MS Ynez Fernandez-Reyes

Lali & Lokie Run Away MS Ynez Fernandez-Reyes

This is a story about a young girl who likes to daydream and play the days away instead of doing her chores. This is one of many stories my grandma told me to scare me into going to sleep at night. In this story Peaciwawala (Lali for short) jumps on her pony Lokie when her grand-mother Sittingjing-goongala (Gongi for short) calls her to grab the water jug and fill it up at the spring. Lali hates having to get water. The jugs are heavy and she wants to play with her dolly. When she and Lokie get to the waterfall and pool, Lokie breaks his tether and runs into the meadow to chase the birds and butterflies. Lali runs after him but he runs away before she can catch up with him. While they are still separated, a fierce storm comes in and it begins to snow. Lali has never been alone in the forest that far from home, and she is very afraid. Her grandmother sits alone in the night by the fire in her teepee, switch in hand, waiting for Lali to return. But she is alone and clinging to life under the arms of a pine tree crying and thinking of how much she wants to be home with Gongi again. The Ancestral Elders watch her from their perch in the great thunderheaded clouds as they pass above the pine tree forest where Lali is shivering and trying not to be hungry. This is Lali's chance to review her willful and disrespectful behavior. But Lali's moment of truth is yet to come on the morrow after the sun has risen.