Not Meaning Nothing

Here he is, a young oystercatcher, orphaned and brotherless, far from his birthplace in Brittany, on a bus to Chimborazo, beside a guinea pig who now has no need of his comforts.

Saint Roley is glum.

He looks through the window at a blue patch of sky, and the summit of Chimborazo in the distance.

Here we are, says Gaius. Sit here, girls. Talk to Saint Roley.

The child and her sister sit down.

I'll just go and check on the tadpoles, says Gaius. Saint Roley, these girls are interested in our mission.

Krvee! says Saint Roley.

He's sad, says the child to her sister.

He's sulking, says Princess Pacchu. Talk to me. I'm team leader.

Saint Roley can't believe what he's hearing. She's not team leader.

I heard, says the child's sister. You know the landscape. Do you live here?

Not here, says Princess Pacchu, I live on a steep farm across the valley from Devil's Nose.

So how can you be team leader? asks the child.

They're all similar, the slopes of volcanoes, says Princess Pacchu.

Krvee! says Saint Roley

Where will you leave the tadpoles? asks the child's sister.

In a glacial creek, says Princess Pacchu.

Won't it be freezing? asks the child's sister. What if they die?

They are robust tadpoles, says Princess Pacchu. Didn't you see them?

Yes, they saw them squeezed into two bottles of Marzano.

Why do they have to move to the slopes of a volcano? asks the child. What's wrong with their own home?

Nothing, says Princess Pacchu.

Nothing!

She is clearly ill-equipped to be the team leader.

Saint Roley stops feeling peevish.

Everything, says Saint Roley. Development is shrinking their habitat. And they are prone to chitridiomycosis. To relieve their condition, our team has brought pool salt, from Newcastle.

Why did the guinea pig say Nothing? asks the child's sister.

She didn't mean Nothing, says Saint Roley. She just didn't finish the sentence. She is new to the role of team leader. It's a role we have given her to cheer her up since she witnessed her fellow guinea pigs being eaten at the dinner table of Pedro Vicente Maldonado, back in Riobamba.

Wow! says the child's sister. He's famous.

That is not the point, says Saint Roley. She was devastated. I understood. I comforted her, but she has surpassed me in the art of recovery.

I did mean Nothing, says Princess Pacchu. But I see I was wrong. Saint Roley knows more than I do. And I had forgotten why I love him. It is good to be reminded of the terrible things we have seen and put behind us.

You love me? says Saint Roley.

Oops! says Princess Pacchu,

The bus stops suddenly.