Winnnnng!
Buzzzzzzz!
Kiki was flying above the clouds in the deep blue sky.
She wore her custom fitted goggles and a leather crash helmet every time she and her brother went up for a ride in their Fairchild PT. Here PT does not mean potty training.
It means pilot training. Kiki was a pilot in training for the Great Koala War, but what she was doing now was well beyond what they taught her in those 6 days of flight school. She pulled up quickly on the control stick.
Rata-tat-tat…
Zoom
The Fairchild was being shot at from behind.
The only way that she could lose them was to fly up as high as she could and then do a nose dive. Kiki felt like the whole world was being turned upside down. Koko called out…
“Kiki we are getting close the ground!”
Kiki was knocked out. Koko splashed some water in her face and Kiki woke up just in time to pull back on the control stick enough to even out. They were moving right through the trees. Branches and leaves were breaking off and flying everywhere.
Then Kiki heard it. The hum of another plane was right on their tail. There was only one way she was going to get out of this situation. She was going to fly right to moon. Both of their stomachs drop as Kiki once again pulled back on the control stick.
They were flying vertical right to the moon. Kiki heard a few shots fired but the bullets must have skimmed past them. She and Koko kept their ascent going until they could no longer hear anything. Everything was peaceful for one moment. Then it happened. The plane started shaking. Behind her she heard the high pitched “humming” noise coming nearer and nearer.
This must be the missile she had been warned about. Before she knew it there was impact. Fire had blasted out all around her and the plane went into pieces all over.
“Ouch!!”
That’s all she could say as she rubbed the painful spot on her ankle. Not only her ankle but her arm and neck were itchy. Kiki woke up in a cold sweat as she looked up to the ceiling. There were the culprits, three in a row, sitting on the ceiling upside down laughing at her.
Looking up, she knew these mosquitoes were the cause of the rata-tat-tat and the missiles chasing her in her dream. Every time she laid down, they would buzz in her ear again. Every time she woke up the mosquitos would hide in a corner or behind a jacket where she couldn’t see them.
Splat!
She got one just in the nick of time, but Oh No! Now her hand was covered with blood. She wondered if she should be relieved or concerned that it was her own blood squashed on the palm of her hand.
There was no use trying to sleep now. She went to the kitchen and Papa Koala was there with a cup of water in his hand.
“You must be thirsty, little one.”
“No. It’s those darn mosquitoes. They keep buzzing around and biting me when I sleep. Why do we even have mosquitoes?”
Dad got one of those smiles on his face,
“They weren’t always like that. At one time they were called Zancudos meaning ‘long legs’. They were the pride of the insect community. One Zancudo would say to the other Zancudo,
‘Hey Zancudo, what’s happening?’
“Aquí nomás, Zancudo!”
At that time the Zancudo were magical insects. They lived in a hidden village and ate nothing but the dew of the grass at dawn. They were happy buzzing right along minding their own business not bothering anybody. The village was hidden so well you would never have noticed them except for the song they sang,
“Na na nanana na. Na nanana na.”
Then one day a very pretty scorpion named Leharea stayed near the village. He would sing songs about his rainbow colored tail.
De colores!
De colores mi cola de color arcoiris!
He would taunt them,
“You Zancudo people live in black and white. You don’t know the magic colors of life.
The Zancudos were very careful about the location of the gate to their village for no outsiders were allowed inside the Zancudo village. Still this Laherea would stay near the village and sing,
De colores!
De colores mi cola de color arcoiris!
Oh the Colors
The color of the rainbow in my tail!
The Zancudos warned each other not to go out and talk to Leharea. They knew it would be dangerous. They even promised each other that they would never go out there. But some were very curious who was out there singing of a rainbow colored tail. The tails of the Zancudos were very ordinary and had no real color.
One zancudo named Zancudo was so curious he snuck outside the village and asked Leharea in secret,
“Hey Leharea, What’s up?”
“¿Qué huele, Zancundo? You smelly fly. Wouldn’t you like to know?”
Zancundo asked him,
“How do you get such a pretty tail? Common tell me. All the girls want to know.”
“If you are so eager”,
said Leharea,
“then bring five of these girls to me tomorrow and I will show you all how to get some color into your tail.”
The next day Zancudo brought five Zancodo girls and followed Leharea to the high grass. Here is where the field mice play.
Leharea explained,
“Before I came to the high grass I was pale and weak. I lived for weeks upon weeks barely moving. But then I found a secret. Watch what happens to that mouse over there and watch what happens to me.”
Leharea slowly crept toward one mouse at the edge of the field. Leharea seemed to sit for hours though only a few minutes passed. Then out of nowhere Leharea’s tail flew in the air and the mouse lay still. After that Leharea’s body seemed to be filled with a new color.
Zancudo and the five Zancudo girls were standing nearby and could see it all.
Leharea turned to the Zancudo and said,
“You can do this too. You have the power inside you.”
Zanudo and the girls saw the glow in his face and wanted what he had. Leharea taught them that the long stick they used in their mouth to drink up dew can be used for other things as well. He gave them desire for more drink and he gave them the name of “mosquito”.
He taught them how to land on a mouse and use the stick in their mouth to draw blood. These mosquitoes felt stronger and more powerful than any mosquito drinking the dew of dawn. These mosquitos were drunk with blood.
Zancundo and the five girl mosquitos returned to the village to tell the others what they were missing, but when the other Zancundo’s saw them, they stood back.
They said,
“Stay away. Something Malicious flows in your blood. Your eyes are red. You are drunk with blood. You are not Zancundos.”
“Yes, we are mosquitoes and you can be like us. Just get one taste.”
The village people refused and banished Zanundo and the five mosquito girls.
Without the support of the village, Zancundo and the five mosquito girls turned to Leharea for help. Leharea taught them the life of a predator. In exchange they taught him the way to the Zancundo village gate. Sometimes they heard reports of the Zancundo and other insects missing during the night.
One day Zancundo and the five girl mosquitoes tried to venture back into the Zancundo village. They found the old gate they once had been afraid to venture out from in ruins. They found the hidden dew and the village huts, but there was no sign of the Zancundos. They had all disappeared. What Zancundo and the mosquitoes didn’t know was that Leharea had maliciously eaten all the Zancundo in the village. That was the end of the Zancundos and from that time on the world has been infested with mosquitoes."
Papa turned to slap a flying mosquito. Then he looked down at Kiki. She was sleeping peacefully in his lap. He thought to himself,
“Perhaps it is better that baby Koalas don’t know about these malicious things.”