In the village of Wannabee, there lived a happy family. They included Chief Zicquo, his lovely wife Yaska, their eldest son Ziccko, their other son Zinon, and their youngest son Yesko. They also had two daughters, Lyla and little Maya.
Lyla was beautiful, as most girls were, but didn’t think of herself that way. While most girls wore their hair down but Lyla wore hers in long braids. Most girls picked wild flowers in their free time, Lyla shot her homemade bow and arrows at a nearby tree. Some girls would spend their whole day flirting, Lyla would ignore boys and mind her own business.
Every time her brothers and father would go hunting Lyla would say, “Please, let me go too.”

Ziccko would say “ You're too young.”

Zinnon would say “ You’re a girl, you’ll just slow us down.”

Yesko would just say “ Men hunt, women cook.”

Her gentle Papa would put his hand on her shoulder and say “ You can come hunting when you are completely ready,” He would look into her eyes and say, “ maybe next time.”
Next time never came. Lyla was stuck picking fruit from nearby bushes, and baking bread with Mami and Maya.

One night, Papi and the boys came back with no food at all except one skinny rabbit.
“The animals are migrating,” Papi explained. Mami said “Hopefully we’ll manage until they come back.”
Ziccko said “I’ll find food and show everyone that I’m a man!”
“The day you throw a spear straight is the day I turn into a monkey’s uncle” cracked Zinnon. “I’ll find the food”.
“No, me!” declared Yesko.
“Or me,” thought Lyla. “Maybe I’ll be taken seriously around here if I do.”

The boys continued arguing over who would get food until Mami sent them to bed. Lyla took Maya’s hand and led her into their small room. That night she dreamt of bringing home a magnificent buck and having everyone cheer for her. Her brothers would be astonished and her parents would be so proud.
The next morning Lyla wolfed down the rabbit stew that Mami had made.

“Slow down! You are going to choke,” Mami lectured.

Lyla placed her bowl on the counter and set off claiming she was going to play. She waited until her brother’s were far off into the forest hunting. She soon could no longer hear their constant bickering. As Lyla approached the forest, bow in hand and quiver on shoulders, she couldn’t help but shiver.

Papi had always said the forest was no place for any woman, much less a young girl. She wondered what monstrous animals could live there and then she remembered why she was there. Lyla wandered into the forest looking for any signs of life. Seeing only the occasional small mouse scurry across the woods, she was just about to give up when she saw a shadow move quickly in front of her. She ran after it, recognizing the figure of a buck.

As she ran, she grew tired and rested her hand against a tree to catch her breath. Her hand ran across the smooth bark and she noticed that she didn’t feel and ridges. She looked up at the tree and noticed that it was an old zomingo tree. Its’ lovely, wide branches were brimming with emerald green leaves. Its’ thick branches shaded her eyes against the brilliant sun overhead. Its’ pink and orange fruits were unlike any other.

When she was very small her father had come home with a small sack of zomingo fruit and she remembered it being sweeter and juicier than all the fruits she’d ever tasted combined. Then she heard a twig snap behind her and she spun around. There stood the buck from her dreams, with it’s amber coat and creamy colored chest. It did not see her, so she drew an arrow from her quiver and prepared to shoot.

Suddenly another twig snapped behind her, and she saw a beautiful doe and it’s young son. The buck went over and nuzzled it’s family. Lyla couldn’t shoot and take a father away from it’s child. She turned around and began to leave, but she stepped on one of the zomingo fruit. She had a better idea for food.

She gathered all the zomingo fruit she could carry and headed back home. She opened the door to the house and dumped the fruit on the table. Everyone gasped at the delicious fruit she had found. Her siblings applauded and her father called her “his good girl”. From that day on she would sneak into the forest and watch the deer under that old tree eating zomingo fruit.