Chapter 11

"Where is he?" she shrieked, 'where is my baby?"
"I am sure he's alright, my daughter, you know how mischievous he can be.  I wouldn't be surprised to find him listening behind the hut right now.  He's probably laughing at you right now."
"Nerwhal!  How can you say such things?  My baby is gone, what did I do to drive him away?"
"I'll go look for him daughter" sighed Old Nerwhal creaking to his feet and leaving the hut.  He knew there was no use in trying to calm her down, she listened about as well as her son.

Old Nerwhal went out into the cool night and stood for a moment to decide what to do.  There was a sliver of moon visible in the sky, so he could see a little ways around him.  However, he knew that a mischievous boy under the trees would be invisible, so he decided not to blunder into the darkness.  He was an old man and didn't need to break an ankle scurrying after that little bastard.  So, the village first.

He stopped by each of the homes of his neighbors, greeting them with courtesy and asking after Little Mika. Their sympathetic looks and shaking of heads confirmed to him that he wasn't in the village and he was indeed a thoroughly unpleasant child.  Old Nerwhal's irritation was growing.  Where to next? 

The village was built on a ledge overlooking a deep valley, one of the very few flat areas in these mountains.  A path led up into the wooded hunting grounds above, and a path led down.  The path down took a long, circuitous route through trees, meadows, villages, into the valley and thence out into the rest of the world.  Up, or down?  Old Nerwhal tried to stretch his mind back over the decades, back to when he was a thoroughly unpleasant child.  What would he have done?  Excitement and rebellion meant down.  Walking down was easier than up.  Down it was.

Old Nerwhal trudged down along the path, something he didn't like to do at the best of times with his creaking joints.  Old Nerwhal had seen enough of what there was to be seen and decided that a flat piece of ground with a nice view was entirely adequate for his needs.  It had probably been a full finger of a day since Little Mika had disappeared.  How far would he be able to go?  Too far for Old Nerwhal's liking.

Just after the third time when Old Nerwhal had asked himself whether he had gone far enough yet he came across a small shape sitting on a fallen tree branch.  It sniffled to itself, somehow managing to make the sniffles sound angry and outraged at the injustice of it all. 

"Hello Little Mika, what are you doing?" asked Old Nerwhal in his most patient voice.

"I'm going 'way from mountains."

"I see.  Why are you doing that?"

"Like in the story.  You told me he went down 'cause nothing to do in the village." 

"Ah, the story about He From Whom Our Blessings Come when He descended from the mountains to spread the Truth of Peace.  I told you that two days ago, didn't I?   Hmmmm.  So, are you trying to be like Him?"  Old Nerwhal was now actually quite interested.  This meant that there were two developments that he had doubted would ever come to pass, Little Mika actually listened to his stories, and it was possible that he might actually try to be like Him.

"No.  Him is like Mika.  Nothing to do in the village.  Everyone hates me.  Going down mountain."  Mika radiated indignation.

"Ah, I see now.  You don't like it in the village and are going to go down from the mountains like in the story.  Well, that happens to quite a lot of people from our village.  After a while they want to see something different, there is no shame in that.  However, Little Mika there are some differences from the story.  He From Whom Our Blessings Come left in his fifteenth summer, while we hope you will see your fifth.  He packed some food, and some clothes, and his walking staff because it is a very long journey.  He said goodbye to the village and his mother, asking her to bless him.  He knew where he was going and he had a holy mission.  he didn't just run off in the middle of the night."  Old Nerwhal was trying, but he could tell that Little Mika didn't want to listen.  He desperately didn't want to drag the boy all that way uphill.  "You know what you need to do this properly Little Mika?

"No."

"Planning is what you need.  If you want to leave the village then you need to properly plan.  On my big legs it takes three days to walk down the mountain and I get hungry in a morning.  It might rain and I get so cold in the rain without a proper coat.  I don't know the right way out of the mountains, and it makes me scared and angry when I get lost.  If I was going down from the mountains I would leave in the day with all of the stuff I need.  How about we go back up to the village and get a good night sleep and tomorrow we will work on our plan?"

"You promise I can go?"  asked Little Mika with hardly a shred of trust.  Little Mika was a smart enough boy to know that adults tried to trick boys all the time.

"Little Mika, I promise you with everything in my heart that if we can plan for you to be just like He From Whom Our Blessings Flow it will be the greatest day of my life to watch you walk down from the mountain"  Old Nerwhal said this with the utmost fervor.  "Come on, let's go back, for now."

Little Mika reached up and took Old Nerwhal's hand and together they slowly walked back up the mountain.