The Red Jasmine Revolution

Chapter 1. Wild Leaves Taste Better

Seng Nu could have taken any fruit from this tree, but the most difficult one to reach would taste the sweetest. She outstretched her arms to keep balance as she walked along the branch, rocking and bouncing her body to match the wind that was flying and knotting itself around the trunks and branches of the upper canopy. Down on the ground, a squirrel imagined he saw the upper levels of the apple tree on fire. It was just Seng Nu's hair, long and unnaturally red, billowing out behind her.

Last summer she had swum against the river from the curve to the old bridge and in the cold season just passed she had scrambled to the summit of the eastern mountain in two days. She liked to set herself these tasks. All by herself and always by herself.

"I found you on a peapod, sitting on a vine". That was what Naw Naw had always told her.

Today, the challenge she had set herself was to pluck this apple. This particular one was on a branch so high that it poked above the forest canopy, as if it was craning to see further than all its brother and sister apples. Seng Nu looked down as she creeped along the branch. The ground looked to be as far away as the horizon, but she had no fear of heights. She stretched an arm up but she could only graze the apple with her fingers.

HRRROOOOOOONNNN!!!!

The distraction snatched her body's concentration away from the tree and she lost her balance, wobbling hopelessly. Then she was off, falling from the very top of the forest to the earth below.

A bed of leaves and branches rose up from the ground to catch her and she bounced a little as she fell into them. It sailed back down to the forest floor and she sprung out onto her feet as it reached the ground. The bed collapsed into sticks and leaves that lay still on the floor, indistinguishable from any other. Seng Nu brushed herself off and looked up. The apple was smirking at her.

She heard the roar again. Clearer this time.

HROOOON!

It was coming from far away in the forest, but it still seemed nearer than the first time. Of course all roars were signs of danger, but there was something in this sound that made it more dangerous than most. It was a sound like a knife with serrated edges.

Seng Nu began running to meet the sound.

Elsewhere in the forest

Jin Bu's forefinger stroked Zaw's palm, feeling her way along the dry riverbeds of his skin. "Your hands have become rough."

"That is what happens when you work around elephants," said Zaw "when you pull ropes and chains all day, your hide becomes as tough and cracked as theirs."

"And what will happen to your nose?"

A tease flashed in Zaw's eyes and he reached round with his free hand to gently tweak Jin Bu's nose between his thumb and forefinger. "It will grow long, almost as big as yours."

Jin Bu slapped him playfully on the chest, frowning in mock indignation. Then she stopped, letting go of Zaw's hand and with a concerned look reached up to touch her face. "Is my nose really that big?"

Zaw laughed. "I'm just joking with you Jin Bu! Your nose is perfectly normal sized. It's smaller than an elephant's and larger than a dormouse's."

Jin Bu wrinkled her nose and took Zaw's hand and they continued their walk down the forest path. "You should dip your hands in honey, that's a good way to stop them from being so cracked."

"And what would the men in the camp say if they saw me walking around with honey on my hands like a bear raiding a beehive?"

"They'd say 'what soft hands that young man has' and give you a promotion!" Jin Bu laughed and skipped ahead letting her hands skim through the lowest hanging branches. With her slender frame and light brown complexion she looked like a sapling among these sturdy old trees. Her dark hung long and loose so when she jumped it bounced and dropped like rocks going over a waterfall.