Birth date, 31st of October, 1992. Date of commission,” she consulted her passport. “12th of May, 2000. Mode of transportation,” She circled the little black airplane silhouette, and handed the paper to her mother to write in the flight number and other remaining details in.
She passed through the gate with her parents and walked up to the baggage claim area. Instead of a normal baggage carrousel, all the bags were tossed helter skelter over the floor of an other wise empty room, the only exceptions being three doors, one from the gate, one from the tarmac, and one to customs and immigrations. The walls were plain, raw concrete, not a single drop of paint. She quickly located her bag, and retrieving her baggage ticket, walked up to customs.
A tall man in a green and blue uniform that slightly resembled fatigues lifted her bag onto a counter with several rollers.
A short, round woman in similar dress with the word “alfandega” written on a bright yellow vest sat behind the counter.. The woman glared at her as if she either thought she was some sort of odd little terrorist that was going to blow her up as soon as she touched the bag, or she just really didn’t like kids. She grabbed the zipper viciously, and opened it, throwing back the cover as if she dared her to press a button. She stuck her meaty hands into Taylor’s neatly packed belongings and shoveled it all out onto a steel counter at the end of the rollers. She fingered through clothes, books, a few small stuffed animals, and a pair of small porcelain dolls. Two little clowns, each with outfits with inverted colours from each other. One red and blue, the other blue and red. One happy, one sad. One wearing clothes that resembled pajamas, the other wearing what looked to be baggy overalls and a silk blouse. The woman’s glare softened as she rewrapped the dolls in the clothes. She carefully, but rather messily, replaced each item in the bag, seeming touched. She zipped it shut and gently tapped the top.
The tall man returned and took it down to Taylor.
Taylor tipped her head at the two, and left through the obviously nonfunctioning metal detectors into a large, colourful lobby, in stark contrast to the plain rooms behind. She knew they didn’t work because the lights were not on in the frame, they let her through with out passing her bag through the equally nonfunctioning x-ray machine, and it didn’t beep when she passed, despite her hematite necklace and her metal beaded anklet. She entered into the airport’s main lobby.
Several booths lined the walls, selling any thing a tourist would need. Over priced clothes, food, cell phones, car rentals, travel agency booking booths and much more. A tall statue stood in the center of the room. She recognized it immediately, though she could not remember what it was called. It was about 12 feet tall, set atop a large gray rock in a slightly elevated planter full of small weed like plants and grasses. The greased iron wood gleamed in the flickering lights from the florescent bulbs above. Twisted people inter twined into each other, the hand of this one the head of another, a leg of yet another the torso of some other wooden being. The jumble of people confused her eyes, so she turned away.
A tall man was approaching her dad. She walked up and heard the stranger reply “Yes. It’s waiting out side.”
The man was an inch or two taller than her dad, but very skinny and bony. Taylor guessed him to be in his mid sixties, judging from his short cropped white hair, wrinkles, and glasses. He wore tan coloured dress pants and a sky blue dress shirt with a gray cotton tie.
She followed them as they made their way through the crowd of tourists and locals. A man looked at her oddly, and started to follow them out, ducking behind some one every time Travis got behind and one of the adults turned to tell him to hurry. Once when Taylor looked back, he was only a few paces behind her, reaching for her bag. She stopped and turned. He stopped as well.
“O que pensas a fazer?” What do you think you’re doing? She glared at him. Her confidence and defiant gaze must have unnerved him. Or maybe because she felt her self get suddenly get angry, and, as usually happened when she became angry, her eyes had flashed a bright lime colour from their usual dark blue. Either way he looked into her eyes and an odd terror seemed to root him to the spot. He stared and his eyes went out of focus and his knees began to knock together. She smiled slightly to her self, inwardly laughing at the oddness of the situation. The man fell to his knees and started mumbling something and closed his eyes tight. She stared at him, wondering what the heck he was doing.
“Taylor, honey, come on…” Her mother stopped short and grabbed the sleeve of her husband’s shirt. “You might want to see this dear.” She whispered.
Tyler turned casually, but the sight that greeted him shocked him. A man was kneeling at the feet of his 11 year old daughter, looking as if he was pleading for his life. He jogged to the crowd till he reached her. He put a hand on her shoulder.
“Taylor, what did you do?”
“Nothing.” She said it casually as if this kind of thing happened every day. “He was going to steal my bag.”
“What did you do to him?”
“Nothing. I told you.”
“People don’t just kneel at the feet of an 11 year old little white girl they were going to steal from for nothing.”
Taylor looked a way from the man and looked at her dad. Her eyes surprised him. They were dark green. He’d seen them many shades of grays and blues and even occasionally blue green. But never this colour. “All I did was look at him.”
“Did you get angry?”
She paused and returned to glaring at the man pleading for his life at her feet. “A little. Maybe.”
“People here are very superstitious.” The tall man walked over. “Pensas que ela e u’que?” What do you think she is? He turned to the man, speaking in portugues.
“Ela es una Quranderinha. Ela me peguento o que e que eu penso que era a fazer. O unico razao que un muinta piquenina asim digas issu e por u que tem muinto poder… Ela nao tem medo neim un. Tem muinto poder. Nao quero morrer. Podes a perguntar a ela a mim dechar viver?” She is a little witch doctor. She asked me what I thought what I was going to do. The only reason such a small person asks a thief this question is because they have much power. This one has no fear. So has much power. I don’t want to die. Can you ask her to spare my life?
“Vais, agora, a correr. Muinto rapido. E nunca robas denovo. Vais a um Igrega, e pergunta perdao para seus pecados. Agora! Vais a correr.” Go, now, run. Very quickly. Never steal again. Go to a Church; ask forgiveness for your sins. Now! Go run. She said it so quickly and authoritatively that she surprised her parents. She had used tenses of verbs that no one, with the exception of professors and authors used. Made her sound smart, and educated far beyond her years. She continued to glare at the man as he ran out the door.
“Very well handled, considering the circumstances. Well, at least we know you’ll do fine here…” The tall man’s voice trailed off as he straightened and turned. “We should be going. The streets get dangerous after dark.”
There was a silver bakki in the dilapidated parking lot. They piled in and started off.
As they exited the parking lot, a small boy ran up. He held out his hands as the tall man placed a few small silver, fat coins into his hands. The boy’s eyes grew wide. He put his hands together; the coins pressed between them, and tipped his head slightly. “Muinto obrigado, senhor. Muinto obrigado.” Thank you very much sir. Thank you very much. He ran off, not turning back. Taylor watched him until he disappeared behind a tall clump of grass as they drove out.
Taylor watched the scenery pass, absorbing a lot of the cultural quirks visually. Nothing escaped her notice. What people wore, what they were eating, how they walked, what they sold, what they bought, what they did. She absorbed all this while in passing.
Tall palm trees with eroded trunks lined the road. The potholes jarred her as they traversed the outer city roads. Walls surrounded every building. Most were painted yellow with cell phone company ads. Others, left as raw cinder block walls, were covered in posters and graffiti. Garbage and stagnant water lined the edges of the road and filled the pot holes. A small child, all alone, standing on the street corner, his face streaked with tears. Taylor took an extra moment to take him in as they waited for the chapas to pass in front of them. He was nearly naked, wearing only a pair of torn and soiled red shorts. His face and body were streaked with red dirt. Flies gathered on his head and face. Taylor looked down, and pulled out a pen and a piece of paper from her back pack. She wrote:
It wrenches my heart,
The plight of the people.
It touches my soul,
The destructive poverty.
It brings sorrow to my mind,
The rampant sickness.
It sears my heart,
As with a red hot brand.
A wound unhealing.
My life’s new purpose.
My Africa.
She would edit it later, but such as it was, it would do for now. She folded the paper in half, and slipped it under the front cover of one of her books.
She glanced out the window again. The graffiti had been replaced with tall gray buildings. The hawkers by boutiques and grocers. The carts by sports utility vehicles. The palms by flame jacarandas in full bloom. The potholes, however, remained the same.
The car soon pulled into a side road, past a bakery. The smell of freshly baked Portuguese buns and pastries assaulted her senses. Her mouth watered hungrily, but she said nothing to the others about food.
Soon afterwards, the car stopped in front of a white house. A tall white wall surrounded it, with a tall gate of steel bars. Spikes adorned the top of the wall, as well as the gate. Barbed wire had been woven into the branches of the tall, wide bougainvillea that grew along the front wall. Each window Taylor could see as she stepped out of the car had steal bars across it. Old style Portuguese tiles adorned the roof, with tall clay ridges on the end that she guessed acted as water troughs. A solid steel gate blocked off the driveway after about a meter.
The tall man walked up to the gate and opened it. A short, fat, rotweiler that looked to Taylor no more than 3 years old bounded out to great him. “Hello, Leo. Nice to see you too. Now you behave. No jumping on the little ones.” He patted the dog on the head.
Taylor walked over to the dog and placed her hand, palm down, below the dog’s nose. He sniffed her, then put his muzzle under her hand. She rubbed the arc of his snout with one finger. He closed his eyes as she reached back to scratch behind his ears.
“Hello, my little friend. How are you to day?”
The dog made a little noise half way between a whine and a bark. It started with a high pitched noise, followed by a quiet woof. She patted him on the head.
“Me too.”
The man looked at her, befuddled. “What did he…” he paused, trying to find the right wording. “...tell you?”
“He said he’s hungry.”
“How do you know that?”
“Couldn’t you tell by the tone he used?”
“I’ve never met someone who could talk to animals before. How do you do it?”
“Every one can talk to animals. It just needs someone special to understand their responses.” She looked up to the man’s confused face. “Never mind.” Taylor went back to rubbing the rotti behind the ears. The chubby black and brown canine leaned into the patting, and sighed.
“Good boy.” Taylor whispered. “Yes you are. And a suck up to!” she added as he licked her face. “Ok. Down boy!”
The dog sat and rolled over onto his back. She scratched his tummy, then patted his chest and walked back towards the gate. The dog watched her go, from his upside down position.
Taylor grabbed her bags and lugged them into the house.
“Were do I put my stuff?” She called out to no one in particular. Her father walked out of one room.
“You can put it in the room down the hall. In the room door, and to the left.”
Taylor walked towards the door wondering why there would be a room in a room. She opened the door, and there were two rooms and a small office space. She opened the door on the left. The walls were made of plywood, and didn’t quite reach the ceiling. A small single bed lined one wall, a desk and dresser another and a short, couch like piece of furniture the other. She dropped her bags on the floor and stared at the odd seat. It was approximately the size of a two-seater couch, but had no legs. It had a whicker frame with what looked to be a very well used mattress that had gone flat, and then been re-covered. It was gray with a faded pattern of wild flowers all along the thin covering. She sat on it. It was more comfortable than was expected.
She walked into the office. A desk and a tall book case lined one wall, and a couch similar to the one in her room lined the wall common with her own living area. The other wall was plastered with old calendars and prayer cards.
She turned and walked into the other room. Bunk beds along one wall, a pair of dressers along the other, and a large, very well worn play rug in the center of the room. Simple, like her own. She took one more look around, noticing the chips out of the walls from sticky tack, and ink stains in one corner of the hardwood floor, as well as a lack of outlets in the walls before exiting.
She then returned to her own room, and familiarized her self with the location of the two outlets, the meager titles on the dresser top between two book stands, and the arrangement of storage facilities, including a row of shelves above the dresser. She grabbed up her book bag and took out the books. She arranged them, as well as the other books, first by genre, then by author, then by title, and set them on the shelf between the chipped and aged marble horse statuettes. As she put the last book in place, she noticed a tip of a sheet of note paper sticking out of the top of “The Island of the Blue Dolphins”. Her poem. She pulled it out and laid it on her dresser. She unzipped her bag and pulled out a small wooden box. Her poem box.
She had started collecting her poems and shortest stories in the box just over a year ago. Many portrayed her feelings on certain happenings, others, she had used to practice her melodramatic styles, or in practice using big words in ways that sounded good and still made sense. She carefully added her newest poem in the box. Each poem was written on a differently coloured piece of paper. Reds and blues and yellows, accompanied by hues of green, orange, pink, and purple. Flowers adorned the corners of some. Others had cartoon characters or animals. The newest addition was on a piece of light blue paper with a cartoon girl named “White” from the cartoon series “Orange”. She carefully closed the lid, and placed the oak wood box on the dresser top.
She brought out her clothes, organized them first by were on the body the article was to be worn, next by the occasion on which it was to be worn, then lastly by the warmth of the article. She would have also arranged them by colour, but the spectrum which her clothes covered was too broad. She laid each article in its drawer, retrieving small objects that had been bundled for protection in the clothing. Her porcelain dolls sat back to back on the desk. Her painted clay statuette of a small blue dolphin sat near the center of her dresser. Her pencil holder, a short, fat mug that vaguely resembled a conch shell on the corner of the desk. She pulled out the plastic bag full of pens, pencils, markers, coloured pencils, and arranged them in the cup. She carefully pulled out a small item from the folds of a spare pillow case. The rubbed the miniscule figurine’s head with the tip of her index finger. It was a tiny pewter dragon, a western dragon atop of a silver cliff, with a crystalline egg wrapped in its muscular tail. She polished the ovum with the edge of her shirt before setting the figurine on left end of the shelf.
“Almoço!” a strange voice called out from the kitchen.
There was no way any one could cook that fast. Who was in the house? She walked into the kitchen. A short, skinny young woman bustled around the kitchen, grabbing plates and fruits and placing them on a tray.
“Con lisenca, Patroainha” She said as she passed Taylor. She was only about an inch and a half taller than Taylor. She had used the Feminine honourative Patroainha, meaning ‘little mistress.’ Taylor looked after the lithe dark form as it hustled down the shadowy hall way. She followed her into the dinning area. The woman set her tray on the table, and dipped her head to Taylor’s mother.
“Muinto obrigada, Regina.” Thank you, Regina. Her mother acknowledged.
“De nada, Patroa.” Twas nothing, mistress. She exited the room.
“Who’s that?”
“That is Regina, our maid.”
“We have a maid?”
“In this country, we need one. Both Dad and I will be working a lot, especially while you’re at school, and some one needs to clean the house and cook and stuff.”
“Oh… ok…” Taylor’s mind wandered to a book she had read from the point of view of a servant, and wondered where in the classes of workers maids belonged in. She guessed hired help. The main categories were slaves, then servants, followed hired help. Slaves were given homes, clothes and food, and had to work, no questions asked. Servants were given quarters and food and clothes, and did what they were told, but had some choices, and hired help were fed and given a temporary area to keep their personal belongings, and were paid, and lived some were else. She let her thoughts drift on the subject for a moment before returning to reality. She glanced at the table.
“I’m more tired than hungry… can I just grab a fruit and hit the hay?
“Sure honey. You’ve had a long day.”
Taylor grabbed a banana and headed for bed. She quickly finished it and threw the peel into her trash can. She was sound asleep as soon as her head hit the pillow.

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