The Cuckoo Colloquium

3 - Puso

Everyone just called him Puso.

He was on the short side, with wavy, black hair and light caramel skin. He loved talking about his place of birth on the African island of Zanzibar, though he currently went to school in England. When Puso spoke, his round, wire-framed glasses would slide to the tip of his nose, and he'd then push back, as if that was some signal his turn to talk had finished.

"This is an adventure camp," he reminded Windy, the American boy, "low on amenities, high on fun."

Windy grunted as if unimpressed, and they shuffled up for their dinner on the hardwood slats in their socks, their shoes deposited on the steps out at the entrance.

"Bario rice is best in Borneo," the proprietor, Fat Hus, crowed when the two boys sat for supper. The Japanese girl, with the funny nickname of Pinky Bell, sat across from them at the big table, eyes downcast, nursing her mango juice.

They were under the thatched-roof, open-walled veranda of the visitor's lodge that looked out over the river, and Puso turned and waved his hand at the water. "The river speaks to us, don't you think?"

Moored to the pontoon-like logs they called a dock, Puso could see their boat, the one that was taking them on the next morning's river cruise. It was a strangely shaped thing, waiting for them, drifting back and forth as if pacing like some fraught zoo animal.

"Ve-e-e-ery sweet, Bario rice," Fat Hus explained.

Outback, the elderly Australian, entered and took the seat next to Pinky Bell, furrowing his wrinkly forehead, making it look like a wavy bar code. "What's he talking about, lice?"

The old Aussie's real name was Pete, but he liked the nickname of Outback-all those remote inland districts of Australia. To Puso, Outback was a mystery: What was the old guy doing out here without a nurse? One fall over an exposed root, or a vine, would jolly well put an end to the Aussie's proud streak of good health.

"People adopt all kinds of strange critters as pets," Outback said with a worldly nod, then scratched at his scalp as if suddenly assaulted up there. The Aussie appeared disinclined with the custom of removing his shoes, sitting in his yellow Timberland hiking boots with a look of bewilderment. "You don't think he's serving up the bloody stuff, do you?" He frowned with this new thought, giving the kitchen an anxious look.

"Rice, Pete, rice," Puso gently corrected, "he says the rice is sweet."

"There's a midget after me!" the Canadian girl, Nini, screeched on the path. But then she forgot her panic and primly ascended the steps, slipping off her shoes and sliding into the large room on the wood floor in her socks, leaving the dwarf on the little trail with his digit-less, open hand, outstretched and begging.

"Rokok, rokok..."

A while earlier, Puso had noticed the gabardine-suited dwarf peeing in the tall grass and having what sounded like an animated conversation with a short, hump-less, camel-like creature; the thing seemed stunted and sickly, and what was it doing in the middle of the jungle, anyway? The dwarf, pants at his knees, and with his little butt glowing in the twilight, gestured to the camel as if making some important point-or so it seemed.

But Puso knew the jungle could play tricks on one's perspectives-that what you think you're seeing is not what you're seeing at all.

"Rokok?"

Outback grunted. "He wants a cigarette."

Nini stopped, looked back at the dwarf, then turned to the Aussie as if awestruck. "Outback knows Malaysian?"