Trouble jane kurtz

Trouble always found Tekleh. When he ran by the fire, he never meant to kick dust onto the coffee beans roasting there. But somehow dust settled onto the beans just the same.

When Tekleh watched the family goats, he always meant to tend them carefully. How was it the goats so often ended up in someone else’s garden?

And Tekleh could never resist poking a stick into a marching line of army ants to watch them climb on it. Was it his fault if the ants sometimes climbed up the stick and stung his fingers?

Finally, one day, Tekleh’s father took a piece of olive wood and carefully hollowed out holes to make a gebeta board. “Now we will have no more problems,” he told the family. “A gebeta board always keeps a young boy out of trouble.” That evening, Tekleh and his father played the game together, scooping pebbles first into one hole and then another.

The next morning, Tekleh set off with two goats and his gebeta board. “Take the goats straight to their grazing place in the hills,” his father reminded him. “You can play your game there with the other shepherds.”

“Yes, Father,” Tekleh said. And he meant to go straight to the hills. But as he began to walk, he could see, far in the distance, that something was happening on the path.

When Tekleh got closer, he saw it was a group of traders, with their dusty, musky camels, drinking coffee around a small fire. “Is there no wood in this country?” one of the traders called to Tekleh. “We found only a few sticks to make this fire.”

“Of course there is wood,” Tekleh said. “See?” And he held up his gebeta board.

“Thank you,” the man said. He grabbed the gebeta board and threw it on the fire.

When Tekleh saw his gebeta board burning, he set up such a howling that the traders had to cover their ears. “Aiieee!” one cried. “Have this fine knife and stop that noise.”

Well, Tekleh was still sad about his gebeta board, but the knife was sharp, with a strong bone handle. If the man had misunderstood him, what could be done now? So down the path Tekleh went with his two goats and the fine knife.

Before long, Tekleh saw a man sitting by the long grass, waiting. So he squatted and waited too.

“Here,” the man said, “A knife is no thing for a young boy. Why don’t you let me have it so I can skin the dik-dik that will soon be caught in my snare?”

Now, Tekleh had many times sat watching the dik-dik eating, zik zik, in the long grass. He was sorry to think of such a shy and delicate animal becoming a meal, but he knew people must eat. So he said, “What will you give me if I give you this fine knife?”

The man held out his masinko. “My family needs food more than they need music,” he said.

So off Tekleh went with his two goats and his masinko. He wandered down the path, moving the bow this way and that to make sounds come from the instrument. About noon, he heard shouting up ahead. Soon he came upon a group of musicians dressed in fine clothes, strutting and shaking their shoulders as they danced.

“Here,” one of the musicians said. “What a terrible noise you’re making with that masinko. Why don’t you let us have it for the wedding feast we’re going to? You take this drum instead.”

“Why not?” Tekleh said. But instead of turning toward the hills with his two goats and his drum, Tehleh tagged along after the musicians. At a wedding feast, Tebleh knew, a small boy can alweys be well fed from plates of leftovers.

Soon the group reached the house where the bride and groom and their guests celebrated. The red smell of spices curled in the air. In the middle of the thumping drums and dancing people, no one noticed Tekleh dipping his fingers in the pots and sampling the food. Finally one of the cooks chased him away. Full of the delicious wedding feast, Tekleh set off down the road with his goats and his drum.

The sun was hot and the air was sweet with the smells of grain and flowers. Tekleh stopped to watch an emerald lizard sunning itself on a rock. True, his mother always told him not to touch lizards. But this lizard sat on the rock so mysterious and still that Tekleh could not resist. He popped it into his bag to take home to eat flies and mosquitoes in the house.

A little while later, when the afternoon sun became too hot, Tekleh sat down in the shade of a cornfield and began to play his drum. Startled by the noise, three monkeys leaped out of the corn and scampered away, hooting.

As the monkeys ran away from his fields, the farmer came running over to Tekleh. “What a wonderful noise,” the farmer exclaimed. “Stay here and play your drum all afternoon, and I will give you a bag full of corn.”

So Tekleh sat on the farmer’s platform and played the drum to keep the monkeys and birds away, while the goats grazed on mashella tassles.

When the early evening shadows crawled across the ground, Tekleh gave the drum to the farmer in exchange for a fat papaya. Then Tekleh took his corn, his goats, his papaya, and his lizard and started for home.

But at the edge of his village, the smells of a cook fire caught him. “Salaam,” called a woman from the doorway of her house. “Where did you get the fat papaya? I would like to get one for my children, who have been sick.”

“A farmer gave it to me, but he is quite a long way from here,” Tekleh replied. He looked at the children staring up at him with big, sad eyes. The youngest girl smiled shyly. “Here,” Tekleh said. “Let me make you a gift of this bag of corn and the papaya.”

“Come in, come in,” the woman said. She blew on the fire under a pot of lentils and filled a bowl for Tekleh. While he scooped up the smoky lentils with his injera, he watched the children playing with their gebeta board. The woman cut the papaya, and the children ate it with juice running down their arms. Then Tekleh coaxed the goats out of the neighbor’s garden to eat the leftover skin and seeds, said good-bye, and started down the path. Suddenly he heard footsteps. The littlest girl was running after him, holding out the gebeta board.

So it was that Tekleh came home with two goats, one emerald lizard, and a gebeta board.