Jungle Princess ✔

Chapter 9: Tall Tales

Each month, something red and nasty bled from Amitola. The women of the island called this the flushing of toxins, where a woman must wrap herself in cloth and sit for five days, isolated from the men, exchanging tales with the other women. Amitola hated this time of the month. It reminded her that she was not only a woman, but that she wasn't one of the boys, and would soon be in charge of the island.

"Who's next? Amitola? Do you have a story to tell?" Oceana asked her, tossing a lock of long dark hair over her shoulder. She always made a show of her long hair - the longest on the whole island. Once Keon tried to cut it while she was sleeping and she ended up using his blade to strike him on the shoulder as punishment. Now he had a scar there, from his own sister. Sibling rivalry was brutal.

Amitola shook her head, pulling her knees close to her chest.

Makala nudged her. "Oh, come on. You're the jungle princess. You must have some exciting wild story to tell, like your battle with a shark or that time you killed a bird with your bare hands!"

"Those things never happened, Makala! How many times do I have to remind you - I don't kill for fun," Amitola growled.

Makala backed away. "Ok, ok, I apologise, Amitola."

"I have a story," said a deep familiar voice. The girls turned to find Keon standing over them, outlined in the sun as a dark muscular shadow, his hair hanging out instead of his usual tail and his expression hard and fixed. Something glinted on his collarbone, something clear and sharp. Her necklace!

"Get out of here, Keon. You 're not a girl!" Oceana batted him away with her palm leaf she used to fan herself, but Keon wasn't that easy to get rid of.

Instead, Keon just sat down on a rock so that he towered over them all and gave them no choice but to listen to his story. Amitola had a gut feeling this story would be about her. And it was.

"Sixteen years ago, one dark and stormy night, a man and woman arrived, on this island, carrying a child. This child had skin the colour of coconut, and hair as dark as midnight. This child...was Amitola."

Oceana and Makala gasped. "What are you talking about, Keon?" Makala asked.

Keon's expression remained stoic as he replied, "Exactly what I said, Makala. Amitola is not from here. She is from another land."

Oceana and Makala stared at Amitola, trying to work out if Keon was telling the truth. Amitola had had enough. She stood up, looking down on Keon with hands on her hips.

"How dare you make an accusation like that, Keon? I could have you thrown off the island, you know, for these kinds of lies," she threatened.

Keon smirked, amused at her indignation. "The sad thing is, I am not telling a lie. It is all true. I've seen it with my own eyes. Shall I continue with the story?"

"No!" Amitola snapped, at the same time Oceana and Makala said, "Yes!"

Amitola scowled. "No, because Keon is a liar, and a thief," she snarled, snatching her necklace from his neck so that it snapped and hopefully hurt Keon in the process.

Keon rubbed his neck. "I just found it. Finders, keepers, remember?"

It was an old stupid rule Amitola had fabricated when she had found his spear under a bush, and used it without knowing it belonged to him. Amitola wanted that spear, because it was so aerodynamic it could slit straight through a human throat. Amitola thought someday she could use it to slit Keon's throat, but now it felt like Keon was slowly trying to slit her open using her secrets.

Amitola just clenched the glass necklace in her palm and stormed away, before halting in her tracks to shout one more thing to Keon.

"Be careful, Keon. Liars get burnt by their own tongues."