Chapter 2: Who Needs Magic? (Zoa) See previous chapters below

    

           Deranger has seen me through many scrapes before.  He may not be the smartest pooch in the pile, but he is definitely the most loyal.  Not every dog would stick around while I was hanging from a palm tree with coconuts falling from the sky like giant hailstones… but my 3-year-old mangy yellow mutt was right below me, barking to let me know he was there to help.

            You may be wondering why I was hanging from a palm tree, and why coconuts were falling from the sky.

            I can answer just one of those inquiries.

            The day before the harvest celebration, I decided to pick a bundle of coconuts to bring to market the next day.  But, I wanted to pick the coconuts on my own power, without the hambler.  I was growing tired of all the magic objects everyone else in the kingdom seemed to love so much.  They seemed to make everyday tasks too easy, too boring.  I wanted to be able to do things for myself, like pick a stinkin’ coconut with my own bare hands.  It seemed to me the coconut meat would taste sweeter for me having put in the work to get it.  So I left the hambler at home, that miraculous object that shot into the sky, wrapped itself around a coconut, and gently brought it back down to you.

            Nope.  I was gonna climb that tree myself, grab myself a coconut, and listen for the satisfying thunk as it fell to the ground.  And then I would drop down from the tree, pry open that coconut and have my fill, after Deranger of course.  I had seen old man Groovy get coconuts in this way many times, with his rough brown feet gripping the trunk, his wiry arms wrapped around the tree in a hug.

            It looked easy enough.

            I raced down the beach, excited about my quest.  Deranger loped along, often falling behind to sniff at sea critters he found on the beach.  I knew any jellyfish, clam or crab he found alive and in distress on the sand, he would gently pick up with his teeth and return to the ocean.  After each good deed, he would hurry along to catch up to me.

            In the palm grove, I picked a tree that looked friendly, and jumped on.  I scaled up the trunk pretty easily.  My feet were sticky with sweat and found good purchase against the bark.  Within a minute, I had reached the leafy top, where I gave a hearty whoop.  Deranger answered me with a bark of “Good job Zoa!”  I knocked down several coconuts, whacking them with my hand, twisting them off when necessary.  Each fruit fell to the sand below with a very satisfying “Whump!”  Deranger danced around my accomplishments below me, waiting for me to get down and open one up for him.

            And then the fatigue hit.  It was quite sudden.  My gripping feet instantly felt weak and about to cramp.  I quickly started to slide down the trunk.  But I had no more control, and the slide was fast and wild.  I wrapped my arms tightly around the trunk in a tight hug.  But I was surprised to find that my arms were also very fatigued, and my hug wasn’t enough to halt the slide.  I couldn’t really turn my head to see the approaching ground.  I was sliding even faster.

            Then I felt a severe pain in my left foot, a slice and a sting.  I yelped and released my grip on the tree.  But instead of falling to the ground, I came to a complete stop, suspended on the tree somehow… and the world had gone dark.  My shirt had gotten caught on the large piece of protruding bark that had sliced my foot.  My shirt flipped up over my eyes as my body continued its slide down, then went taut and held me in air like a noose wrapped under my armpits.  I couldn’t see, I couldn’t slip my shirt off over my head, because the tension was so great, and I couldn’t tell how high in the air I was.  My feet had seized in a painful cramp and were no use to me anymore.  They hung at the bottoms of my legs like cupped flippers.

            Even as I hung there in this precarious position, I had a quick thought of relief that I had worn an undershirt that day… otherwise… sheesh!

            That’s when the coconuts started dropping.  One after another, I could hear them whizzing by my ear and thudding to the ground below me.  At first I thought maybe my acrobatic descent had jarred loose all the remaining coconuts above me.  But there were way too many thuds to be just from my tree.  It sound like it was raining coconuts all around me!

            Deranger was barking furiously underneath me.  His barks said, “What’s the deal?  Come down already!”

            Then he yelped in pain.  I knew he was hit by one of the fruity missiles.

            But that animal did not abandon me.  He barked more furiously, this time saying, “Hurry.  They’re still falling!”

            “Help me Deranger!” I shouted.  “I need something underneath my feet.”

            Now, you might be thinking it’s crazy for me to have shouted instructions to my dog and have expected anything to come of it.

            To that, I say two things:

1.      You try hanging by your shirt from a coconut tree that seems to be bombing you, and see what crazy things come out of your mouth.

2.      Deranger and I had a connection.  A connection that seemed to have grown exponentially over the last few days.  He seemed to understand what I needed from him.  And I seemed to understand what his sounds all meant.

So, I shouted this to my dog.  And next thing I knew, I felt something underneath my feet!  It wasn’t a very sturdy thing, and by the soft furry feel, I knew it was Deranger’s head.  It was enough for me to place my worthless feet on, and push up with my legs.  The tension in my T-shirt eased, and I used my hands to lift it off the piece of bark from which it hung.  In a second of terror, I fell to the earth.  With a painful thud, I landed on my back, and Deranger stood over me, licking my face.  Then he barked a “Let’s get out of here!”

My feet were still pretty stiff and unresponsive, but I managed to hobble out of the palm grove without getting pelted.  Once safe outside it’s boundary I turned to see the coconut rain had ended.  All of the coconuts had fallen from the trees.  There were none left.  I picked up one of the fallen ones.  It was squishy and soft.  With my fingers, I was able to rip it open to find it was soft and mushy, completely rotten in a way I had never seen a coconut rot before.

I hobbled home, Deranger running alongside me and asking where his coconut treat was.

I burst into my parents home.

“The coconuts!” I said in a breathless burst.

They were sitting at the table, somber looks on their faces.

“They’re all rotten!” I finished.

            “So is everything else!” my father said in a voice of despair.