The Hero"Ka Me'e"

The Dangers of the Forest

Zea fiddled with the strap of her satchel as she walked along the path to the ancient Fairi Circle, just barely on the inside of the barriers. The barriers were not real walls but you would be punished severely by the elders if you breached them. Apparently the forest on the outside was dangerous and no one should ever set foot there, according to the elders. But try as she might, she could not convince herself that it wouldn't be amazing to go into the forest. It would be such an adventure, she would learn so much, and maybe she could even make friends with some of its residents! No. I can't think about going into the forest she told herself.Thinking about it would just get me into trouble. But at least she was used to it.

Zea was a fairly tall girl with long, curly golden locks that were often hard to

maintain. She was a pretty girl with an adventurous spirit that quite often got her into trouble. Like the time during her sixth summer when Heluhelu, Lily's older sister had been telling her about poisonous spiders. Lili was Zea's best friend. She was a delicate girl, with her almond shaped eyes and beautiful strait amber hair that reached halfway down her back. That next day, she found a spider in the brush near her house, she named him Hamilton. The next day she brought Hamilton to show Heluhelu, and he bit someone. She got in trouble for that, but in her defence she felt bad afterward.

All at once she came to the fairi circle, it always just seemed to appear out of nowhere and as soon as you took a step out of the petite oak picket fence when you were leaving, it disappeared like magic. She pushed open the little oak door like she had done thousands of times before, and looked around for Akamai. Akamai was one of the elder's older sister she was very wise and when their tribe had moved here she had been told to teach the children more about their surroundings and how everything in the forest and dangerous and bad. But Zea didn't listen because of the dangers, she listened because of all of the opportunities of adventure hidden inside each warning. She looked and saw Akamai sitting where she usually did on one of her toadstools placed meticulously around the pit of flames. The flames licked the stone sides of their confining cage trying to run free while the rest of the kids perched awkwardly on the rest of the toadstools staring at the fire like it was going to jump out and eat them.

"Zea! Zea, Aloha!" Akamai called out welcomingly

"Aloha! Akamai!" Zea called back

"Okay, let's get started, Akamai began making each child turn their head to face her because of the change in her voice. Akamai knew how to get people to listen to her. You could tell when she was serious and when she was you didn't want to be on her bad side.

"Yesterday you all should remember that we learned about poison plants, could you give me a few examples?" she questioned with the fire glinting off of her face making her cheekbones look deeper and her eyes looking more menacing, yet knowledgeable at the same time. Every child raised their hand, partly because they all remembered and partly because they were all scared of her. Zea of course raised her hand because she knew.

"Kalino?" Akamai barked, making everyone jump. She cackled a bit then quieted so that everyone could hear Kalino's answer.

"The Rosary Pea and Water Lettuce?" He answered confidently.

"Very good Kalino!" she congratulated. "Zea will you give me two more plants?"

"Um, yes the Lantana Camara and Palmgrass."

"Sorry Zea the Lantana Camara is poisonous, very good but the Palmgrass is not." Kilano smirked at her from across the firepit. Then Akamai went on to explain how and why the the first three were dangerous and palmgrass is not. Zea, however wasn't listening, instead she was brooding. She hated Kalino and his stupid good name. His name meant brilliant one and he just had to live up to it. But he did it in a way that always made Zea look bad. He was always makona which means cruel to her and she hated it. But he was the son of the head elder so there was nothing that anybody could do about it.