Read Online What the Moon Saw by Laura Resau - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Laura Resau
Tags: Fiction
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the mountain sounds, the insect songs. Part of the breezes and the birdcalls.”
“And no one’s ever found it?” I asked. Now, here was a real, genuine secret mission.
Abuelo shook his head. “No one of this earth.”
“The young people ask about it from time to time,” Abuelita said. “But to my knowledge, no human eye has seen it.”
My heart was nearly jumping out of my chest. Now all the pieces seemed to be coming together into a picture. My spirit was starting to feel more like a clear moon again. I remembered the way the waterfall sound seemed to call to me. Maybe even back in Walnut Hill it had been calling to me. I opened my tin of pastels, pulled out a brilliant green, and began shading the trees. “I’ll find it,” I said. My voice sounded a little more confident than I felt. “And,” I added, “I’ll mark it on my map. Yucuyoo’s first map.”
What I love about making maps is that they tell you what to notice. My map showed landmarks like the high rock face, with its scars and wrinkles, crisscrossed with cracks and vines. It showed a fallen tree covered in moss, like a woman sleeping under a fleecy green blanket. It showed two trees bent over the path with their leaves dangling in an emerald arch. You know, when I draw these kinds of things, I notice them more the next time I pass by. I almost feel like waving at them, as though we’re friends.
Abuelita began collecting our empty cups in a metal bucket. She looked at my map a moment, and I felt suddenly shy.
“Perhaps it will be you, Clara,” she said. “The first one who sees the spirit waterfall.”
A while later, I looked up from my sketchbook and out the doorway and saw that the rain had stopped and darkness had come. Here it got dark earlier than in Maryland in the summer. I remembered the astronomy chapter of my science book, the diagrams of a blue-swirled earth and a bright yellow sun. It made sense that the days didn’t grow as long here, since we were closer to the equator.
The only light came from the fire, warm and orange. A bare lightbulb dangled by a wire from the ceiling, but it was turned off. Even though my grandparents had electricity, they didn’t seem to use it much. There were no appliances except for an abandoned-looking blender stuffed in a crate in the corner. Abuelo stood underneath Loro in the kitchen, offering him bits of stale tortilla. I shut my sketchbook, took a tortilla from the basket, and helped Abuelo feed him. Abuelita was taking eggs from another basket and cracking them, one by one, into a blackened pan of hot oil.
As Loro snatched bits of tortilla from my palm, I realized I felt comfortable here. Then I realized how unexpected that was. Most kids in my school would have freaked out in the middle of nowhere with nothing to do.
“What made you ask me to come here?” I asked Abuelita.
She smiled. “Your spirit was restless.”
“It was,” I said. “How did you know? Did Dad tell you in a letter?”
Abuelo shook his head and winked. “Remember,
m’hija,
your grandmother knows things. Now, me, I was worried you wouldn’t like it here. I stayed awake at nights telling your grandmother, ‘Oh, but Clara is used to TV and computers and city life! What if our food tastes bad to her? What if our life is too humble for her? What if she turns her nose up at our dirt floors?’ But your grandmother said, ‘This is what Clara’s spirit wants. No distractions.’ And it’s true! You feel good here, no?”
I nodded. Nearly every minute in Yucuyoo I noticed another difference between it and Walnut Hill. Most of the differences either made me laugh or made me a little nervous. Things that made me laugh were the newspapers and old schoolbooks piled up in the corner of the outhouse to tear up and use for toilet paper, the glittery plastic purple jelly slippers that Abuelita gave me to wear in the bathing hut (which was a tiny shack hidden among the banana trees), the Barbie doll dressed in a poofy
“And no one’s ever found it?” I asked. Now, here was a real, genuine secret mission.
Abuelo shook his head. “No one of this earth.”
“The young people ask about it from time to time,” Abuelita said. “But to my knowledge, no human eye has seen it.”
My heart was nearly jumping out of my chest. Now all the pieces seemed to be coming together into a picture. My spirit was starting to feel more like a clear moon again. I remembered the way the waterfall sound seemed to call to me. Maybe even back in Walnut Hill it had been calling to me. I opened my tin of pastels, pulled out a brilliant green, and began shading the trees. “I’ll find it,” I said. My voice sounded a little more confident than I felt. “And,” I added, “I’ll mark it on my map. Yucuyoo’s first map.”
What I love about making maps is that they tell you what to notice. My map showed landmarks like the high rock face, with its scars and wrinkles, crisscrossed with cracks and vines. It showed a fallen tree covered in moss, like a woman sleeping under a fleecy green blanket. It showed two trees bent over the path with their leaves dangling in an emerald arch. You know, when I draw these kinds of things, I notice them more the next time I pass by. I almost feel like waving at them, as though we’re friends.
Abuelita began collecting our empty cups in a metal bucket. She looked at my map a moment, and I felt suddenly shy.
“Perhaps it will be you, Clara,” she said. “The first one who sees the spirit waterfall.”
A while later, I looked up from my sketchbook and out the doorway and saw that the rain had stopped and darkness had come. Here it got dark earlier than in Maryland in the summer. I remembered the astronomy chapter of my science book, the diagrams of a blue-swirled earth and a bright yellow sun. It made sense that the days didn’t grow as long here, since we were closer to the equator.
The only light came from the fire, warm and orange. A bare lightbulb dangled by a wire from the ceiling, but it was turned off. Even though my grandparents had electricity, they didn’t seem to use it much. There were no appliances except for an abandoned-looking blender stuffed in a crate in the corner. Abuelo stood underneath Loro in the kitchen, offering him bits of stale tortilla. I shut my sketchbook, took a tortilla from the basket, and helped Abuelo feed him. Abuelita was taking eggs from another basket and cracking them, one by one, into a blackened pan of hot oil.
As Loro snatched bits of tortilla from my palm, I realized I felt comfortable here. Then I realized how unexpected that was. Most kids in my school would have freaked out in the middle of nowhere with nothing to do.
“What made you ask me to come here?” I asked Abuelita.
She smiled. “Your spirit was restless.”
“It was,” I said. “How did you know? Did Dad tell you in a letter?”
Abuelo shook his head and winked. “Remember,
m’hija,
your grandmother knows things. Now, me, I was worried you wouldn’t like it here. I stayed awake at nights telling your grandmother, ‘Oh, but Clara is used to TV and computers and city life! What if our food tastes bad to her? What if our life is too humble for her? What if she turns her nose up at our dirt floors?’ But your grandmother said, ‘This is what Clara’s spirit wants. No distractions.’ And it’s true! You feel good here, no?”
I nodded. Nearly every minute in Yucuyoo I noticed another difference between it and Walnut Hill. Most of the differences either made me laugh or made me a little nervous. Things that made me laugh were the newspapers and old schoolbooks piled up in the corner of the outhouse to tear up and use for toilet paper, the glittery plastic purple jelly slippers that Abuelita gave me to wear in the bathing hut (which was a tiny shack hidden among the banana trees), the Barbie doll dressed in a poofy
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