The Mosquito Coast
Paul Theroux
Language: English
Pages: 384
ISBN: 0618658963
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
it was not a path at all but a dry creek bed. The boulders had been sucked smooth by running water. "This is the true test of ingenuity," Father said. "We are trusting to brains and experience. I'm glad Jeronimo was destroyed!" Mother said, "Those three men might have been harmless." "Scavengers!" We looked up and expected to see vultures. But he meant the men. "This is the way the first family faced things," Father said. "That's it, Mother. We are the first family on earth, walking down
they had been washed with the storm's debris, and others lay broken in the furrows. The bamboo collars had done no good. They served only to bruise the plants under the strength of the falling rain. "It's no use," Mother said. "You make me laugh," Father said. "You talk as if we have an alternative! What we're doing is all we can do. There's nothing else. A garden is our only hope, Mother. Have you got a better idea?" Mother said, "Why don't we just pack up and go?" "Nothing to pack," Father
get et up by the munsters in the water." She walked away. I said to Drainy, "If you're really afraid, we can forget it." "I ain't afraid," Drainy said, and sat on the bank and dangled his feet in the water. "And you go to hell if you ain't get dunked." Clover said, "We don't believe in hell. Only ignorant people believe in hell." Drainy said, "If Alice pull down her bloomers and show her carkle, she go to hell, for true." Alice was in the schooLhouse. She poked her head out of the window and
point here—not trying to change anyone's life. We'll see how it shakes down." He told Mother it was mainly a morale-builder. "I like it when you get an idea and no one laughs. They deserve an iceberg." Mr. Haddy was very proud. The iceberg was his boast, and he would captain the Creoles in taking it downstream. "I'm just obeying orders," Father said. "If Figgy wants an iceberg, he's going to have it." All work was put aside for this. Fat Boy was stoked and all the pumps primed. We had been
making it out of river water. He had brought a block of it that had been as big as two men, but it had gotten smaller and smaller, and by the time we reached the village it was tiny. That was unfortunate, he said, because now it was gone, and a moment ago he could have showed it to them. "But I'll be back," he said. "I'll show you!" Most of the Indians were still looking at his finger. Then one of the Indians spoke very clearly, in Spanish. His face was square, and he had the thickest hair