Eye of the Forest by P. B. Kerr

explanation. “Like this. Yes?”
    “You’re joking,” she said.
    “I’m afraid he’s not,” said Mr. Vodyannoy, lighting his pipe.
    “I’m not joking,” said Sicky. “It’s a very old Inca recipe. Very old. Good, huh?”
    Philippa smiled politely. “And do you buy the
chichai
in bottles?” she asked. “From a supermarket?”
    “No, Muddy makes it himself,” said Sicky.
    “So, let me get this straight.” John’s inquiry was sadistic and meant entirely for the effect it might have on Zadie and Groanin. “This
chichai
is homemade. Muddy makes it with his own spit, right, Muddy?”
    Muddy stopped playing his guitar and, standing up, took a bow as if proud to acknowledge the true origin of the spit in the
chichai.
He wasn’t much taller than about five feet and, standing up, was no bigger than Sicky sitting down. But he had a big heart.
    “My own spit, yes,” said Muddy, and spat into the bushes as if he was keen to add some further evidence to what he had alleged. “I like to spit. I can spit pretty good, too. I can spit maybe thirty feet and hit what I aim at.”
    “There’s not a man in the whole of South America who spits better or more than Muddy,” said Sicky.
    Groanin got up and left the table quietly.
    “Oh, dear,” said Nimrod. “Poor Groanin. Perhaps I should have told him before he got the taste for it. He’s had several large glasses of the stuff.”
    “Delicious,” said Mr. Vodyannoy, and drained his glass.
    “Can we talk about something else?” said Zadie. She was clutching her stomach in horror and feeling too nauseous to follow the butler into the bushes, where he was already throwing up loudly.
    But John wasn’t about to let this subject go. Not yet. “About how much of your own spit do you need, Sicky?” he asked. “To make, say, a gallon of this stuff.”
    Sicky nodded and dribbled several mouthfuls of saliva into his empty glass. “About this much,” he said, holding up several inches of thick yellow saliva. “For the
chichai.
More for the
holy chichai.”
    “Please, if you don’t mind, John,” said Zadie. “I really think we’ve heard enough.” And thinking John and Muddy would only be diverted from the disgusting subject of
chichai
if she provided another topic of conversation, she smiled brightly and said, “So, Sicky. How come your head’s so small? And how did you come by all these weird pieces of string in your lips? Did you sew them in yourself?”
    Philippa gasped that anyone could ask such a direct question to such an obviously afflicted person. But Sicky didn’t mind. He was used to it.
    “I am a Prozuanaci Indian,” said Sicky. “The Prozuanaci are old enemies of the Xuanaci Indians. The Xuanaci are plenty more savage, plenty more uncivilized than we are. Thecountry they inhabit is plenty inhospitable, too, with no tracks through very dense jungle, and they are seldom seen by anyone. Which is just as well. Anyway, plenty long time ago, when I wasn’t much older or bigger than the boy, I was captured by Xuanaci Indians. Except for my young age, they would have cut off my head as a war trophy. What they call a
tzantza.
Instead, to humiliate me and always make me be reminded of how they had captured me, they decided to shrink my head while it was still on my shoulders. Something that we Peruvians call
pernocabeza.”
    “But surely that’s impossible,” said Philippa.
    “Not for the Xuanaci. The Xuanaci know plenty things about taking and shrinking human heads as trophies. First of all, they tied me up tight and sucked the fat out of my face with little straws. Then they shaved my head and painted it with special oil from a rare plant that grows only in the Amazon, and which is known only to the Xuanaci. Then they made me lie with my head in a bucket of other secret herbs and hot sand for many weeks, drying it out before painting it again with the special oil, and drying it once more. And always they kept sucking the fat from my