Black Claws

Chapter 8 ~ Taxi

Hi,

As promised, here is Shasta's picture

when he was a pup. I'll also be putting

in some Papiamento, Aruba's local language.

The words in Italic are the translations.

P.S. in my previous chapter, I made a mistake.

You supposed to say "koonookoo." Sorry!

Have fun reading!

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CHAPTER 8 ~ TAXI

It was warm! I was sweating immediately. The sun stood up high in the sky and blazed its heat upon the tiny island. There were a few puffy clouds in the sky-blue sky, but not enough to hide the sun. I stared at the immense sky, it stretched from horizon to horizon and was as bluer then my eyes used to be. It was the lightest blue I had ever seen. It looked so peaceful.

In front of Reina Beatrix Airport, was a drive-in with a special lane for taxi's. I looked around for the bright yellow cars, but saw none to my surprise. This was a weird airport. It had no taxi's. Where were the taxi's?

Zeb towed us to a car in the taxi lane. A man was waiting outside the car. I guessed it was a friend of his.

'Bon dia, senor. Bo kier un taxi? Hello sir. Would you like a taxi?' he asked us when he saw us coming.

'Si, danki. Yes, thank you.' Zeb answered him in the same language. It took him a while to make us believe that it really was a cab. In the mean-time, the guy loaded our bagage into the trunk and got into the driver's seat to wait for us. When Zeb had finally convinded us that it was a real taxi, we got into the back and Zeb got into the passenger seat.

'Where?' the man asked in English with a heavy accent.

'Marriot Hotel.' Zeb simply answered.

The car shot forward and the man drove through the tiny roads pretty quick, avoiding most stoplights. I stared out the window, marveling at the island's raw, but soft beauty. The trees looked wild and carressing at the same time with the way their leaves waved in the light breeze. I nudged Shasta, who was squeezed in the middle and pointed at the nature. He noticed it too now and stared with me. I noticed the trees stood pretty far apart.

'Zeb, why are the trees so far apart?' I asked him.

He shrugged and asked the driver who answered in his heavy-accented-English.

'The trees stand far from each other because we no have much water in ground here. Feet of tree grow very wide around tree. Feet meant to catch lot of awa ora awa ta yobe.'

Zeb translated the two words in the last sentence for us. 'Awa means water and ora awa ta yobe is when it rains.'

Then it was silent fopr a while, we passed the government and Zeb asked a question about the current politics. The man immediately answered him in his best English.

'Our parlamento is done hopi malo. We just finished voting for e partidonan about a luna ago. Pero the resultado isn't very good. You see, we had this grupo bieu that dominated in the government for ocho years, the MEP. Then this ano, the partido AVP a gana. But they promised a lot of cos and they aren't realizing them. So, a lot of hende changed their mind.'

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[A/N] Here is a small translation.

Parlamento = Government