Olivia's Mind Muser

Chapter 2

       I was waiting for Mau to return from the Boy’s Island with everyone else in the Nation. He would be a man soon. Everybody was waiting at the water’s edge for Mau to return. Suddenly a giant wave was coming towards the Nation. I ran away as far as I could because the wave was too big. I hid in Big Pig Valley and stayed there until the wave would pass.
      The next day I came out of Big Pig Valley and the village was gone. The wave sliced it off the island. I looked around and saw a few stumps marking where the long house had stood since... forever. I wonder if Mau survived the wave. I heard someone screaming names. I wondered who it was. I saw the wave, nobody survived but me, at least that’s what I think. I ran towards where I heard the screams coming from. I saw someone running up the long slope and past the lower fields. I followed them quickly. They were running towards the Women’s Place, but it was a man; they weren’t allowed there. I eventually got to the Women’s Place and I saw Mau. He had survived the wave!
       He went back down the fields and grabbed a broken branch, and flailed ineffectively at the birds. I found a branch and did the same. There were bodies everywhere in the area just above where the scoured land where the village had been. At first they were hard to see as they were tangled with debris and grey as the ashen mud.
"Wow," I said, Mau turned around and saw me.
"You survived the wave?" He asked me. "How?"
"I ran to Big Pig Valley," I told him.
"Oh," He said. "We have to move these bodies, the pigs are coming down soon and they’ll eat..."
I knew what he was going to say.
"That’s a good idea."
        I watched Mau look for bodies. He was careful and gentle. He found a body and he dragged it carefully down to the beach to the point where you could see the current. Mau found rocks and big coral lumps and tie them to the body with papervine. Then he took his knife and cut the spirit hole. Then he pulled the body out into the waves where the current sinks and he let it go. Mau did this again and again with every body he found.