Frog in a Coconut Shell

Yusof and his family lived in Kampong Laut, meaning sea village, a kampong of tiny, brown wooden houses, all standing on stilts and clustered right down to the edge of the pale golden sands on the east coast of Malaya. Most of the men in Kampong Laut were fishermen and life was simple but good. Yusof's family teased him by calling him Yusof the Dreamer and they were right, for when he lay on his sleeping mat at night it was to dream of great Malay warriors, and pirates, and bloody fights in which he fought the enemy with his grandfather's kris, the traditional sword.