Rocky's New Family (Rocky)

'Rocky,' my little sister runs at me as I enter the cave and attaches herself to my legs. 'I missed you Rocky.'

I bend down and lift her little body until she's level with my face.

She puts her arms around my neck.

So tightly that if I let go off her, she'd just hang there.

'Hello Pretty Petal,' I say, stroking her blonde hair and staring into her eyes, one green, the other a shade of blue. 'What have you been up to today?'

I prise her fingers off my neck and put her down on the rock floor and then crouch down in front of her.

'I've been threading beads for Mummy,' she says. She lifts up a finger, a red dot on it. 'I pricked my finger with the awl.' Tears start to form in her eyes.

'Pretty Petal got a booboo?' I ask.

She nods her head.

'Would a kiss from Rocky make it feel better?'

She grins and pushes her finger toward my face. Nearly poking me up the nose with it.

I kiss it quickly. 'Better?'

She hugs me so hard that I have to throw an arm behind me ti stop myself toppling over and slamming into the floor.

'You spoil her,' a voice says.

I look up and see my beautiful mother, her white blonde hair escaping from where it's piled and secured on top of her head to flutter around her face. Her cheek has a thin streak of blood on it and there's a feather on the shoulder of her tunic.

She smiles.

I stand up and walk toward her. She's only a little taller than me now but as it has been ten summers since they found me so I must be about thirteen, I guess it won't be long until I tower over her.

She reaches out and grabs me in a hug and I kiss her cheek.

The one without blood.

'I know,' I say. 'But she's only little. There will be plenty of time for discipline when she's older.'

My mother laughs. 'And by then, you will be a man and either think you're little sister is a pest or feel so guilty about living your own life that you'll spoil her even more.'

I open my mouth to deny this but then close it and shrug. My mother is right.

I feel little hands pulling at the bottom of my tunic and look down.

Tree, my little brother is stood there. A spear in his hand and a determined look on his face. 'When I'm a man...'

I don't let him say what he'll do when he's a man, I just bend down and start tickling him.

He starts to giggle.

At six summers old, as opposed to my sister Petal who is nearly four, he likes to pretend he's all grown up but he's still only a little boy.

Only a little older than I was when they found me.

I look at my mother but I don't have to ask the question because she already knows what it is. I have asked so many times.

'You've been thinking about them again,' she states.

Not a question, it doesn't have to be a question, it's just a statement.

She knows me so well.

She touches my cheek, tucks a bit of hair behind my ear. 'I wish I knew,' she says. 'I wish I could tell you all about your birth people, but I can't.'

I look down at me bare feet. There's grime under the nail of one of my big toes. 'I just can't help wondering.' 'Is there really no way we can find out?'

She shakes her head.

'But I've heard...'

She sighs. 'What have you heard?'

'There's a woman. She lives in a cave really close to the Endless Sea, I've heard that she can tell you anything. Maybe she could tell me...'

My mother puts her hand up. 'You are too young to make such a journey,' she says. 'Maybe in a couple of summers if you still want to go by then.'

'But...'

'She shakes her head. 'I don't want you going there. Not yet. It's a long journey.'

'I could walk there in two days.'

'Only if you walked through the Cave Lion terratory,' she says. 'And no one has survived when they enter there. You'd be in a Cave Lion's belly before you'd hardly started.'

'I could go the long way.'

'Which would take you a week. You are too young to be away from home for that long.'

'I'm nearly a man,' I try to argue.

'Nearly being the word that will keep you here. Once you've become a man, and left my hearth for the young men's one, then I won't be able to stop you. But for now I can.'

I stamp my foot, sending up rock dust into the air. 'It's not fair,' I say. 'I feel like a man now.'

'Feeling like you are a man is different to actually being one,' she says and then sighs. 'But I do understand you know. I remember I felt very grown up when I was your age but looking back now, I realise how young and inexperienced I was. The world can be a harsh place and you have a lot to learn yet before you start to make your way in it.'

'But...'

She shakes her head. 'I am sorry Rocky.'

And then she turns away, and goes to sort out Petal and Tree who have started fighting. Tree has snatched Petal's doll and is threatening to throw it into the hearth fire. So she's biting his hand.

I take a deep breath, try to put the idea of travelling to see the woman who lives near the Endless Sea away, and catch Petal's doll just as Tree starts to howl and lets go off it.

And then I help Mother separate the two of them as they try to scratch each other's eyes out.