14 NUT ATTACK

Turning the key, the engines came to life and they got under way again and continued their circumnavigation around the small island. They found a few small coves with potential, but nothing that they could use. The sun hit the horizon when they arrived at the first landing spot, pulled up close to the beach and secured the boat as they did before. Deciding to spend the night, hiding the goods and supplies and then returning with the first light to Papeete, seemed to be a good idea. Helena and Leo would remain on the island attempting to find a way to the grotto over land. If someone came, they would just hide while the people were around.

Because of the information from Leo, Helena and Gábor felt they would be back in a few days. Ivan was sceptical but said nothing. He's had more experience with police and authoritarian governments than he cared for. Certainly, the gendarmerie would ask a lot of questions and the embassy would be involved too. Possibly his friend would have to find a lawyer to give him a chance to clarify the situation aboard the cruiser. The French were not as bad as the Russians as he remembered from Russia, but the nature of any authority was such as to exert power in order to control and manipulate, often excessively.

Together they walked in search of a path towards the cave they saw. The dense vegetation hindered their progress, but then Leo found a clearing with a large rain tree and a sheltered crevice in the rock wall to stow the supplies until they either found a way to enter the grotto or a good hiding place. The place to store the gear and other items was a relatively short distance away from the beach and it was a good location. Even if it rained, it would remain dry. It would make a great cache. Unloading the supplies and stowing the goods took only a short time and then it was too dark to organize things.

Pitching the tent, they dug out the compact camping cooking gear and cooked a light supper, ate, and then laid back and rested under the trees a few meters away from the tent. Tossing ideas as what they could do to enter the tunnel to the grotto, nobody really watched their surroundings. As they observed the sky, a meteor with a fiery tail streaked across the western section of the stars studded heavens, then suddenly Ivan jerked his head aside and a split-second later a thumping sound right beside Ivan's head scared them out of their reverie.

Like a greased monkey, Ivan rolled away from the blanket to the left and crouched into a defensive posture. Hands in front of his chest, fingers open and curved like claws, ready to fight, he scanned the sky overhead. At that moment he looked very dangerous. Gábor covered Helena's prone body. She had been just as ready to move, but he had moved before she could. Leo had barely twitched. An object lay on the blanket were Ivan's head had rested seconds before. Ivan relaxed and with that, Gábor too eased off Helena.

"Aren't you a bit too amorous, Honey? We're not alone, you know," said Helena a few seconds later, and that broke the tense moment they'd just had.

The object, a coconut, had fallen between Leo and Ivan, but so close to Ivan, that in fact, he had received a glancing blow to his ear. Fortunately, he had very good reflexes and moved a fraction of a second before the nut connected with his head. He touched his ear and there was a little blood on his fingers and he cursed at the tree in his native tongue for a few seconds.

"Almost got killed by a nut," he protested, rubbing his right ear and threatened the offending palm. "I'm going to cut your nuts off, you bastard."

"That will fix him," remarked Helena laconically. "Would you like any fixing?" the double meaning included an application of a Band-Aid.

"Nah. I still have some hopes. This is just a scratch on the ear."

They all looked at her and laughed. Helena had a wonderful sense of humour and Ivan appreciated a witty woman. After many years without a partner, he wished to find one like Helena. Gábor was indeed a very lucky man to have a mate like her. Despite his protest she checked on his ear. It was nothing serious.

“Nothing you couldn’t live without is missing”, she reported.

Ivan, grumbling something under his short beard, moved his camp to the safe side of the tent, away from the tree. The Fabien's followed his move, relocating also. It wasn't very wise to be under trees that had objects growing on them that had the potential to kill if one was unaware of the danger. The beam of a flashlight in Ivan's hand danced over the area.

"For a second I thought someone else was here and we didn't keep a good enough look-out. Perhaps we should do that. There's a good spot on that high rock over there."

"We need airspace watch," jested Gábor. "Those nuts are worse than bombs. They don't whistle before they strike." Ivan agreed and pointed to the near, large towering rock formation, which rose a bit higher than the closest coconut tree.

"Kitty, would you check that out?" he said to Leo.

Leo nodded and then bounded up to the top with ease and found a level area about four to five square meters covered with grass, with a view out to sea. One could easily get to the top from the rear. Leo insisted on doing the first watch. For three hours, he would have to stay awake and Helena wondered if it was that good of an idea to involve a kid in this.

Ivan thought it was okay and didn't think of Leo as a child. He would not be sleeping much after his brush with death anyway. Taking the second watch, he would be with Leo, Gábor the next and Helena could take the last. They thought it to be a good plan and Helena settled down.

Leo and Ivan took their blankets, climbed the lookout rock, and made themselves comfortable. The view was great and they could observe a large portion of the ocean from that elevation, including the landing. They engaged in quiet conversation. Below Helena turned to Gábor.

"That was a close call with that nut. We will have to watch when we walk around under those trees; I imagine they could kill a person if one falls on their head.”

Nodding in the dark, and then realizing she could barely see him, he replied. “This is a good spot, but if it is this good, anybody will want to land here and could discover our presence here. We didn't see anything better or as suitable as that grotto. It would be the best place if the entrance were high enough to get into with the boat. We’ll find a way to make it accessible. What do you think? Do you have any ideas how to make the entrance a bit higher, just to get the boat inside?"

“Not really, at least not at the moment. Also, if we raise it, it would make conspicuous and would attract attention,”

"Right,” he confirmed. “If we enlarge it, we would need to camouflage it. I would like to go there again tomorrow morning before I leave for Papeete and see if I can visualize something. I would like to go with Ivan because he can handle the boat better until you have had more practice with it. Do you mind staying with Leo here alone until I come back?"

"We all could go to see the grotto and then you can drop me and Leo off here and then go. How long do you think it will take you to get to Tahiti?"

 "About three hours, depending on sea state and the winds. From here to there, the wind is on our back and the sea will not be slowing us down. Coming back is another story."

"I want to come with you, but I understand someone needs to be with Leo. He looks okay and heals fast, but it is better if I stay with him until he knows his way around. Two is better than one. Please, talk to a lawyer about counsel."

"I will if I need to, and you just be careful. There are a lot of steep rocks and crevices where you could get hurt. The nearest hospital is in Papeete and we'll be gone for at least a day."

"Okay, dad. I'll be a good girl. There is nobody around to be bad with anyway." She purred, leaned into him, and blinked mischievously.

"I'll be back as soon as I can and you will get your chance to be bad. You're good when you're bad. And you owe me one, remember?"

"How can I forget? I think about it all the time," she admitted and snuggled closer to him.

"Patience, pretty one, is a virtue."

"Patience and virtue is for geriatrics. And what is that anyway?"

He laughed softly and both lay back and embraced.

Reflecting on the certainty with which Helena seemed to know that Leo was alive, the crazy thought to start looking at the atoll, the encounter with the dolphins that guided them to the place where they found Leo, and the miraculous recovery of their son seemed so unreal to him that his entire view of what was wishful thinking and logical reasoning tumbled around in his head like laundry in a dryer.

Were Helena's intuition more than just hopes of a mother clinging to wisps of an unlikely event? Against all odds Leo was alive, survived in shark-infested waters, to end up on the atoll of Niau. The crew also survived and the only thing the gendarmes could charge him with was aggravated assault on a man that had battered his son.

And then there was his son Leo. The discovery of his son's intelligence through Ivan changed his perception about what intelligence was supposed to look like. It changed a lot with regards to his feelings toward Leo and his mate. He no longer had ambivalent feelings about Leo although some questions remained unanswered. His concerns about Helena's or his possible gene defects dwindled and his love for her didn't flicker anymore but burned with a steady flame and much brighter than in the past few months or even in the beginning.

Leo's appearance didn't matter and whatever another child would look like, he would accept and protect it with his life. How intelligent Leo really was remained open to discovery and on this island they could relax and focus on his education. Once they returned to Canada, Ivan would stay and continue with Leo's training here, alternate with them every few months and in a few years, Leo would re-join them in Canada. He put his arm under Helena's neck and she laid her arm across his chest.

"Are you still interested in having a big family?" he asked his wife.

"No human could wish for a pride any more than I do, Honey. Have you been thinking about that right now?"

"Yes, among other things," he confessed. "Perhaps we'll have a human child the next time."

"There goes my Pride," Helena said and snuggled closer to him. He laughed and held her close in his arms as he slowly drifted off to sleep and had some dreams. Helena lay awake and had her own thoughts. Happy with the discovery of the grotto, she envisioned how she would make it liveable and have it accessible by the boat. Ideas came to her and many were discarded, but one of her biggest concerns was to leave Leo behind. True, she trusted that Ivan would look after him, but as a mother, to leave her child behind, that wasn't an easy thing to do. She had no idea how intelligent Leo was and what he was capable of, but not seeing him for several months would be very difficult. She got used to him and felt a connection that seemed to be beyond the normal bond a mother has with her child. It was as if she knew what he wanted and vice versa.

When he fell overboard and disappeared in the ocean, there was a link, a connection that didn't break with his absence. While they were in Papeete, she felt with certainty that he was alive, and during the search for him she had the impression that he was on solid ground and it gave her the idea of looking for him on one of the many island and atolls. That it was the first atoll where they found him was pure luck, and when the dolphins showed up, the nebulous idea that Leo could be there, condensed into a conviction and it didn't astonish her much when they discovered Leo, battered but alive.

Her eyes, used to the darkness, scanned the towering spire where Ivan and Leo took up the lookout. Listening to sounds of a few unintelligible words, she smiled and put her arms around her husband, the man she loved and the man that was the father of that extraordinary being with a body of a lion, and that would undoubtedly present them with some surprises.

A thought about her parents came to her mind. If they just had an idea about Leo’s intelligence, and could get over their revulsion for his appearance, and blaming Gábor for it, she would want to visit them, make peace, and heal their differences.

She loved her parents, and even her brother, but their worldviews were old-fashioned and full of conservative ideas that she couldn’t share. Leo’s condition was in their eyes demonic, a curse of God Almighty, and it was her mother that incited her father to be against their grandchild. For her, Leo was the devil incarnate and she wished with all her heart her mother could break away from her religious superstitions. She had many arguments about that. Her mother had always insisted that there was a god that ruled over everything, loved unconditionally, but one had to obey his laws. Helena had bristled and countered. If god loved unconditionally, he would have never made laws and still would love his creation, regardless. Of course, her mother thought differently and they never settled in peace. Letting out a sigh, she nestled into her husband’s arms, kissed his head, closed her eyes, and joined him in his sleep.