I Am Not the Last Airbender {ON HOLD}

Chapter Twenty

Guys, get ready to dig deep.  This one’s not filled with quite as much action and adventure—just a warning.  But for those of you who love flashbacks, drama, and all that emotional stuff, this one’s for you…

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            “I can’t believe we got out of there!” Macco exclaimed from behind the reigns.

            “Me either,” I replied, still kind of in shock that we were able to escape our masters.  My heart was still pounding.

            “Good boy, Appa!”  Macco said to our fluffy friend.  “You saved us!”

            “Yeah you did, buddy,” I added.

            We flew over rural Earth Kingdom land for at least another hour.  Then, I asked Macco if he wanted a break and he agreed.

            “How much longer till we reach Ba Sing Se, do you think?” I asked him.

            “Few more hours at least,” he replied.  “When we start getting to villages, as opposed to these spread out farmhouses, then we could touch down and stock up on supplies.”

            “Good idea,” I concurred.  “We should also check and see how far the word of our escape has gotten.”

            “Sounds like a plan.”

            We rode in silence, leaving each other to our own thoughts.  Suddenly, in that silence, it hit me just how much we’d been through in the past, what—two weeks?  Crazy how time seems to disappear, but at the same time grow to a gigantic size.

            Now that I thought about it, I don’t think I could just call Macco my friend anymore.  He was like a brother.  We’ve been friends all our lives.  We were inseparable in our youth.  There was one year we decided to try new people, but then the next we just came right back to each other.   After these days on the road, I felt as if we had grown closer than that.  I don’t think I could imagine a day without him.  Sure, I teased him a lot, but I love him so much.  I’ve never been that great at expressing my emotions.  That’s why I guess I stuck to the little kid method: “I’m gonna be mean to you because I think you’re kind of awesome”.  Yeah, mature, I know.

            But when I first saw his burn, my heart broke.  Seeing that look on his face, knowing he would never be the same, made me realize just how much I cared about him.  He took that blow for me.  I mean, he looked like a sad puppy!  How could I help but feel at least a little sympathetic? 

It reminded me of when we were little, once, maybe five or six.  Macco and I were running together.  It was cold; we had on our big fluffy parkas, mittens, scarves, and boots.  Okay, maybe we weren’t exactly running.  Waddling might have been a more accurate term.  But as we made our way down the icy trail, Macco fell flat on his face.  (He never was very coordinated, always more of the brainy type.  Although I do have to say, he’s getting better at the sword.  Maybe he still has a shot at athleticism.)  He must have fallen hard, though, because he cut through his pants.  I remember he had bruises on his knees for at least a week.  But he began to bawl.  Just seeing him cry like that made me begin to cry.  For a few minutes, we were both just sobbing.  Then, he sort of stopped crying, probably wondering why I was crying.  His tears stopped and were reduced to sniffles.  But for some reason, I couldn’t stop crying.  Macco dragged me back to his house where our mums were having tea.  When we came in, Macco hobbling, and me crying, they immediately came over and tried to figure out what was wrong.

“What’s wrong, Jalia, honey?” Mum asked, concerned.

Through salty tears and snot, I managed to say, “Macco got an ouchie!”  After a moment of confusion, both of our mums did that sort of sympathetic little laugh that mums do.

“Why are you crying if it was Macco that got the ouchie?” Macco’s mum asked me.

“Because Macco was sad!” I cried, as if it made the most sense in the world.

“That’s very sweet of you,” she replied, “but I think Macco’s going to be okay.  You don’t have to cry, sweetheart.”

I remember it sort of clicking.  “Oh,” was all I said, and then the tears stopped.  Our mums laughed.  I smiled.  “See you later, Macco,” I called to my friend, as Mum and I headed out the door to go back home.

“Hey, Jay?  Why don’t we touch down around here.”

Macco’s voice cut through my remembrances and reminded me of where we were.  I looked down below to see a village growing closer.  In the distance, I saw tall structures rising on the horizon.  Ba Sing Se wasn’t that far away now.  But, following our plan, we landed in a grassy area outside the village, left Appa to graze, and began heading into town.

As we began down a path to the village, I was reminded of the other night when I had accidentally stumbled on Macco’s journal and read part of an entry about the day we were on Ember Island.

“Hey, Macco,” I said as we walked, “I just remembered something.  When we were on Ember Island, you had started say something about something bugging you….or something.  I dunno.”

Macco turned his face away from me and ran his hand through his singed, dark brown hair.  He stopped walking, and turned his scarred face back to me, pain in his eyes.

“Okay, I’ll tell you.  But if we’re really going to do this, we should sit down.”  He pointed to a large rock a few paces off the trail, and we walked over and sat.

“I know you had said that you were confused about why we were on this little trip or whatever; is that it?”

“No, Jay, it’s not,” he said, looking me straight in the eyes.

“Then what is it?”

He looked at the ground for a moment, but then as he spoke, he lifted his eyes back up to meet mine, “I kind of really like you.”

“Um, yeah, I like you, too, Macco,” I replied, confused.

“No, I mean that I really like you.” He looked so serious.  He was serious!

“Oh,” was all I could say.