Eat. Dance. Fight for your life.
The girls in the Mud Fam are used to fighting hard—it’s the only way to win in their elite, all-female sport of Bowing. Thanks to her legendary performance at the last tournament, Dirt has helped their ranks swell with a bevy of new recruits. She has finally achieved her lifelong dream of restoring glory to the Mud Fam, and she’s more than ready to win the upcoming tournament. But everything changes when a man washes up on shore.
There are no adults on the Isle, not since the long-ago days when the gods walked the earth. Yet here is a mysterious man who calls himself Mister Odo and claims to come from the land of the gods. He declares a tournament to find the best Bower. Though wary of the secretive Mister Odo, Dirt is prepared to battle as a proud, fat Bower should—that is, until the competitors are attacked by monsters. The only thing that can save the girls is the gods-given magic that Dirt can channel…and even that might not be enough.]]>
1 Goodbye to a Dream
NORMALLY THE Mud camp was a modest, quiet place.
It sat in a small clearing in an otherwise unremarkable part of the jungle. In the back, near the tree line, was the long wooden sleep lodge, with bunked sleeping cots to fit dozens. In front of that, right at the camp’s center, the Bowing ring stretched five strides across and was rounded by sandbags. A garden, chicken coop, and another, much smaller hut—a meeting space for the Mud Fam’s leaders—completed the camp.
Normally the only sounds were the hush of the breeze through the branches, the yelps and giggles and thuds of girls training.
However, on the night of Swoo’s first victory as a full Sis, the Mud camp was a party. A gaggle of Flagga boys was visiting with their drums and other instruments, leading the song and dance. Swoo, drunk off palm wine, was dancing so hard in the middle of the ring that she was covered in sweat. The Flagga boys stood in a circle around her, urging her on and nearly laughing themselves off their feet.
Sis Dirt, First of the Mud, sat at the high table. Beside her was Sis Webba, the Second of the Mud. These two eldest Mud sisters watched the festivities with amusement. So much of Dirt’s life now was watching. She didn’t mind it. Ever since the end of the last season, when she and Carra Carre had destroyed the Grand Temple in the chaos of their fight, she’d been banned from competing. Antie Yaya’s decision. In a way, her life of watching was a return to how things had been before the Godskin powers changed everything.
“I must go, my Sis,” Webba said.
Dirt nodded. It was late. And she knew that Webba’s wrists sometimes pained her deep into the evening. Ever since her legs were destroyed by Carra Carre, Webba had moved herself around by rolling the large wheels on the side of her chair, a task that strained the arms. Dirt stood to help push Webba’s rolling chair to the sleep hut.
“No,” Webba said. “I must leave.”
Dirt was confused. She went to stand in front of Webba to better understand her sister.
That was when Dirt saw it. It was easy to miss against Webba’s dark skin, and hidden as it was beneath her hair, but it was unmistakably a Scar. A jagged curve following the arc of her ear, roiling deep inside with a black fire.
Dirt nearly choked. “When?” she asked.
Webba shrugged. “I see it today. Before Swoo’s Bow.”
Dirt sighed. “Look at us. Two oldold girls, eh? Time is cruel.”
“Time is forever,” Webba responded. “That is why I must go.”
Dirt could see the somberness in her sister. “Antie Yaya will allow you to stay,” she said reassuringly.
Webba looked up at Dirt with a smile unlike any she had ever given. “No, my Sis,” she said. “In this world of Bowers and Godskins, I have no place. Na Fam does not need me. Look and see.”
She nodded her head at the festivities, forcing Dirt to turn and look. There were the Flagga boys, teeth shining as they strummed kora and blew algaita and pounded talking drums. There was sweat-covered Swoo, feet flashing in the moonlight.
And there were fifty Bibi—last season’s recruits—all laughing with the freedom of unburdened youth, swaying to the music and wind, chasing each other round the camp and through the trees with a reckless joy. Since childhood, Dirt had dreamed of building the Mud into a big fam, with her and Webba at the head. The day the recruits joined—six months ago now—that dream had been fulfilled.
“We are strongstrong now, my Sis,” Webba said. “We have na thing we always want to have. But these Bibi do not know me. They know only you. Sis Dirt. Na Godskin.”
Dirt turned back to Webba, shaking her head. “No, no…” She was surprised to find tears clouding her vision. She wiped them angrily. She refused to cry. Crying meant that it was really happening, that Webba was really leaving. “I need you.”
“You will lead na Fam,” Webba said. “And Sis Swoo will be your Second. Think how happy she will be. Let me leave for her, if not for myself.”
Dirt swelled up to protest, only to see by Webba’s amused expression that she was joking.
“That is not funny,” Dirt said.
“I disagree.”
Dirt couldn’t think of any further argument. Webba was right. At some point, all of them were supposed to move on, go off to join the Mamas and Papas. Dirt had refused, and Antie Yaya had allowed it, but that didn’t mean every girl sought the same life as Dirt. She had chosen her path. She had to let Webba choose hers.
“But tomorrow is Flagga Day,” Dirt tried, weakly.
Webba bellowed laughter, rubbing her belly. “You want me to stay for na day with na Flagga boys and their mighty sticks, eh? You must truly despise me.”
Dirt called a halt to the party and made the announcement to the Mud Fam and their guests. The reactions were more varied than she’d expected. Among the Flagga boys, there was jaw-dropping disbelief, followed immediately by them forming into a line to honor Webba. One by one they approached her and fell to a knee, thanking her for her career and for all the times she’d inspired them and any number of things. Dirt found it impossible to control her tears as she watched. It was exactly the respect Webba deserved.
The Bibi had a very different response. They mostly fell quiet and watched, polite enough to not interrupt the ceremony, but uncertain what else they should do. As always, Webba was right. It was Dirt they revered, not her. Webba’s departure meant little to them.
It was not the same for Snore and Swoo. Snore immediately fled into the jungle and was gone for the entire night. Swoo was last in line behind the Flagga boys, and when they were finished, she knelt in front of Webba and simply laid her head in Webba’s lap. After a long moment, she stood, gave Webba a long hug, then moved to stand beside Sis Dirt, her head bowed.
“We are na Mud sisters!” Swoo sang out, her voice cracked to the verge of breaking.
The song was picked up by the others..
We fight, oh yes, ooooooh!
We are na Mud sisters! (We are na Mud sisters!)
We never quit, noooooo!
Webba had already packed her few things, so all she had to do was gather them before rolling herself off into the jungle toward Antie Yaya’s. All the while the Mud Fam sang, ensuring that her departure was a melodic one. Even when she had disappeared into the dark jungle, the song continued.
As the Flagga boys left and the Bibi went to bed and Swoo went off to go exercise her frustrations away, Dirt stayed out, singing her sister off until her mouth and throat were too dry to make anything but the faintest noise.
Only then did she go to sleep. As her mind drifted, she hoped that she would at least continue to see Webba in her dreams, the one place where time held no power over Dirt and her sisters.
1 