Excerpt from The Flame Tree by Richard Lewis, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

Sometime later that night he dreamed of a crow spiraling out of the sky, landing on the railing of his bedroom's small porch, such a realistic dream that he was certain he was awake. The crow hopped into the room, spread its wings...Isaac woke, really woke, in a sweat. He didn't fall asleep again for a long time.

Chapter 2

The new school year started on Monday. During Opening Assembly, Isaac, along with fifty-five students and eight teachers, pledged his allegiance to the United States flag, a new one the size of a bed sheet that hung stiff as starch from its bronze eagle stanchion. The one teacher excused from pledging was the new Indonesian language and culture instructor, a Javanese man who spoke perfect BBC English, and from whose amber skin wafted English Leather cologne. The principal, Miss Augusta, asked the teacher to introduce himself. He said that his name was Mr. Suherman, that his father was a banker, that he'd grown up in London, and that he was a Muslim but was honored to be teaching in this Christian school.

After Assembly, Miss Augusta called Isaac into her tidy office and told him that since he'd already skipped two grades, they didn't want him to skip again, even though he could do high-school material. "You'll get ahead of your age group," she said, gazing at him with her left glass eye that saw all. She was the only black-skinned American Isaac knew, and he'd known her for as long as he could remember. Each year more of her crinkly hair turned gray. "So this year, we'll be assigning you special projects."

One of these projects was Esperanto, in one-on-one sessions with Mr. Suherman, as the language was one of the teacher's hobbies. Isaac, born and raised in Wonobo, Java, was already fluently trilingual in English, Indonesian, and Javanese. He didn't see why he should learn a new language, especially an artificial one, no matter what Mr. Suherman said about it being created in part to help bring the world together. But he did help Isaac with several complicated logarithmic problems that the math teacher Mr. Patter had given to Isaac ("The same type of problems occur in banking," Mr. Suherman said). Mr. Suherman was unfailingly courteous and polite, but when raucous Slobert threw spit wads during the first Indonesian culture lesson, one of two regular classes that Isaac attended with the seventh and eighth graders (the other being Bible study), Mr. Suherman's skin and voice seemed to shift as he softly scolded Slobert, revealing steel underneath the softness, the quiet but compelling authoritative aura that only the highest-born Javanese displayed. Slobert reddened but shut up.

The boarders ate lunch at the dorm, and the few day students ate bag lunches at picnic tables under the flame tree, but Isaac ate at home, meals prepared by the Williamses' housekeeper, Ruth, a Muslim widow who'd converted to Christianity. Each day that week as he trudged home for lunch, he detoured into the grove to have a look at the secret gate. He'd placed a small black thread in the crack; it remained in place, telling Isaac that whoever had made the gate was not using it.

On Saturday, after getting permission from his mother and leaving properly through the hospital gates, Isaac went with Ismail to search for treasure in the cane fields. They came up empty-handed, although the excitement of spotting a large python squeezing through a culvert more than made up for that. When they said their good-byes in the late afternoon, Ismail reminded Isaac of the dangdut show at the village square the next day. No way Isaac would be able to get permission for that, but he said, "I'll be there," thinking excitedly that at last he had a real reason to use the secret gate.

That evening Isaac's mother came into his room to tuck him in. "Remember to take out what you need from here tomorrow morning," she said to Isaac as she kissed his forehead. "Reverend Biggs will be here early."

Copyright © 2004 by Richard Lewis