Gourlay Wild Song

1. Auflage 2023
ISBN: 978-1-78845-305-9
Verlag: David Fickling Books
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 6 - ePub Watermark

E-Book, Englisch, 336 Seiten

The year is 1904. Luki has lived a tribal life in the mountains of the Philippines. Now she's growing up, she is expected to become a wife and a mother, but Luki isn't ready to give up her dream to become a warrior.When her tribe are offered a journey to America to be part of the St. Louis World's Fair, Luki will discover that the land of opportunity does not share its possibilities equally . . .

Candy Gourlay is of Filipino heritage, and was a journalist before becoming an author. Her novels Tall Story (her debut) and Shine have won the Crystal Kite Prize for Europe. Tall Story was also nominated for the Carnegie Medal and shortlisted for 13 awards including the Blue Peter Prize, the Waterstones Children's Book Prize and the Branford Boase. Her previous novel Bone Talk published to rave reviews and was shortlisted for the Costa Award and Carnegie Medal.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Gourlay, Candy

Leseproben

2

Deception

Sometimes, I think about all the times you had to face the wrath of the ancients over me, Mother. Luki’s been wearing a breechcloth again, Chochon! Chochon, your daughter was fighting with a boy! Chochon, the girl was playing with a spear when she should have been pounding rice with the other girls!

You stood there, listening calmly, and when we went home, it was your turn to do the scolding. You talked about duty, you talked about manners, you talked about modesty. But after a time, I saw that you were only scolding because that was what the ancients expected of you. You put your fury on like a hat and then, just as quickly, took it off.

Even so, the ancients filled me with rage. Look at these tattoos on my face, Mother, look at these tattoos on my shoulders! All those years ago, the ancients rewarded me with tattoos and called me brave when I raised the alert that our blood enemy the Mangili was about to attack. But in the same breath they forbade my carrying a spear and prohibited my hunting.

‘Luki,’ you told me patiently. ‘The ancients esteem women. We bear children. We plant the rice, we cultivate the soil. We nourish the village. We are the future.’

‘So why can’t I hunt?’ I complained.

‘Because women don’t hunt,’ you said. ‘We never have. Not since before we began to remember.’

That’s what you said, Mother. But you didn’t sound convinced.

I tried to be good. I tried to be like all the other women. I followed the new American rules. I wore a blouse. I did my chores. I learned how to speak American at Mister William’s little school. I kept out of trouble. Apart from hunting.

Now the Americans are emptying the forests so quickly with their guns, we need all the meat we can get. And, Mother, you have to admit, my arrangement with Samkad is perfect.

Samkad was playing his part well. The ancients couldn’t look away from those flexing biceps and that boyish smile. As Samkad began to talk, you could see them relax, settling down on their haunches in front of the Council House fire, the wrinkles hanging looser from their foreheads, their faces spreading wide in toothless smiles. They began to thank the spirits of our ancestors for the boar – my boar. A crowd began to gather and I pushed my way to the back, my empty belly growling mercilessly to the chanting of the ancients.

I felt an elbow in my side. A spiteful voice hissed into my ear.

‘Pssst! What are you so pleased about, Luki?’

My belly clenched with annoyance. It was Tilin, Bontok’s meanest girl, who slept on the pallet next to mine in the House for Women. You’d think the ten of us unmarried girls would be friends, sleeping side by side on our narrow pallets, heads to the wall, feet pointing towards the warm fire in the cooking room next door. Well, I guess they tolerated me when you were still alive, Mother. They liked you. You were easy, you made people smile. But I am not like you, am I, Mother?

Tilin glared at me. Looking at her, it baffled me that young men were constantly hanging around the House for Women, waiting for a glimpse of those dark butterfly eyebrows and that too-wide mouth that made her look like she was smiling even when she was smirking. Which was what she was doing now.

‘Well?’

I sighed. Obviously, in my rush to go hunting I must have forgotten some important chore.

Tilin snorted. ‘Guess who had to trample manure this morning because you weren’t there?’

‘Oh!’ I clapped a hand over my mouth. I’d completely forgotten that it was my turn. I turned to face her and the sun struck my eyes like a blow. ‘I … I was helping Samkad!’

‘Samkad, Samkad, SAMKAD!’ Tilin was practically spitting in my ear. ‘Why does he always need YOU to help him? What does Samkad see in you?’

Samkad loves me, I thought. And it was not Samkad who needed me. I needed him. I could not hunt without Samkad.

I scowled at Tilin. There was a flower in her hair, and a neat string of seashells from far away held her long hair away from her face. Her blouse looked crisp and white and her small feet were not blackened with forest mud like mine. Even so, she didn’t look very strong. I could fight you, I thought. I could rub your pretty face in the dirt.

But then a small voice murmured at my knee. ‘Tilin, I’m bored.’ It was Sidong, Tilin’s little sister. ‘Where is my book? I want to draw.’

Instantly, Tilin was on her knees with her arms around Sidong. ‘You can’t draw now, little chick,’ Tilin murmured. ‘The ancients are not finished.’

Looking at the two of them, I felt rotten for thinking horrible thoughts. Maybe I was the meanest girl in Bontok.

While Tilin busied herself with Sidong, Kakot, who slept on the pallet on my other side, took over. ‘And where were you last night, when the rice needed to be put on the boil?’

‘Probably with Samkad,’ someone murmured behind me. ‘She’s never there when there are chores to be done.’

The others joined in.

‘Never there when babies need to be carried.’

‘Never there when rice needs husking.’

‘Luki’s no help!’

‘Luki’s no use!’

They hawked my name like gobs of spit. Luki! Luki! Luki!

‘Luki.’ We all turned. ‘Let’s go.’ Samkad was standing right next to us. When did the chanting end? And did he hear them chastising me? His face was smooth, it gave nothing away.

‘Come on, Luki, help me carry the boar to Father’s house so that I can butcher it,’ he said.

Mother, the other girls were smiling at him. Smiling! Right in the middle of their nastiness! I rolled my eyes at Samkad, but he was too busy showing the girls his straight white teeth to notice.

‘Congratulations,’ Tilin simpered, stretching her chin out, clearly trying to make her neck look longer. ‘Another boar! What a skilful hunter you are, Samkad!’

If it hadn’t been for Sidong, I would have scooped up a handful of mud and smeared it on her silly neck.

Samkad led me to the boar and we lifted it up on his signal. The boar was heavier now that it was weighed down with the ancients’ good wishes. We carried it out of the courtyard, Chuka leading the way to the hut that once belonged to Samkad’s dead father. Although he lived in the House for Men with the other unmarried men, Samkad had continued to tend his father’s house. After you died, Mother, was where Samkad and I had cooked and shared many meals, and it was where we always butchered the meat from our hunts. Someday, in the far away future, when we’re ready to marry, we can make our home in it.

We had barely left the Council House when Samkad signalled me to stop and lower the boar to the ground.

‘What?’ I said.

He folded his arms across his chest. ‘You’ve got to try harder, Luki.’ His voice was gentle but chiding.

I flattened my face and hid all my feelings. ‘Don’t know what you mean.’

‘They are your friends.’

I scowled. ‘HAH! They were never my friends.’

‘Give them a chance.’

‘A chance to annoy me?’

‘No, a chance to know you.’

‘They have known me since we were children. They can’t stand me.’

‘They like you really, Luki.’

‘They liked my mother. Me? They don’t want to know.’

‘That’s not true,’ Sam said quietly. ‘It is you who reject them.’

Didn’t he get it? The more time I spent with the other girls, the less they liked me. And what if they found out about my hunting expeditions? They would probably rather I became an expert manure trampler than a hunter.

Mother, that was when it occurred to me that this was all your fault. It was you who thought it amusing to dress me in a breechcloth because I liked playing with boys. It had pleased you when I learned to throw Father’s spear and you had shown me how to practise with a target. It was you who made me different. And now you’ve gone to the invisible world, Mother, and left me to face the consequences.

Sam continued to give me advice. ‘Make light of things! Have a laugh with them! Then they won’t be so hard on you. Smile!’

Smile! It made me scowl so hard I could feel the strain on my ears. He was a man, he was allowed to fight, to choose his wife, to hunt. He had no idea what it was like to want something you couldn’t have.

Just then, I heard a voice murmuring by my right hip. I didn’t catch it all, just...