Hero Every year, right before the beginning of the rainy season, right when the air is at its thickest, hottest, and most utterly unbearable, everybody rushes around, trying to get everything done. For when the rains come, you want to be ready. You never want to get caught out. Because once they start, they do not stop for months. the world is transformed entirely, the fields become lakes, the stilted houses on which we live become islands, and life becomes attuned to the migration of the padang fish. They come so thick through the muddy waters that once held our crops, that one cast of the net will feed each family for a week. I remember the idyll, those carefree days after the lakes have formed, where there is nothing to do but lie in my hammock listening to the rain patter on our shack's tin roof.

But the rainy season does not begin with idyll; it begins with fury. The rains wash off the hills, flooding the land, bringing debris and danger. Brightly coloured banda birds dance in the rain, squawking their squawks, hoping to attract a mate to their nests under the leaves of the seringa tree, larger than a man those leaves are, and umbrella of the forest they call them. . And what of man? During the floods, we huddle in our homes, those shacks made of a'iti wood and hammered tin. The harvest leaves us with rice, vegetables and chiles The pigs have all been cut, seasoned and dried in the pantry. The chickens are too frightened to produce eggs, but we need them for later, during the Draining, when we run out of fish. We pass the fury of the floods in terror. Every year, homes are washed away. Every year, somebody we know dies, their whole family with them. Our children, every flood they will lose a friend or two. To soothe them, we tell them the story of Monala. This job falls to the eldest in the household, and for the first time, this is my duty. So I conjure the memory of my father, rest his soul, and I gather the children around.

Monala was just ten years old, scarcely old enough to recite the Babbanods by heart, let alone save her people, but that is just what she did. Monala's story begins in the Caves of Qan, where the young people liked to gather. There was a pool there, so clear you thought it was air, not water. The youth liked to swim there, and Monala was always sneaking off from her chores to follow her older sister Monawa there. "Monala, go home," her sister used to tease. "There are boys here, and I can't be seen with you." But Monala would not leave. Instead, she would go past the pool, into the cave, and explore in the darkness while her sister socialized. She knew a shortcut to run ahead of her sister, so that when her sister left to return home, Monala would always be there to meet her, never letting on that she had been playing in the caves all day.

Monala and her sister lived in the Niniu Valley, where her people had lived peacefully for generations. They were so isolated that they were unware of the conflict that raged all around them, until one day a group of strange men appeared. They wore suits of metal, and carried weapons so fearsome they would frighten a vang. The strange men wasted no energy on talk, they simply began killing. They spared nobody, and within minutes, the entire valley was in a panic. Some tried to fight back, with their farm implements, but these were no weapons and the men were no soldiers -- they died in the most gruesome of ways. Their heads were set on pikes and their entrails spilled to the ground. Cold, black death was set upon the valley that day. A purer evil had never been seen there.

The older men went to meet the invaders, to slow them down so that the others could escape. They fled, bringing nothing but the shirts on their backs, into the hills. Monala, Monawa, and their two little brothers, all headed into the hills while the eldest brother and their mother gathered up some food and blankets. The children gathered at the entrance to the cave, sixteen in all, from four families.

They waited for the others to join them. Every minute took forever, and nobody ever came. All they could smell was the acrid smoke in the air from...

The older children needed no explanation -- nobody would be joining them. Monala clambered up the rocks to see. Wanting to remain hidden, she crawled under the ci'ili bush, its thorns reaching down and cutting her open as she crept underneath of it. That's when she saw them. The invaders were coming, headed straight up the path from the valley, up towards the hills and the caves where the children were waiting quietly by the pool of water.
Monala crawled backwards, getting cut some more, and ran back down to tell her sister. Monawa looked at the group, none was older than she. "They are coming, we must go."

"Go where?"said Tammon, a young boy the age of nine, and a playmate of Monala's.

"The only place we can -- into the cave."

The children shuffled into the cave, but Monawa knew they were doomed -- their tracks would lead the invaders right to them. Monala saw her sister's fear. "I know where we can go," she said, holding her big sister's hand, and Monala led the children down the dark path. Before long, they could not see a thing.

But they could hear, and the invaders were near. They moved silently, the only noise the clanking of armor. The followed the children's footprints into the cave, and with their torches they would soon catch up. Monala implored the children to move quickly, into a small shaft on the right. The light of a torch filled the small cavern, just as Monawa, the last, was sneaking through the opening. An arrow hit her from behind, piercing her kidney, and with a final pull from Monala she fell through the opening, but it was too late. The life was leaking out of her.

Monala looked on in horror. Ever since she was born, there was only her sister. They were inseparable. Monawa looked up at her younger sister. "You have to go. They will get through that opening soon enough."

"I can't, not without you. You're our leader." A man's hand reached through the opening, which was only two and a half feet high. Then came a face. Monala kicked him in the face, and looked back to her sister, but Monawa was gone.

Monala ran back to the other children, who were waiting only a few feet away. She did not know what to do. It was hopeless.

Then she looked back at her sister, and did the only thing she could do, and that is honor Monawa. She turned to the other children. "Follow me!" And she dashed down the pitch black corridor.

The children moved quickly in the darkness. They held each other's hands, and walked upright, Monala leading the way. The invaders gave chase, but crawling in the tiny shaft, they were clumsy and slow. The children left them behind, and as the shaft twisted and turned its way through the mountainside, the children got further away, until after half an hour, they reached an opening.

Monala was the first to step through. She stood in a marvellous cavern. There was natural light, from a small opening far above. In the middle of the cavern was a lake. The children stopped to take water. Monala had never been this far before, and everyone was still terrified that the invaders would catch up eventually. She looked at the children -- they needed her. The men would be here any minute. But the walls were steep, too sheer for any child to climb. There would have to be another way.

She told the children to walk around the pool, to see if there were any streams. Such resourcefulness! A small boy named Illi shouted -- he had found a small trickle that led under the wall. It was too small. Monala set aside her fear, and stepped into the water. She dove under, and in that dimmest of light, she found an opening -- the water went under the wall. She came to the surface and without a word took a deep breath. She swam as fast as possible, through the gap, and popped up on the other side. She could see -- it was a small room, only a few rocks on which to sit, but there was a crack of light at one end -- a pathway out of the…