The Cuckoo Colloquium

17 - Nini

Starvation. That's what was on Nini's mind now-a deficiency in caloric energy intake needed to maintain human life. Extreme malnutrition. Hunger. Emptiness. Ravenousness.

"You know what I could eat right now?" Windy grumbled behind her as they hiked, "Anything-I could eat anything."

It was the morning after Christmas, and beside the hunger, the stubborn migraine behind her right eye battered away like a tropical storm inside her head, as she led the group, arching in what she believed was a northward direction.

She was leading by default, still lugging along her cherry-red shoulder bag that now held nothing but a book called "The Birds of Borneo" and an empty tin can that once held juicy pears.

All morning the group had had an absence of management-Outback groused about lightheadedness, which sometimes sent him out of line and into slow, clumsy curlicues. Surely, no one wanted a leader who suffered from dizzy spells.

Moonch still seemed lost in la-la land, and Nini figured her accident had caused something to break in her head. Of course, no one wanted a leader who was borderline-delirious.

"The wind, it no good," Dim said.

Instead of leading them, Dim hung back, crouched, staring upwards at the wind, or whatever, and he seemed in the most mysterious shape of all.

"There is many winds," he explained, probably thinking some clarification would make him sound less crazy, "the wind that blow down, it tear the branches from the tress."

Dim was retreating into the spirit world he had initially confessed so much contempt for. Any animal noises got his immediate attention, as if they were traffic signs, and he would yell out for Nini to take them right, or left, or up, or down, or just on some weird side-shuffle around deep puddles, or thorny plants. Although no one wanted a leader who appeared to be freefalling into the supernatural, Nini nonetheless followed the directions Dim shouted out from somewhere behind.

"The wind that blow down, you die this way." Then he pointed, tense and assessing, at the thunderous sounds coming from the south, and some of them stopped, freezing up at Dim's dire warning, like they were all about to be killed by falling tree branches.

"A cheese fondue will do the trick," Nini offered, trying to lighten the mood, "a shredded Gruyere, garlic cloves, a sparkling Badoit..."

"Why you trying to sound so French?" Windy snapped, "You live a hundred miles north of the border, you're North American, real north-as in frozen north."

Nini flipped her hair. "There are two things I can't stand-intolerance of others, and the French. I mean, their food is good, but as a race, they're vulgar and arrogant."

But Windy just wasn't worth her time. Was anyone here worth her time? She didn't think so.

What was that line in the website about the colloquium that had attracted her anyway? - Strategies for success that teens can take home, take with them their entire lives ...

Nini had a strategy all right-sue the living daylights out of everyone involved in this jest, this calamity they were calling a 'colloquium'. That would be the best Christmas present ever-a fat lawsuit.

For lunch, they shared the last of their rations-the cockles, the fish cakes, and one pack of dried noodles. None of their stomach's felt satisfied, yet Nini marched them onward. Killing wind or no killing wind, they had to find sustenance.

She led the way, shoulders back, head high. Nini had a manner of holding herself, which came from all her years of ballet practice. She had, after all, played the role of Tchaikovsky's White Swan in junior high. Excellent posture-that's what it took to stand out, and even though she was one of the shortest girls in the high school lunch line, she looked taller than the others.