The Cuckoo Colloquium

11 - Windy

Windy dropped to the sand and fingered through the little mound of supplies, lining up what they had salvaged from the boat locker. They had also brought along their day bags, so they weren't devoid of items. And there was leftover fruit from the picnic, and they had instant noodles, and there were some strange-looking cans of something resembling spam.

Windy produced a small bottle from his daypack. "I always carry this- Gold Bond Body Powder-It's great, does everything, relieves the itching, absorbs sweat."

He dug deeper into the pack, producing jars and bottles like tiny rabbits from a top hat. "Nothing's gonna get me. I got all my vaccines, Hepatitis A, typhoid, polio, mumps-rubella-measles-chicken pox, yellow fever, tetanus-diphtheria, a Last Will and Testament-signed."

He bobbed his big head, smug, and Outback eyed him harshly. "What have you got for guinea worm, cholera, elephantitis, buffalo leeches?"

Distress! - "I can get that?" Windy nosed through his pack for more medicine like a schoolboy realizing his mother had not packed his sandwich.

The two hammocks, though scuffed and stained over long periods of usage, seemed in good condition, and they even had attached mosquito nets. For some reason, a big chunk of the purple and yellow canvas tarpaulin from the boat had survived, too.

Windy looked cooly at the girls. "Take off your underpants."

Nini and Pinky Bell returned expressions that were not amiable, while Moonch continued to sit mystified on the stump.

Windy rolled his eyes. 'Am I counseling children here?' -"Anything on the inside won't dry, you'll get lesions."

Nini scowled like he was some lewd nuisance. "So we get lesions."

Windy made a big show of holding out his palms, giving up on hopeless cases.

"I took my underpants off," Puso said, waving a pair of white boxer-briefs with red hearts on them. "If we're stuck out here all night, the chafing, it becomes septic..."

The girls weren't buying it, and Outback chortled from the shade, "Gals think they're on Temptation Island."

Windy huffed-no one was obeying any of his suggestions, and in any organized group, that was mutiny. He watched Moonch, lost on the stump, and made a decision; it was a grim duty, but the de facto spearhead had to lead.

"We'll have to take off her underpants for her."

Moonch leapt up from the stump like a jungle cat, growling, and Windy stumbled back, then caught himself and puffed his chest. "I'm ... I'm the spearhead!"

"You'll be a broken spearhead." Then Moonch seemed at a loss for why she had left the stump, and sat back down, frowning.

Windy threw up his hands. "Fine and dandy, I don't care if your bodies turn into blistering pustules. Why should I care?"

Everyone just sat there, no one offering any kind of plan of action. And the green foliage on the other bank changed to the color of cyan under a bright noon sun. Windy stepped over to the river and began skipping stones, and a small fish broke the glassy water by poking its head up and looking at him, as if surprised to see a person.

"We should start hiking," Puso suggested.

Then everyone began to talk at once.

"I'll hike," Nini offered, "as long as I don't get spiders in my hair."

Pinky Bell agreed. "Yes, spiders in za hair."

Windy, fists clenched, hands on hips, said: "Let's just stay here and rot, then."

Dim snorted something like: "You gets lost, any way you goes."

"It's a nightmare," Nini continued, "spiders in my hair, and I can't get them out."

Dim followed up with: "Always stay on river-You go into forest, you don'ts exit. This no shits."

Outback ended the free-for-all by grabbing at the nearest thing-Puso's red-hearted boxer-briefs. "Here - hold these when you want to talk." He thrust the shorts into Nini's hands. "Pretend it's a conch shell, we have to shut our gobs when someone waves the grots," he explained.

Nini looked at the outstretched shorts, eyes narrowed again like it was some coarse prank, and Dim laid down on the sand and found intrigue with something in his pants pocket that looked like black thread.

"It's the only civilized thing to do, "Outback went on, "because we could die out here, and we seem to have a range of opinions about how to die faster."

Nini pinched the briefs and held them away like they could bite her at any time. "I am receptive to the idea of structure in our discussions, so I propose that we stay along the river as best we can, but that we..."

This was the last straw for the group's de facto spearhead. "What's wrong with my shorts?"

Windy pointed at his own grots-the white bun-huggers, draped over a log. But the others looked away as if embarrassed.

Windy had a feeling like he'd walked in on a party, uninvited, and so he huffed over to the supplies. They were all intent on undermining his authority, so he rummaged through his plump backpack and pulled it out. They needed to see what the word preparation really meant; then they'd understand; they'd see that Windy-their new de facto spearhead, their Tarcodile- was, indeed, a force to be reckoned with.

He slipped it on-a polyester mesh mosquito suit, which covered his entire body, except his hands.

"It's a light-weight sniper suit," he said, watching the camouflage fringes dance as he wiggled his shoulders.

Outback curled his lip. "Is he supposed to be Cousin It?"

Windy didn't know what a Cousin It was and couldn't care less; they were envious, naturally. "It's a break up fringe," he crowed of the hundreds of greenish tassels that hung from his outfit.

"You look like a fat, little Christmas tree," Nini said, "with droopy branches."

"That's the whole point," he countered, though his voice was cracking, and he hated it when his little boy voice popped out like a jack-in-the-box, "and it comes with black, rubber boots, and black cloth leech socks that tie around the knees."

"Boys crying for help," Moonch mumbled from the stump, and that seemed the final word on the subject.

Windy felt gut-shot, but he snatched the can of Kickapoo Joy Juice, then stomped over to the elephant-eared palms, ripped off his headpiece and its dangling netting, popped open the top of the juice, and took a manly gulp.

"I'm a warrior ... I have spearhead blood."

That's when he spit out the juice with a loud PFFTH! - And it sounded just like the boat running over another branch in the river.

Because that was when he saw him-an indigenous man, shirtless, tattooed up to the face, beyond threatening-and with a spear! ... He was shaking that long, pointy spear in a very unfriendly way, like he was looking for a warm place to park it-inside the spearhead!

And for the second time since the awful adventure started, Windy released machine-gun like gas, all the way back to Moonch on the rotting stump, as the terrifying intruder stepped into the clearing.

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