Chapter 5
Amelia was woken up by slants of sunlight coming through the gaps in the woodwork of the hut. She was disappointed that she was still in the same situation even though the hut was a big improvement. Since arriving at the beach, she had wanted to wake up and find she had been rescued by her family, or taken to a big castle. There was the ancient castle visible two bays away. She wondered who lived in it. She vowed that one day she would sell a lot of shells, buy a dress and go there. Maybe the royal people were there waiting for her. She still felt hurt inside. She looked over at where Prince was sleeping in the hammock. She chastised herself: wasn’t he good enough for her? He collects rubbish she told herself in a stuck up voice. He was beautiful though, his long curly eyelashes crushed together, his cheeks not too fat, not too hollow. It was sad; she had heard some of the beach children call other children ‘hollow faced’ as a kind of insult. It was sad because it meant their faces had become so thin from lack of food that they had hollowed in. Amelia shuddered thinking about last night. She had told Prince that she would be back, and had gone to see her friends from the night before. Although she longed for rich people she was hypnotised by the beauty of the little girls she had slept with under the trees, and by the musical laughs of the boys. People said that the beach children were rough, but it was the men with the big cars and men eating burgers and drinking beer that were rough. If you heard their laughs, they sounded criminal. The children had sweet voices. It seemed all wrong. A lot of them never let the children speak so they never knew. They would tell them to go away, thinking they only wanted money. Yesterday, she had seen a beach boy run after a man with his camera that he had left on the beach. The boy wore ragged shorts and a ripped white t-shirt. The man shouted at the boy to stop following him.
‘Your camera!’ shouted the boy, and one of the man’s friends realised what was going on, but still accused the boy of stealing the camera.
Amelia had found the two little girls. She had made a vow that she would buy them bread every day. She had a kind of mystical belief about the beach that if she did good deeds then good would come to her. She told the girls a big hello and was upset when they asked her who she was. She told them to remember, she was the one who had bought their bread the day before. She told them to stay where they were she would come back with bread, but they insisted on going with her. One held her hand. The other kept jumping up to be carried. When they got to the bread stall one said to the man,
‘Look, look, this is my sister. She is buying bread for me. You will know me now that I have a sister and you can’t say “go away hungry dog” again!’
Amelia looked at the bread seller who was a funny looking cross-eyed man with the tattoo of a crab on his neck.
‘Is that what he said to you? That is horrible. Come on, let’s go somewhere else.’
‘No, no I don’t want to walk forget what he said.’
‘I never said that!’ said the man’ What do you want darling?’
‘Five breads.’
‘You have the money?’
‘Yes I have money here!’
Amelia gave the man the money and he gave her the breads. She gave one to each of the girls.
‘Are the boys coming? These other breads are for them.’ Amelia was still full up from the burger and had saved a ten coin for the morning.
‘The boys will come. Thank you for the bread. What is your name again?’
‘Amelia.’
‘Our names are Pinky and Pearl. She is called Pinky because when she first came to the beach she had on a pretty pretty pink dress. I am called Pearl because that is what a fisherman called me. He found me on a beach up North. A very dangerous beach where the water comes in. If he hadn’t come in his boat, I would have drowned. He said finding me was as lucky as finding a pearl in a shell. Sometimes he comes to this beach with baskets of fish and he gives me a big palm leaf. I wave it over the fish to keep off the flies until he is ready to load it on his truck. He gives me oranges, but I am still hungry. He is very old and ugly, with only one eye, but that is why I am called Pearl.’
‘Is that where you go in the daytime?
‘No we are not allowed to tell.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because we don’t leave tracks we are small. If too many abandoned follow us it will leave tracks like you know when a dog digs the earth? Sometimes the men come to catch all the stray dogs to put them down. They can tell where the dogs are from where they have dug.’
‘I don’t get what you mean.’
‘Well a lady looks after us in her shack that sells fish bait, but only in the day. It’s a secret and sometimes the police let men catch abandoned and take them to work on farms. It is not good there, one boy, Pedro, he escaped and came back. He said all he had to eat was some rotten carrots and they beat you and make you work too hard.’
They had walked back to the road where the palms were, the sun was going down. Amelia wanted to get back to the hut before moonlight came, in case she went to the wrong one. She was excited about giving the boys the bread.
‘Hello,’ she said. I have bread for you.
‘Hush don’t talk so loud stupid,’ said one and she realised why as twenty boys gathered round saying,
‘Give me bread! Give me bread!’
She divided the three breads into five pieces and was surprised when some of the boys got into groups of three to share. Jasper, The boy who had had the bread on his head, got his own piece. He came up to Amelia and gave her a kiss.
‘Thank you sister. My gift is a special kiss. After I saw you I ran too, I escaped from Torro.’
‘I hope you will be safe. Those boys are so good, sharing.’
‘They are very poor. They are not allowed on the beach because they have been caught stealing from tourists, the policeman chases them away.’
‘No that is horrible; you should save them some scraps from the beach. People throw away so much food.’
‘I do but there are hundreds of them, one bag of scraps goes in five minutes. You must bring more bread. You are a posh seller, you can make money.’
‘Why don’t you sell?’
‘I am a tailor. I can mend clothes and fix fishing nets, but I don’t get work every day. I am not lucky with tourists, they always tell me to go and chase me away. I don’t have a nice smile like you.’
Amelia thought he looked alright. He was holding her hand very tightly when he spoke to her. She wanted to bring bread every day, but him demanding it made her feel like running away.
‘I will look after you Amelia; come and lie down and I will tell you a story.’
‘I can’t stay I have to go back to my new friend. He has got me a place in a hut to sleep.’
The boy looked at her and started to cry
‘So you will forget about us and we won’t be friends anymore.’
‘No, I will always be friends. Tell the story to Pinky and Pearl. I will be rich and I will get everybody a hut.’
The boy just walked off and crashed under a tree and cried. Amelia tried to pat him on the back but he told her to leave him. She went to say goodbye to Pinky and Pearl. They dragged on her dress and cried for her to take them with her. She told them she was not allowed. Pinky started being mean and said to Pearl
‘Do you know who that girl is? I don’t; she said she is our friend but she leaves us for a new posh friend.’
‘Don’t be silly Pinky, she buys us bread. She is our sister’ replied Pearl. Amelia gave Pinky a kiss but she pushed her away
‘Don’t worry about her, go after your luck. It is real luck to sleep in a hut.’
Amelia smiled and turned to go. The tailor boy had been talked to by another boy who was telling him his friend, Amelia, was nice. He cheered himself up and shouted,
‘Goodbye my sweet friend. You are the most beautiful thing the waves have bought on the beach.
‘Hey, have you seen Peto?’ she asked
‘He comes back tonight. I will tell him
you will come tomorrow.’
‘I promise I will.’ She said and shook the hand of one of the hungry boys who had pulled at her skirt and walked off. She tried not to look back, she felt as if she was betraying them by not being with them, especially the girls
The next morning Amelia worried that the children she had slept with were alright. Last night she told Prince that she had to go there every night to give bread. He was quite harsh. He said that it was the boy’s fault, why did they steal from tourists? Tourists just gave you money sometimes. Now they couldn’t even get a piece of fish on the beach. Amelia was shocked. She said it wasn’t their fault and some of them, you could see their ribs. He called her ‘a nice queen’ looking after people. He said he didn’t make friends because he didn’t make enough money to share. He was just waiting for his great grandfather, Melchior. If he met another boy he might lead him away. It had happened with his friends when he lived on the farm, they would say come to their house, their grandmother’s farm, their cousin’s in town. And sometimes he would get in trouble for being lost. If he wasn’t here when his great grandfather came that would be stupid. He wouldn’t be able to save his mother and father.
Amelia was hungry. She didn’t know whether she should go and get bread and come back or if Prince would go out before she came back. He looked like the statue of an angel she had seen somewhere. She went off into a daze. If she could remember where she saw the statue, she might remember where she was from. She concentrated and saw pillars and remembered the smell of incense. She tried to imagine the outside of the building but couldn’t remember the name. Maybe it would come to her. She thought it best to wake him up. She went over to the hammock and called his name. Prince woke up and jumped out of the hammock
‘Whey-hey! Another day! Today I am going to be so great. One day everyone will know my name, Prince!’
Amelia admired his punch for living
‘I want to get bread.’
‘It’s time to start. Sometimes I tidy areas of the beach for tourists. I even have to check for poo-poo from street children.’
‘Don’t they use the toilet?’
‘Not always and tourists don’t want to sit on that. Come on we should go. You can help me.’
Amelia didn’t like the sound of it.
‘I have to do my shells. I have fifty shells today. Come and meet me at the café at two thirty so I can do my diving. I will buy your bread this morning.’
‘I will do so well today, we will have ice-cream!’ he said
‘Come on let’s wash in the sea. You can wash your pants and they will dry on you in half an hour.’
Amelia followed him to the sea and took off her dress. She was glad she had a vest but it was looking a bit worn.
Splashing with him in the sea, Amelia was hypnotised by his bright eyes and smile. Maybe he really was a prince, and she should not have woken up feeling so grumpy.