Fish Read Free Page B

little fresh air. If we have enough water, you can give it some fresh every now and then. I think,” headded, taking the bound-up, lidded pot from me and tying it somehow to my bag behind my back, “I think that it will be just fine. Now, Tiger, I'll tie it like this” (here he made a noise through his teeth as he jerked something tight), “because you must have your hands free to walk where we are walking. Always remember that. What do you do when you start to fall—huh?”
    “I, um, go like this,” I said, and started to put my hands out.
    “That's right. You put out your hands to save yourself. You also need them to hold on tight to things sometimes, or to push them out of the way. So—we keep hands free, OK?”
    The Guide was talking to me like I was a soldier now, and I was pleased, so I stood up straight as I could under my bag.
    “Ready?” He turned to Mum and Dad, who were looking slightly surprised by all this. It is hard for anyone to outboss Mum and Dad. To be honest, they had been so busy, bossy and tired for so long, I think theywere rather pleased that the Guide was getting us all organized.
    “Let's go, then,” he said.
    He started walking along the path that led away from the back of the house toward the road, which Dad had explained wasn't like a proper road back in our own country because it was only made of earth and rocks.
    The donkey, which had no ropes about its head so was in fact loose to wander anywhere, swung around expertly and started to follow the Guide. When it came alongside him it steadied and walked there calmly like a dog. Following behind, I noticed that not only did the Guide not walk behind the donkey, as the villagers normally did, but he didn't have a long stick with which to tap it.
    I hoped it wouldn't keep stopping, or we would take a very long time on this trek. I hoped it wouldn't just trot off where it fancied, with all our belongings on board.
    Mum must have been thinking the same thing. “Is this a very good donkey, then, that it walks with you like this?” she asked the Guide.
    “All donkeys are good, in that they'll walk like this. If we come to a dangerous bit of ground, who would you trust to find the safest way to cross—a man, or a donkey?”
    Mum was caught off guard a bit by this sudden question.
    “Well, I wouldn't know—people have said animals are the best. Where I come from, there are bogs—like, deep mud that you'd never get out of—with grass growing on the top so that you can't tell they're there. Local people always trust the ponies to know. …”
    “Exactly,” said the Guide, looking pleased, and leaving Mum looking even more confused.
    He went on, “If I am tap, tap, tapping at this creature all the time, and beating her when she stops, and pulling her around by a rope, how is she to tell me when it is not safe to go in a certain direction?”
    Dad was impressed. “That is good sense, if ever Iheard it. But tell me, won't she run off without a rope?”
    “She might know where the path is safe, and where the grass is good, and a lot of other things. But she trusts me—she thinks I know more and will keep her safe. So why would she run away? Tell me, Tiger— would you run away from your parents here?”
    I shook my head, looking wonderingly at him.
    “No, of course not. That is good sense. It's the same for the donkey here. I feed her, I care for her, I have never let her down. Why would she not want to stay with me?”
    And we all marched on over the rough earth, heads down, thinking. This was going to be a long journey, but with the Guide, I thought, it was going to be more interesting than I had expected.
    There was a hissing.
    I woke up from dreaming of snakes. It was dark. Blinking, and trying to remember where I was, I was pleased to find my blanket from my bed wrappedaround me. But I wasn't in my bed back at the house.
    A very hard rock was sticking into my hip where I was lying, and I suddenly remembered. We were sleeping out