The Story of the Pearl
Uploaded by ChloeAngel on Jul 27, 2006 |
|
|
¤ The Story of the Pearl ¤
One morning, a morning that seemed like any other, Kino and his wife as usual got up and started breakfast. This wasn’t like any other day though. Coyotito, the baby, was just waking up when all of a sudden Juana and Kino noticed there was a scorpion on the baby’s hanging crib. Kino slowly walked over and tried to grab the scorpion but it fell on the baby and stung it.
The family went to the town doctor with the baby but the unscrupulous doctor wouldn’t see them because they didn’t have any money. So the family left depressed, the baby’s arm was swelling and it seemed to be getting worse. Juana, the baby’s mother, tried to put a few bits of seaweed, which should have helped, but it didn’t.
Kino went pearl hunting as usual but this day he found a huge very valuable pearl. Everyone heard about it in town, the doctor knew it was Kino who had arrived at his house earlier that day. The doctor went to Kino’s house to check on the baby. He pretended that the baby was about to die, he gave the baby some medicine and Kino told the doctor he would pay him when he received the money for his pearl.
The next morning, Kino went to try to sell his pearl, but the pearl dealers had already talked and decided to tell Kino that the pearl was fake and not worth anything. Kino knew how much the pearl was worth and when the pearl dealers told him that it wasn’t worth a lot of money he became very angry. He told them that they were liars and they didn’t know what they were talking about.
He became very scared and every night when he was about to go to sleep he hid the pearl, because he knew that people were trying to steal it. The reason being that someone had already tried to steal it. One night Juana woke up and tried to go out into the ocean and throw the pearl away, but Kino ran after her, hit her in the face, so that she fell down into the water. He was walking back to the house when a dark man attacked him; he killed the man because he was trying to take his pearl.
Kino knew then that he had to go to the capital to get the right amount of money for the pearl. He was going home when he noticed that his house was on fire. He ran to his canoe but they had drilled a whole in it. Kino and Juana ran to his brother’s house. His brother told him to leave at night to go to the capital. He hid them in his house during the day so that no one would notice them.
Night came and they started on their way to the capital. They stopped and rested a few times and then they found a place to sit in for a while. Kino was checking the road and removing his tracks when he realized that three trackers were looking for him. He couldn’t run or they would notice him so he laid on the ground silently as they walked by. The trackers checked the ground as they went along. They noticed the brush marks but just kept going. Kino ran to Juana after the trackers were out of site. He told her that they would have to trick them.
They started going towards the capital, but not on the path. They lead the trackers on and they followed their path knowing that soon they would find him. Juana and Kino found a little pool of water and a few caves, Kino and Juana went into the cave and sat there. In the distance they could see the trackers. They knew that by night they would be there.
The trackers arrived there that night. Kino knew what he had to do and that was to kill the main tracker. While the two other trackers were sleeping Kino slid down the wall to get to the trackers, but as he was getting down Coyotito started to whimper. The two other trackers woke up and knew that it was a baby, but pretend to think it was a coyote. Kino held his knife in his hand as he ran from the bushes someone fired a gun. Kino sliced off the tracker’s head as if it was a melon, the two other trackers ran like crabs into the pool. He grabbed the rifle and could hear Juana crying. He ran up there, he found Coyotito, the baby, with his head shot off. Juana and Kino started on there way back to La Paz.
When they arrived home, everyone was in the town to see them, but Juana and Kino’s eyes didn’t even move as they walked to the beach. Kino stood there with the pearl in his hand. He looked into the pearl and he could see what evil the pearl had bought and inside of it he imagined the baby with its head blown off. Now the pearl looked ugly to Kino. Kino pulled his hand back and threw the pearl into the sea because he was so disgusted with what had happened because of it. |
|
|