And Now Onto Our Story!
Mangohead took a deep breath. He shouldn't have to worry about
Anita. She was a big girl; she could take care of herself. As much as he wanted
to go find her, he knew that his duty lay with Ma Procop's zaboca tree. With a
heavy heart, Mangohead set back off up the road to see how best he could plan
for the evening's zaboca watch.
The breeze was tinged with the scent of burnt bush. It was
likely that something had caught fire in the forest and the wind was wafting
the smoke towards the village. It wouldn’t be the first time that a fire would
have threatened the outskirts of San Marcos. In years past, fires had gotten
very close to consuming the village’s main street and all the buildings there.
Ma Procop had told Mangohead about some time in the ancient past when she was
just a girl that the fires had raged along the forest and had almost burnt down
her house. She made it sound exciting, but Mangohead knew that, faced with the
same situation, he would probably would have turned tail and ran, house be
damned.
