Mountain of Fire Read Online Free Page B

following them, giggling and making faces.
    â€œHey Agus, ask the spirits in the Merapi to fix your face. Why don’t you go to the crater and ask them,” one of the boys yelled out.
    â€œYeah, maybe you will fall in,” another boy said. They all started laughing.
    Agus lowered his head. Tears welled in his eyes and he hid his mouth with his hand. For the hundredth time he cursed his luck for being born with a deformed lip and wished he could somehow get back at these boys. “One day I’ll show them!” he muttered under his breath.
    Usually Fitri would have turned right around to yell back at the boys and protect her brother. But on this day, her thoughts were elsewhere. She kept a firm grip on Agus’ hand and walked faster to catch up with her father. She asked him the question uppermost in her mind, “Ayah, why do people listen to Mbah Eko?”
    â€œWhat do you mean?” asked her father.
    â€œI mean, how do we know he is right? The white man doesn’t think so.”
    Her father smiled, “Well, it’s like this. Why do you listen to your teacher at school? Because you believe he is right. Correct?”
    Fitri nodded.
    â€œNow if someone came and told you that he is actually wrong, would you believe the new person?”
    Fitri shook her head.
    â€œExactly. This is the same thing. People trust what they know. It takes time to change their minds. The man from the Volcanology Centre is an outsider and not Javanese. He isn’t even Indonesian. We don’t know him. Most of us have known Mbah Eko all our lives. And even if some of us believe the outsider when he says that the volcano is not safe, it is not an easy thing to leave your home,” explained Ayah.
    â€œI hope the Guardian is right,” Ayah continued. “I don’t have a good feeling about this.”

FIVE : THE TREASURE AND THE SECRET CAVE
    The bule and her father talked late into the night. The white man asked all kinds of questions about Pak Eko, and his influence on the people.
    â€œWhy don’t the people believe us?” Pak Andersen said in an exasperated tone. “What does the Guardian of the Merapi know that we as men of science don’t?”
    Ayah tried to explain as best as he could. “We believe he can talk to the spirits in the volcano. The spirits tell him when it is time to leave. He can’t stop the eruption, but we believe that the mountain will give him enough warning. We hope and pray it only clears its throat and does not cough. If it needs to cough, it will give us enough time to leave.”
    Ayah paused. “It is a complicated relationship with the volcano, Pak Andersen. It is not always easy for outsiders to understand it.”
    Agus skulked around, staring at the bule, fascinated by his first close encounter with a foreigner. The white man peered at Agus.
    â€œCome here, boy. Let me have a look at you,” the bule said in his halting Bahasa, gesturing to the boy’s lip. “What’s wrong with your lip?”
    A poke from his mother sent Agus scuttling towards the white man.
    â€œHave you taken him to a dokter, a surgeon? This kind of thing can be fixed,” he said, examining the boy’s face.
    Ayah shook his head. “There is no rupiah, Pak. Where is the money to take the boy to a big hospital in the city?”
    â€œMaybe you should. I have a doctor friend in Jakarta. Maybe he can recommend someone to have a look at the boy.”
    Despite himself, Agus cast an excited look at his father’s somber face.
    â€œYou are a great believer of science, Pak Andersen,” Ayah said. “But not all problems can be solved through science. We do not have the money to go to the city hospital. And we have bigger problems on our heads,” he said, looking at the smoking mountain.
    Ayah’s words were a harbinger of trouble. At four in the morning, the earth moved and rocks tumbled down the mountain. Fitri felt the