Amber sat there with Rala, scared for her friend, and what would have happened if she hadn't woken up in time to see what was going. The thud vibrated across the whole boat. Salene, Lex and Tai-san all ran into the room and flipped on the light switch. Lex was the first to see the knife by Amber. His eyes widened.
"Amber… did you try to do Rala in?" He asked suspiciously. She looked at him with eyes that plainly said 'Oh please, Get a life Lex,' She rolled her eyes. Amber shook her head and looked down at Rala, who sat crying into her hands, rocking slightly to her sobs. As soon as Lex said that, Salene looked up at Amber. "You really wouldn't do that, would you?" Apparently, Salene had missed the look in her eyes.
"Why would I do that to her? She's a poor child that misses her family, just like the rest of us. But that doesn't mean I would do her in!" She said offensively. Tai-san looked worriedly over at Rala. "Rala… did you try to kill yourself?" She said in a kind tone of voice. Rala slowly nodded through her hiccupping sobs.
"I-I-I wanted to," she hiccupped again, "E-end my li-life, I don't w-wanna be here any-more…" She began to sob again. Lex looked confused.
"So wait… wanted to kill yourself, then what was Amber doing with the knife?" Amber, Salene, and Tai-san looked up at him with a stupid look on each of their faces.
"Lex…" Tai-San said quietly, "She tried to stop her. That's why she had the knife, not to do her in, but to stop her. Amber must have woken up to something and saw her and stopped her," She looked over at Amber. "I'm sorry Amber that you had to go through that, and I'm very pleased that you stopped her. I think we would have all tried to do the same thing," Salene muttered under her breath that sounded something like 'Yeah, we would have… who knows about Lex,' Amber smiled over at Salene. Apparently she had heard what she said. Lex looked furious at the comment. But no one seemed to notice that Tai-San had taken Rala outside where they could look at the sunrise.
"You know, all of us would have tried to stop you, right?" Tai-San asked quietly to her. "I know you would have tried to stop me, but why would you have?" Rala asked back as a question. Tai-San smiled. "Would you have helped us?" Rala looked away and thought about the answer. Immediately her mind said Yes, of course! But something was hesitant about the voice. She had left her brother with two strangers, people she only knew for a little amount of time. But as she thought of her brother, she was glad that he wasn't here to deal with this. She thought of her dream again. She wondered, again, what was missing in her brother's eyes. Something important of course, only something important missing would have caused that sparkling twinkle to go away. She pondered this question also.
"What could be missing?" She quietly asked herself. Tai-san looked startled at the question and answered with one of her own. "What is missing?" Rala ignored her and kept thinking.
"If Amber hadn't stopped me, then was that what was missing? Me? Would my brother actually miss me? After the way I treated him? After the way I yelled at him, telling him to go away from me? Was that spark missing because of me? Am I the reason he suffers…?" Tai-san quickly answered her many questions.
"No of course not! You are your brothers' sister! We would have all missed you! That spark in his eyes wasn't missing because of you, I think it was because he knew that he would have a great more responsibility than he could handle. Being tied down to someone is hard. Maybe then, in that time, he likes being free… like you do. Being free to leave whenever you want. Don't worry about those things so much. We will all find out what is missing in our lives once we get there. Don't worry so much about it. It just causes more stress on you right now, and you really don't need anymore of that. You'll get gray hairs by the time your 19," Tai-san smiled at her and tried to make her see the point in her logic.
"But if no one worries about the future, what will happen to it? How will anything be deciphered? If you were to get rid of all the meat in the world without thinking about the consequences, then what will happen without it? You just can't think of things like that, Tai-San, you of all people should know that," Rala said, looking Tai-san in the eyes, and hers was asking something around the hard question like 'what's the meaning of life' and things like that. It was as if, Rala's eyes tried hard to look into the soul of her to see if she could find the answers. Like she was trying to find the answers in Tai-sans soul, her spiritual nature and such.
"See you're doing it again. You're getting to far ahead of yourself. Just go back to bed. We'll deal with things in the morning. Besides, I think we're coming up close to the island," She smiled over at Rala who nodded, and not saying anything, walked inside the ship and fell back asleep in her own bed. She dreamed, for once in the longest time, a nice peaceful sleep.
When she woke up later that morning, she felt new and reenergized. Lex was amazed at her quick comebacks… he had almost gotten used to her not answering him back. But now he had a match in quick-witted comebacks, and such. She hunted with Amber more and more, and eventually started catching more fish than her. Salene was always happy to have more help with the kitchen duty. Tai-san loved having her for meditating also. Rala was really happy with everyone then she had been in ages.
They finally made it to New Zealand. Rala above all was happy that she would hopefully see her old friends, and be reunited with them. She especially missed Siva the most. They always had got along well together. She was surprised at her own thoughts. She remembered the last time she thought about them, she was still mad at them for making her look like a fool in front of Bray and Martin. She also wondered how they were doing, and their Tribe.
Rala was the first and probably most eager to get off of the boat. But when she did, she instantly turned her head back and looked at the ocean and she smiled to herself. She had made it across the ocean to another continent without any adult help. So… a bunch of kids can travel across the ocean without help. Funny… if the grown-ups were here today… what would they say to such a thing? She smiled at her thought. She imagined her mom yelling at her for leaving her brother alone with strangers she hardly knew, going out alone with him, surviving on fish, wearing the make up that she is now, and that she had just traveled almost across the world. Rala laughed out loud. She forgot for a moment that she did have make-up on. She had gotten so used to having it on, that it didn't bother her anymore. Before, she would hide under the blankets when her friends would try to get some on her at their sleepovers. She had a beautiful blue eye shadow that went up from the top of her eyelid, all the way down as in a tear. She had it on both sides, and a star inside a circle on her right hand. That was to prove that she was apart of a tribe. Salene had dyed her hair a bright red and blue color, while the rest remained a dark black like it was before. Tai-san added some black eyeliner to outline the tears and for her thin eyebrows to extend into curls along with the side of her eyelashes. Rala, herself, picked out a deep purple color for her lipstick, and some clear lip-gloss to make it shine. The blue really showed against her black eyes. She wondered if anyone would recognize her. She had her hair up in pigtails, ratted on the top of her head, and made into cones with hair coming out of the sides. To her, she looked like a whole new person.
Her clothes were something totally different. She had thigh high vinyl boots, an elastic tube top that was a deep blood red, and a black vinyl skirt with a loose belt, with some parts of an underskirt underneath that was a sky blue. Now if she were to show her clothed to her mother 10 months ago… she would have killed her. Half of her clothes were vinyl, 'the most showy type of cloth is vinyl', her mother would say, when she would want a top or something from a certain store.
While the rest were getting off, she quickly got out of her dazed and told herself that her mother isn't here, her brother isn't here, and now she has to rely on her friends as much as they have to rely on her.
"Where should we go now?" Lex asked. They all looked puzzled as to where they wanted to go.
"We could try the city… there are bound to be people there," Amber said, pointing up at the sky. There was a dark cloud hanging over a certain part of town. There was a fire going on.
"That… sounds good…." remarked Lex, staring at the cloud of smoke. "We have to go! Come on!" Yelled Salene, already running towards the fire. The rest of them looked at each other and followed one another.