What He Brought Back

His mum held him for a very long time. She kept saying his name over and over and squeezing him tighter each time, which was not comfortable but which Kai did not complain about at all.

His dad held him too and then pulled back and looked at him properly the way adults do when they want to check that all the pieces of you are still there and in the right places.

\"You\'re okay,\" his dad said. It came out sounding a bit like a question.

\"I\'m okay,\" Kai said.

\"You built fires.\"

\"Yes.\"

\"And you found food.\"

\"Those orange berries, the ones you showed me in Costa Rica. I found some.\"

His dad was quiet for a moment. \"I was not sure you were even listening that day.\"

\"I was listening,\" Kai said. \"I just do not always look like I am listening.\"

His dad laughed. It was a short surprised laugh and it made Kai feel good.

Tiago\'s family gave them food and let them stay the night. Tiago\'s grandmother made a thick stew with river fish and vegetables that Kai ate two bowls of. Tiago sat across from him and watched him eat with some amusement.

\"You were not scared?\" Tiago asked.

Kai thought about this. \"I was scared the first night,\" he said honestly. \"I was scared of the thing that walked past my camp in the dark.\"

\"Tapir,\" said Tiago. \"They are not dangerous. Big and shy.\"

\"I did not know that then.\"

\"Now you know.\" Tiago pulled apart a piece of bread. \"That is how it works. You do not know things until you need to know them. Then you learn fast.\"

Kai thought that was one of the most sensible things anyone had ever said to him.

After dinner they sat outside Tiago\'s house in the warm night air. Tiago showed Kai how to make a small flute from a piece of hollow bamboo. Kai was not very good at it but Tiago was patient and showed him twice. By the end of the evening Kai could make a sort of breathy whistle that sounded a little bit like a bird if you used your imagination.

Tiago seemed to find this very funny. But he was laughing in a friendly way, not a mean way, and after a minute Kai was laughing too.

After dinner his dad sat with him outside while the sounds of the jungle settled into their night patterns around them.

\"I want to tell you something,\" his dad said. \"I teach people about the jungle. I write about it and photograph it and I have been coming here for fifteen years. And I want you to know that what you did out there, alone, at your age, without training, was remarkable. A lot of adults would not have done as well.\"

Kai looked at the fire Tiago\'s family had burning outside their home.

\"I just did what you showed me,\" he said.

\"No,\" his dad said. \"I showed you things in a safe place with no pressure. You did those things alone in the dark in the middle of the Amazon. That is completely different. That took courage.\"

Kai did not say anything for a while. He listened to the frogs and the insects and somewhere far off the low sound of a howler monkey calling across the dark canopy.

He understood that sound now. He had learned it was just a monkey announcing itself to the jungle, saying I am here, this is my tree, everything is fine.

In the morning they said goodbye to Tiago and his family and a man from the village took them back to their boat by a shortcut along the river. Kai stood at the front of the boat as they pulled away, watching the bank.

Tiago was standing there watching them go. He raised one hand.

Kai raised his hand back.

The boat moved down the river and the village disappeared behind a bend in the trees and then it was just the river and the sky and the jungle going on and on in every direction as far as Kai could see.

His dad appeared beside him with a camera.

\"Want to take some photos?\" his dad asked.

Kai took the camera. He looked through the viewfinder at the river and the trees and the enormous green world stretching away on both sides.

\"Yes,\" he said. \"I really do.\"

***The End***