“They just don’t respect us any more, Anansi. Hunters come and go as they please, and they don’t tell the stories like they used to. Ask the children who Papa Bois is and they think is some guava switch to jumbie them into behaving good in school!” His leafy beard rustled as he shook his head.
“You complain, Bouchon, but at least they talk of you. You know who they replaced me with? That stinkin’ Brer Rabbit. A rabbit! What part of Anansi the Spider-man did they miss? Cho, thinking about all that foolishness have me irate. You have any pear to calm me down in this big old forest of yours Père Bois?”
Pears?” Papa Bois asked in confusion. “I can’t really leave the forest in this condition.” He glanced to his pair of cloven feet.
“Not dat kind of pear, man. Avocado pear, what unno call it around here? Zaboca.”
“Ah,” sounded Papa Bois. He snapped his fingers, and the two old men peered into the darkness of the woods.
The rotting leaves of the forest floor quieted the backward footsteps of the small childlike creature that delivered the dark green avocado to the pair. He tipped his brimmed hat at the gentlemen, then disappeared back into the thicket. Anansi gave an exaggerated shudder. “Dem douen always disturbed me. I don’t know how you take care of them.”
Papa Bois sighed. “I don’t like them either. And I leave the minding to Mama D’leau. They like the water anyway.”
He tossed a small hunting knife to Anansi, who caught it deftly and began to pare his avocado.
“How did you get here anyway? Surely not by flying, I know you don’t like to go any higher than a coconut tree,” asked Papa Bois.
“I have my ways,” said Anansi mysteriously, pausing for a moment, then laughing boisterously. “No, I came in by boat, then took a taxi in from the pier. And the taxi driver made sure I wasn’t going to hunt.” Anansi cleared his throat and continued in an impeccable Trinidadian accent, “Doh try an hunt out of season eh, ‘cause Papa Bois go well do fuh yuh. I had a breddren who-”
“Yes, yes I know. He had a ‘breddren’ who I caught and punished,” interrupted Papa Bois with a chuckle.
“You see Bouchon? They didn’t forget us completely yet. Now eat some zaboca and enjoy the night.”