THE ISLAND 

By Tessa Harvey


        Melati looked around the strangers' campsite on the island. The smell of breadfruit cooking was delicious and evoked sad and also happy memories of her people.
    She liked these people mostly. The exception was the "devil." The young girl knew no other word for such wickedness that a son would attack his own parents and not only hurt their hearts but also their bodies. Her family had told her of such people as a warning because, although she was small, she knew herself to be thirteen island years old, growing up.
    Once before strangers like these had come to their little village. They were warmly welcomed, given food and the indigenous people had held them in respect. Those people were of many colours - deep black, various browns like herself, and some more whiter-skinned. Two ot them had eyes that slanted in a different way, but her people knew that they were mostly ignorant of other places.
    After a few months, everything had changed.
    It happened suddenly like a summer storm, violent and terrible. When everyone was asleep just after nightfall, the strangers who had become friends became hidden devils. Malati had been ill and was frail, sickly, too small. 
    Left to die, she was kicked hard, abandoned. Now she had to trust again. What would happen?


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