Thursday, March 24, 2016

Chapter 11: Cindy Pialug's Story

     Cindy, her father, and Tony left the police station and went to Cindy’s home.  There at Cindy’s home, Cindy and her father told her story:
     The story began eighteen years earlier, when Cindy’s father was returning from a fishing trip.  As he walked along the stone path leading to his home, he heard a baby’s cry coming from a field of taro plants.  Following the sound, he found a girl baby lying naked on the bare, wet ground.
     “How could anyone be this cruel to a baby?” he asked himself.  “And why?”  Because the weather was beginning to turn a little cool, the man was wearing a tee shirt.  He took off his tee shirt, wrapped the baby in it, and held her with one arm.  With the other hand, he carried the fish he had caught.  He looked around, but he didn’t see a house or other people.  Then he decided to take her home, and dress and feed her.  He thought that, after she had been fed and clothed, he would take her to the police station in hopes that they could find her parents.
     His wife had died several years earlier and left him with three sons.  At the time he found the baby, the man’s sons were already teenagers.  After feeding the baby and making her comfortable, he prepared the fish for his family’s supper.
     After supper, he decided that it was time to take the baby to the police station.  When he went to the bed where he had laid her, he saw that the baby girl had turned into a baby fox.  That’s when he realized that she was a fox fairy.
     He knew that the Caroline Islands government was trying to kill all the foxes on Kanifay Island.  He had also heard terrible legends about fox fairies.  He saw why she had been left alone to die in the taro field.  Either someone had feared that something terrible would happen to them if they tried to raise her as their daughter; or her fox mother had been killed with no one to take care of the baby fox. 
     He had little fear for his own life, but what about his three sons?  What if he kept her to raise as his daughter?  Would something terrible happen to his sons?  He seriously thought that he should take her back to the taro field where he had found her.
     His youngest son saw the look in his eyes and said to him, “Papa, I’ve always wanted to have a sister.  It would be cruel to take her back to the taro field to die.  Maybe she’s the sister I’ve always wanted.  Please.  If you don’t want her, I’ll take good care of her myself.”
     “I will, too,” said another son.
     “We all will,” said the third.
     He looked into face of the baby fox and remembered how she had looked as a baby girl.  His first thought was that he should name her Kit, since baby foxes are called kits.  Then he decided that it wouldn’t be right to call her Kit.  He would name her Cynthia and call her Cindy, after his wife who had died years earlier.
     After Cindy entered the first grade, her brothers took her with them to practice traditional dances.  Probably because Cindy was thin, graceful, and high-spirited, she wanted to learn the graceful and exciting stick dance.
     Because Cindy was thinner than most girls, she learned a more graceful way to move than any of the other dancers.  Stick dancers were naturally expected to sometimes shout during stick dances.  Cindy took her sounds a step further by loudly howling.  People noticed her special style of moving and howling as she stick danced; and she became very popular among tourists. 
     Most girls learned to smile for the tourists, but Cindy had a smile for everybody.  What’s more, it was said that her smile was so bright that it could light up a room.  By the time Cindy was in her teens, it seemed that every tourist wanted to take her picture.  The only dancer who would be as popular among tourists as Cindy was a seven-year-old whom tourists said was cute and funny looking; but that was years later.
     From the age of six, Cindy was also expected to learn how to make handicrafts.  She learned handicrafts in school, and her aunt often gave her more lessons in handicrafts.  Girls learned how to make handbags from palm leaves, small box toys from bamboo leaves, or strings of flowers to wear around their necks or on their heads.  Cindy’s favorite thing to make was bamboo leaf boxes.   Even at the age of eighteen, box making was still her favorite handicraft.
     When Cindy was twelve or thirteen, her aunt came to her house more often to give her lessons in using the hand loom.  At that age, girls were expected to know how to weave their own skirts.  At first, the lessons were simple.  She made skirts, each with its own design.  Little by little, she learned to add little ideas to her skirts so that each skirt was different from all other skirts on the island. 
     The skirts were pretty, and they would last for a lifetime.  On Kanifay Island, people had more respect for a girl or woman who could make her own skirt because it showed that she was a capable person.
     Over time, Cindy’s brothers grew up, went to Ponape Island State College, got married and started families of their own.  For the most part, Cindy’s childhood was normal for a girl of Kanifay Island.  Cindy had a happy childhood; and, finally, only Cindy and her father were left in their family home.
     It wasn’t all happy, of course.  Kanifay Island had typhoons every year.  Sometimes typhoons were so strong that houses were broken and had to be built again.  Typhoon Maysak had hit Kanifay Island only a few months before Tony had come to the island.  Some rebuilding was still taking place when Tony arrived.
     As a teenager, Cindy wished that she could have had a normal social life.  Churches and other organizations arranged activities for teenagers, but most of them were held at night.  As you now see, Cindy was unable to go out at night without other people finding out her secret life as a fox fairy.
     While other teenagers enjoyed teen activities, Cindy was often at home in her fox form.  Sometimes she read a book as her father turned the pages.  Sometimes she listened to music or watched a movie DVD.  Her favorite movie actor, as you know by now, was the movie action hero Dash Tobey.  She had seen each of his movies several times. 
     It’s human nature to praise.  When we like something, we want to praise it to other people.  Our enjoyment becomes complete when we invite others to praise it along with us.  That’s why we often hear such praise invitations as, “Wasn’t it great!”
     When Cindy met Tony, she was excited to hear that Tony was also a big fan of Dash Tobey.  Cindy had finally met someone with whom she could share her praise for the action movie hero Dash Tobey.  She had not thought it possible to admire Dash Tobey more than she did.  When Tony told her that Dash in real life had rescued lost people in the mountains of Wyoming, Cindy admired Dash Tobey even more than ever.
     Cindy breathed deeply as she thought about Dash Tobey. She was now eighteen years old; she was a woman.  Soon, she would move to another country and start a new life.  She had to learn to look at life as a grown woman sees life.  When Cindy was a child, she spoke as a child, she understood things as a child; she thought as a child.  Now that Cindy was a woman, it was time for her to put away childish things.


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