Chapter One

The small grey parrot with a bright red tail flew across the sky, flapping his stubby wings furiously. There was no time left. He had to get to the Jungle as quickly as possible and the Village of the Kiritiri people. There was much at stake-too much at stake, and he felt as though his wings could not carry him fast enough. The journey there from Olugbala's Mountain was a long one. He had lost track of the number of days he had been flying. He was tired, thirsty and hungry-all in that order, and while he could have satisfied his thirst and his hunger with the many sources of food and drink far beneath him, he did not want to take the time to do so. He could not be late.

The Great Grassland below stretched all around him from horizon to horizon to the right and the left. Antelope, zebras, and elephants had stopped grazing and stood like statues on the grass or near the scrubby trees that dotted the flat terrain, watching and waiting. Far ahead of him were the High Falls sending clouds of water vapor billowing up from huge rocks at the bottom. And finally, beyond the falls was the Jungle itself. From his perspective it was only a thin band of dark green partially obscured by the heat and dust which arose from the sun-baked ground beneath him. Cutting through that thin band of green was a brown stripe which was interrupted by the falls and then continued on through the Great Grassland. This was the Great River: the best and most efficient way to travel through the region-if you had to stay on the ground.

But he could not think too much of such things now. He had to keep his mind