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Sofi couldn't sleep.
It was her first night in Samoa and everything felt strange.
The old wooden bed was high off the ground, with its legs sitting in spaghetti tins full of water to keep the ants away. The mattress with its kapok stuffing was soft and fluffy. Outside, the moon was shining, and its light poured into the thatched fale. There were no curtains. There were no walls.
And it was so hot!
Sofi puffed up her pillow with its brightly coloured appliqué and shifted it to the other end of the bed. It was cooler there. She reached for the comic her Dad had bought her at Auckland airport. The moon was as bright as torchlight as she lifted herself up on one elbow to read.
She was thirsty. She pulled the mosquito net out from the mattress and stepped carefully over the sleeping 'ãiga on their floor mats.
Carefully she poured herself a drink from a covered bowl of water in the back room. She thought about the delicious, cool coconut juice which she'd drunk when she arrived at the fale. Would she ever learn how to open a coconut for herself?
Sofi tiptoed quietly back to the sleeping room. She stood and looked at her aunties and cousins. They were all lying on mats, covered with sheets. She climbed up onto the mattress and tried to tuck the mosquito net under it as Grandma had done.
Then she pulled the sheet up to her neck and tried to get back to sleep. She could hear the waves down on the beach, and the trees rustling their leaves. And what was that other noise? An owl? She'd always imagined that it would be quiet in Samoa at night.
She had just closed her eyes when she heard a new noise. A buzzy noise. It grew louder and louder.
A mosquito. She pulled the sheet higher over her head, but the noise was still there. And now she was too hot.
Sofi wondered what time it was at home. Were Mum and Dad in bed yet? Suddenly the night seemed very dark. She started to cry. Tears flowed down her cheeks, and she turned over and sobbed into her pillow.
All of a sudden she felt warm, soft arms lifting her up. "Don't cry, Sofi. Grandma's here."
"I want to go home. I want Mummy." Sofi sobbed into the warmth of her grandma's lavalava.
"You come and sleep with me," said Grandma.
Grandma pulled a sleeping mat out from under the kapok mattress and laid it beside her own mat, with the mattress, pillow, and sheet on top. She tied the laces of the mosquito net to a wire running from the roof of the fale. Then she crawled in beside Sofi and tucked the net under the mattress to keep it tight.
"See. You are a real Samoan Sofi, sleeping on the floor with your grandma." Grandma massaged Sofi's body gently. "Now you close your eyes, and try to go to sleep."
Sofi could smell the perfume on Grandma's soft fingers as they stroked her face. Grandma hummed a tune. Sofi thought she was back in her mother's rocking chair, gently rocking back and forth. Back and forth.
At last, she fell into the deep sleep she'd been waiting for all night.
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