Come morning, Calla get permission to gather me up, take a little walk into the fields where the cow them go every morning. Is the first time I leave Stella, leave Massa. Even leave the canefield them behind.

We take food with us. Stop by the river, drink the cool, sweet water. Lay down in the shade of a big wide breadfruit tree. Calla need time to catch her breath from all the walking. Fan herself with a kerchief she always keep tucked in the bosom of her spotless white dress. When I get restless, she tell me to be quiet. To watch. Pretty soon me eyes open and I see into another world. A world I never see before. A world of freedom. The world of birds. And she start to point them out to me, tell me all them names. Which ones is good to eat, where to find them eggs.

Then Calla make some tweeting sounds and pretty soon, here come one little one with him white chin and black and grey feathers hopping cross the ground. She throw out a few crumbs and him gobble them up.

‘Is a dove,’ she tell me. ‘Hopping Dick. A baby like you little ones, but him don’t need no one looking out for him no more.’

Is all very interesting, looking at birds. But after a while I start to wonder what we really doing there. Finally I pluck up me courage.

‘Why we come here Calla? Not just to look at birds.’

‘No, not to look at birds. Is because of bad luck number three. Him catch you. Give you the breathing sickness.’

She say no more till we have a little feed, drink some coconut water. Have a little doze. And when the sun start to shift in the sky and the shadows start to get long, Calla take out her pipe, fill it up with tobacco and start to talk.

‘What you must do,’ puffing on her pipe, ‘is stop all the mosquito dem.’

‘What you mean, Calla? What they have to do with the breathing sickness?’

‘What you think,’ knocking her bony knuckles on me head.

‘All me know is they is mighty hard to slap and kill.’

‘Not the ones dat buzz round on the outside,’ Calla say, chuckling. ‘The ones dat buzz round on the inside. The ones dat fill up you head with too many questions. Questions dat don’t have no answers. Is the inside mosquitoes dat cause the angry tears. They buzz, and cause the breathing sickness.’

‘Oh,’ nodding me head, acting like I understand. ‘You ever have the breathing sickness Calla?’

‘Use to. Long time ago now. But, no more.’

‘How you fix youself up?’