Tall Story - Candy Gourlay [5]
Which was so appalling that all the boys on the waiting bench looked at each other in horror.
But Bernardo Carpio refused to be driven out.
His late mother was born in San Andres and so was he. To live in the village was his right.
‘But what could he do? How could he win the people to his side?’ Old Tibo would stop snipping and turn to his audience. ‘Instead of fighting back with anger, he decided to fight back with kindness. He was going to make the villagers love him. He was going to become their hero.’
One morning the farmers of San Andres woke to find that their fields had been ploughed. In the night, Bernardo had run his comb through the soil and turned the earth into furrows.
A river ran on the other side of the hill but not close enough to irrigate the fields. Bernardo pushed his finger into the side of the mountain and carved a stream from the river down to the fields, bringing irrigation and fresh water to the village. ‘If you look closely at the hillside,’ Old Tibo said, ‘you can just see giant footprints where he trod.’
The fields lay in the deep shadow of a valley, and as a result, the crops of San Andres grew stunted and pale from lack of sun. So Bernardo planted his huge hands on the two mountains that shaded the valley and pushed them apart, just enough to let in the sun. To this day, hand-shaped indentations remain on the mountain slopes.
‘Bernardo was a blessing,’ Old Tibo said. ‘And he was right: not only did the villagers come to love him, they came to realize that they needed him.’
One terrible monsoon, when rain lashed the village like a vicious whip and many coconut trees lost their crowns in the storms, the Earth began to shake. A few quakes here and there at first. And then, every day, a great shuddering.
One day the village shook so violently that houses crumbled as if they were made of sugar. Across the main road, a huge crack appeared, steam hissing out in clouds. Peering down into the fissure, the villagers saw two moving walls of rock about to collide with each other, like a pair of monumental hands poised to clap. It would have been a collision so powerful as to destroy San Andres completely.
The earth began to shake again, and everyone closed their eyes tight, said their prayers and waited for the end.
But nothing happened.
When they opened their eyes they saw, deep down in the fissure, Bernardo Carpio, arms braced against the two walls of stone, his face twisted with determination.
And then the granite lip of the fissure crumbled, and rock and earth caved into the crack. And they never saw Bernardo again.
But the village was saved.
4
Andi
Coach came round to talk to Mum and Dad.
I sat outside on the landing, listening hard, but they never raised their voices loud enough for me to hear, and when Coach reappeared he was all smiles and Good Luck With Your Move and Congratulations On Your New Home and shaking hands, so I knew that he had totally lost the battle before even beginning the war. Mum and Dad stood in the doorway grinning their best grins.
‘And thanks for dropping by!’ Mum said brightly as Coach and Dad shook hands.
‘Thanks, Coach,’ I muttered as he went past. Thanks for nothing.
He avoided my eyes and raised his shoulders. ‘Sorry, Andi.’ And then he edged past me and down the stairs like a guilty man.
‘Oh, Andi, Andi, Andi,’ Mum said. ‘Come and have a hug.’
I hated it when she treated me like a toddler. But I went and had a hug anyway.
‘Well done for getting point guard,’ Dad said, ruffling my hair the way he would a dog’s. ‘But we can’t pass up this chance to move. This flat is a cupboard, we have no choice. You know that.’
‘I know.’ I rubbed my eyes.
‘Come on in,’ Mum said. ‘I’ll get supper on the table.’
I followed them back into the flat. ‘It’s just … I’ve been working hard to get Coach to pick me. I’ve been slaving away …’
‘I know, darling.’ Dad began to lay the table for dinner.
Mum lit the stove and measured some rice into a pot, sighing. ‘Ah