Chapter III
Kinis’ tale continues

Well, it’s been 3 years since my dear Hong passed away. I and the whole tribe still miss him terribly, but we’ve learned that life does go on. We have made pretty good progress since I last wrote here. A number of the younger children have grown old enough to work and are busily engaged in farming and research which remain our two greatest needs right now.

Mau, whom you may recall was the oldest of the children we found here, and Kamin his brother have both become elders. Noriko is close to becoming an elder, and so is his wife Kiki. Our dear little Yuca is so determined to master all the skills. She is a master scientist now and like she said, she took time off to have a child. She has chosen a sweet young man named Koko as a mate. She is so smart, Only 28 and already an adept builder and adept farmer and soon an adept parent though this is mostly because she spends a lot of time telling stories to the little ones and of course has her own baby now. She just came in and told me that they have decided to name their baby Koyuca. Kids! Where do they come up with these names?

I promised to tell you about the grandchildren, so now I’ll take a minute or two to do so. Caia and Mau had a total of 4 kids. Mau Jr. Like his father and grandfather is multi talented. Already a master scientist, he is also adept as a builder, farmer and parent. He shows no interest in healing, saying with a wife and 2 kids of his own he doesn’t really have time for it.

Their 2nd child Kiri is a dear young girl who devotes all her time to science and parenting. She has 1 child but expects many more.

Their 3rd child Kopu isn’t physically strong, but is an avid scientist. A master scientist at only 19, he doesn’t show any interest in anything else except the library. He sort of appointed himself as the chief librarian and with all the work that went into designing and organizing the system, every one else was glad to let him do it. He does have some assistance from time to time, but it’s really his show. We haven’t been able to take time to build him a library yet, but for now he’s happy using one corner of the science building.

Their 4th child Tarik is also showing a great interest in science, but is still quite young, only 16, so who knows what he will do.

Now for Noriko and Kikis’ children: They have been blessed with 2 sets of twins.
Kazuo is another of those multi talented men that Hong seems to have inspired. He is a Master scientist, adept farmer (soon to be a master) and in his spare time has taken up building. Of course he also has a child and is expecting another soon.

His sister Ginger is an adept doctor which is her primary interest, but says that research is an important aspect of her training, so she’s also well on her way to becoming a master scientist also. She has no time for “ MEN! ” and so hasn’t started a family of her own yet. In her spare time she does like to help her cousin at the library.

Then there is Uru who like most of us is a master scientist and parent (2 kids and growing). He also has shown some interest in farming but he’s not very devoted to it. He says he really just likes fishing as a way to relax and is glad that it helps the tribe at the same time.

Their next set of twins are Bati a boy who likes farming and Kumi a girl who likes science. Since they’re only 12, they’ve got a couple of years before they get serious about anything.

Finally, their youngest child Rongo is 9 and his primary interest seems to be playing in the garden and trying to climb trees so maybe he’ll be a farmer.

I’d really like to tell you about all the great grand kids too, but there is so little time it will have to wait.

Chapter IV
Yukos’ Secret

Yuko came rushing up to his Grandma Kini. “Grandma, I love you!” he said. “Can I have some of your papyrus and a quill and some ink?” He asked.

“I love you too Yuko, why don’t you sit here with me a minute and tell me why you want those things?
You don’t yet know how to write. Are you wanting to practice your letters like you learned in school?

“Oh Grandma!” exclaimed Yuko. “I can too write, I just do it in pictures like Elder Gamey showed me to do. I’m just not real good at it. But I really want to write about my secret!”

“Sweetie, you know that papyrus and ink are hard to come by, can’t you just use some of the white rock and tree bark like you do in school? It would work fine and you could fix any mistakes you might make which is hard to do with ink and papyrus.”

“Ah grandma that’s for kids and besides it’s not permanent like when you write your stuff! I want to hide my secret writing in the cave behind the waterfall and that would erase the white rock on bark.”

“Well dear, why don’t I help you. You can tell me your secret and I’ll just write it down for you?” “But grandma if I tell you, then it won’t be a secret anymore!” said Yuko. “But of course it’ll still be a secret. You know I’m the senior elder and so I have to keep it secret if you tell me.”

“Ok grandma, my secret is I can fly!” “What! You can fly?” “Yep! I fly all over the whole world and when I fly I talk to ROM, and he says only special kids can fly! He helps me, I start running real fast, so fast the wind can’t keep up with me then ROM lifts me off the ground and I fly all over everywhere!”

“He sometimes flies me till we see something really cool like a beetle which is good cause I can make all the girls scream and run if I bring a beetle and put it in their hair. But sometimes it’s just shells or butterflies or maybe some of those little rocks that are pretty that the scientists all like and I really want to fly over the water but ROM says we can’t go too far because kids aren’t allowed in the deep water but that’s ok cause”

“Slow down sweetie you’re going way to fast for me.” About that time there was a loud buzzing sound in the grass outside the hut and little Yuko ran outside to see if it was another beetle. Kini, smiling that special grandmothers smile, patiently sat down and wrote little Yuko’s secret for him on a spare piece of papyrus that was too small to use in a journal. But, instead of putting it in the cave (for she knew that by know little Yuko was off on some other adventure and had probably forgotten all about it) she put it here in the library for safekeeping.

//Librarians note:
Of course Kini didn’t have the heart to tell little Yuko that all villagers could fly. He was the only child in the tribe at the time, so he hadn’t seen any other kids flying around and the adults simply didn’t like flying anymore. Sometimes they did if there was and urgent situation, but usually they preferred to walk or run.//

//Librarians addendum: Kini whom the whole tribe called Mother Kini, Grandma Kini to the youngsters, passed away two days after bringing me this story to file. She made me promise that when Yuko became a father that I would give it to him. I had forgotten all about it till today when I had the pleasure of delivering his first child a daughter named Akini in honor of her great grandmother.//