Andrea ran as fast as her five-year-old legs could take her, up and up the steep craggy hill that led to her grandparents' house at the top. As she climbed, her sunhatted mother and younger sister shrunk to little more than dots on the road that looped around and up the back of the hill. If she hadn't been so focused on beating them to the top, she might have noticed.
The midday sun beat down relentlessly, and Andrea puffed and panted, trying to hold off that dry, burning sensation in her lungs and the feeling that at any moment her legs would give out. Finally they did.
Andrea collapsed on the closest boulder and shut her eyes for a moment's rest. Then a strange thing happened. Instead of feeling relieved and relaxed, the skin on her arms and legs turned to goose bumps and a wave of alarm ran up her spine and rippled through her body. From somewhere in the recesses of her mind came a command. Open your eyes!
There before her a large golden cobra rose to meet her eye to eye, swaying back and forth only a couple of feet from her face, gaze locked and posture menacing. Adrenaline-charged options ran through her mind. Do I scream? Do I duck down? Do I try to grab a stick or a rock? No, wait! Freeze like a statue! Isn't that what Dad said I should do if I ever ran into a snake?
The snake hissed. Andrea stood her ground and held perfectly still, but the snake didn't back down. Suddenly a second command broke through her fear. Run!
Without a second thought she whirled around and hurtled down the rocky embankment, her feet moving faster than she could think about where she would place them next. Was the snake pursuing her? She didn't dare look back. Several breathless minutes later, she reached the bottom of the hill and caught up with her mother and sister.
"What happened?" her mother asked.
The girl launched into an emotional, mixed-up account, still panting and groping for words.
At the house they found the rest of the family gathered for a birthday party--aunts and uncles, cousins and second cousins, grandparents, and siblings. The room fell silent and all eyes were on Andrea as she recounted what had happened.
When she had finished, conversation resumed, first a trickle and then a rush of jibber-jabber as everyone discussed the incident. An elderly aunt wondered if it was safe for children to play on the untamed property below the house. Another said that no snakes were out of their holes at that time of year. At the first voice of doubt, others jumped in. Some said the girl must have seen a stick that looked like a snake. Some of the older children teased her about the report of the "golden snake" and declared that they would scour the hillside and prove that there was no such thing.
Andrea didn't know which was worse, facing down a cobra or no one believing her when she told them of her harrowing experience. After the cross-examination, she was on the verge of tears.
Then her grandfather stood up. "Leave her alone," he said. "It's obvious that she's had a big scare today. I don't think anyone has any reason to doubt her story. Golden or otherwise, it's quite possible that there are snakes down there. Let's just be thankful she's safe." Grandfather had said his piece. The subject was closed. At least someone believed her.
A few weeks later, her grandfather was out on his deck, a beautiful balcony of wood and glass with a panoramic view of mountains and ocean that stretched out in all directions. As he watched the fluorescent glow of the sunset, something on the rocks below caught his eye. There, basking on rocks still warm from the afternoon sun, was a large golden-yellow snake that he immediately recognized as one of the deadliest snakes in southern Africa--or the world for that matter--a Cape Cobra.
"Of course I was delighted when my grandfather was able to validate my story," Andrea told me many years later. "He was never one to exaggerate, and everyone respected him. No one doubted me after that. But even more, I loved my grandfather for believing me even when nobody else did. To my five-year-old way of thinking, it was perfectly logical that he should be the one to actually see the cobra. Even then I understood that seeing is the reward of faith."
Saskia Smith is a member of the Family International in Taiwan.
