In our desperation to head home, Nora hauled me along into the village in our hunt for a phone.
It’s the twenty-first century! Surely someone must have a phone around here! we thought. When we knocked on the door of the next cottage, however, Nora’s hand signals asking for a phone only met with baffled looks.
Our best efforts at miming remained futile. We departed after a good while, empty-handed.
Tabitha and Laurel hadn’t fared much better. We returned to find them sitting side by side, disconsolate. Laurel was the first to speak. “If we can’t get any results here, we should try moving further in. Perhaps we’ll get to the city. We may even meet some fellow countrymen!”
“The probability of that will be really low though. We don’t know how much longer the road up ahead is. If we aren’t careful, we may be mistaken for thieves and locked up,” Nora countered. She plopped down onto the floor with a sigh, looking defeated.
“What’s so bad about getting locked up?” Tessa asked thoughtfully. “Surely, the local policeman knows a little more than the average villager. If we manage to explain our situation to them, it might be our ticket home.”
“That’s right!” Laurel leaped to her feet in excitement. “If we get in touch with the local police, they may be able to send us home. We won’t have to wander around so aimlessly either.”
We all agreed that this was the most promising idea we’d had. We cheered up instantly at the thought and launching into a feverish discussion of what we should do to capture the attention of the local police.
We were in a village on the mountain. Who knows if there’s even a functional police station around here? I wondered to myself.
Tessa remained steadfast in her conviction that she shouldn’t participate in any criminal act, regardless of its motive. She slipped off before our discussion even began.
Nora and Tabitha, however, were enthusiastic. “Leave it to us!” they cried delightedly.
That evening, Nora and Tabitha walked boldly up to one of the villager’s yards under the pretense of borrowing something. They then grabbed a bundle of items and sprinted off.
Both of them returned with their arms laden with fruit, fully expecting the police to be hot on their heels.
However, neither Nora nor Tabitha had counted on the kindness of the villager. The owner of the house had been enraged at the two girls’ theft. However, on account of Nora and Tabitha being foreigners, the villager had assumed that both girls were foraging for food and ultimately sympathized.
He thus hadn’t reported the incident to anyone, least of all the police. Nora and Tabitha were rather taken aback by this outcome and returned the stolen goods rather sheepishly.
A short while later, the villager returned bearing the same fruits that Nora and Tabitha had returned. Embarrassed and slightly frustrated, Nora and Tabitha decided to turn to other means of crime.
However, they repeated this at several other homes only to be met with the same result. Some villagers even gave us additional food items from their own hoard out of pity.
Rice was a staple in the diets of these villagers. All they knew of the world was confined to the boundaries of their farm. They remained largely oblivious to the wider modern society beyond their fences.
The villagers thus viewed Nora and Tabitha’s acts with almost naive simplicity, assuming that the two girls had been starving or poor. They’d done what they did selflessly, out of pity.
When we realized this, we were resolved not to pursue our thoughtless ways any further. However, news of our presence here in the village had already spread amongst its people.
Over the next couple of days, practically the whole village came to visit us bearing gifts of food.
Through the most rudimentary of phrases and lots of guessing, we discovered that our host was named Troy Laander. His daughter was Yvette.
Among all of us, Tabitha was the quickest to pick up the villagers’ language, having been exposed to other similar foreign tongues before.
Gradually, she was able to converse with the Laanders.
When Troy finally comprehended the rationale behind our rather peculiar acts of theft, he said ruefully, “There was no need for you to behave this way! We could have found someone for you to borrow a phone from.”
Tabitha cradled her head in both hands. She’d long ago realized the foolishness of our plan. It was our utter hopelessness that had compelled and continued it.
Trying to comfort her, Troy promised to seek out a phone for us the following morning.
It was late, and it was apparently a taboo to present oneself uninvited at another person’s house at that timing.
We saw no reason not to but acquiesced as the dutiful guests that we were.
The thought that home was very possibly within reach made us almost delirious with joy. We thus played delightedly with Yvette the whole night.
Tabitha was now our communications expert. She spent the entire night translating for us. Among the many promises we made Yvette; one was that we’d definitely return to the village to visit her. We also assured her that we’d bring dolls and lots of good food back with us.
We chatted until the first rays of dawn streaked across the sky. Troy, true to his word, had already set off in search of a phone for us.
He returned empty-handed in the afternoon appearing rather dejected. He did, however, bring this offering, “I think I saw some policemen in the village. Do you want to head over and take a look?”
We were elated at this news. Nora, however, looked rather suspicious. She asked cynically, “Why did those policemen come here all of a sudden, though?”
Troy halted. “They’re looking for someone. I don’t know the specifics, but you can go and take a look.”
Looking for someone?
We exchanged glances amongst each other. We were equally bewildered. There was no discernible reason for policemen to be looking for someone in such a remote location.
