A Million Shades of Gray by Cynthia Kadohata

Author:Cynthia Kadohata
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Atheneum Books for Young Readers
Published: 2010-08-28T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter Eight

When Y’Tin awoke, his face was damp with dew. He felt something on his elbow and saw a centipede as long as his forearm. “Ah!” he cried. He jumped up and shook the insect off. Jujubee was allergic to centipede venom and had once gotten sick for a week after being bitten. Y’Juen had shoes, so he stamped it to death.

“Thanks,” Y’Tin said.

Tomas was also awake, brushing Geng. Geng loved being brushed, and Tomas tried to brush her several times a day. He looked Y’Tin’s way and said, “You’d better get started.”

Y’Tin laid his forehead against Lady’s trunk and thought, Good-bye. I’ll be back. Then he slipped away on his mission. He was so nervous, his ears filled with pounding. He could hardly hear anything else. The pounding seemed to shake his whole body. He stood still and concentrated on silencing the pounding before setting off again.

He put the danger out of his mind as he glided forward. He swam across the river and traveled through heavy bush, the plants scraping against his bare arms. Later, when he reached the halfway point to his village, he could feel something ominous in the air. He stood still, listening.

Then he noticed human footprints in the moss. They were fresh and perpendicular to Y’Tin’s direction. A bug squirmed in one of them, meaning the print was so fresh that the squashed bug hadn’t even died yet. Y’Tin told himself to stay calm. The tracks were fresh, but they were going in a different direction. Then he heard voices. He froze. The pounding sound in his ears grew so loud, he couldn’t hear the voices anymore. But he knew the voices were there. There was such a din in his ears that for a moment he thought he was losing his mind. He fought the instinct to crouch lower. Instead, he stayed as still as possible. He thought to himself over and over, I won’t die. It’s my destiny to take care of Lady. I won’t die. It’s my destiny to take care of Lady. The spirits were not with him—another centipede crawled over his foot. He closed his eyes and concentrated on staying still as the centipede paused on his ankle and then didn’t stir, as if it had fallen asleep. After about a half an hour, the centipede began crawling up his leg, and Y’Tin couldn’t stop himself from brushing it off.

It was growing dark when he dared move again. He hadn’t moved before that because he wasn’t sure what he did or didn’t hear. He decided to set off again.

The closer Y’Tin got to his village, the more certain he was of where he was going. He knew where he was by feeling the trees. He had spent countless hours in this part of the jungle, and he knew the trees almost as well as if he could see them. At the same time the area also felt strange, even new. He felt as if he had been gone for months.

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