The Dream Traveler
an excerpt

In certain parts of the world, people learned to build their cities on hills. Not just for the commanding views, but for safety. They could see the enemy coming from far off and with a few arrows or rifles, or even well thrown rocks, or boiling oil, they could pick off their intruders and avoid having their goods stolen or their villagers kidnapped by the raiders. The only problem is that crops grow best on flat land that is outside of the city, and there’s better grazing land down below and rivers are always in valleys. So the citizens have to go outside the walls everyday, if they want to eat and have something to drink. And if they want to see the rest of the world.

Bekini boarded the “La Puerto” bus—it was just outside the wall of the city’s main gate. He found an empty seat, stepping over dusty canvas luggage protruding in the aisles; walked past women sleeping, wrapped up in colorful shawls, silver bracelets jingling on their wrists; glanced at a man sitting with a crate of chickens on his lap. The old Chinese man said it would take a full day’s ride. He told him to dig under a tree in Las Palmas; not just any tree, but one marked with this sign. He drew the sign on a piece of paper with red ink. Bekini had folded it and put it in his pants pocket. He might have lost his suitcase, but he wasn’t about to lose his trousers. So, one day to Las Palmas. And if it took him the whole next day to find the clearly marked tree, the Chinese man calculated, the boy would be able to return to Gourdes by the third day. That’s what the old man had said.