Backpacks and Bra Straps (29 page)

Sensing that I was about to run off and try them on, Ammon said, “Oh, no way. Don’t you dare even think about modelling that in here while I’m around.”

Bree was especially particular when it came to things having to be fair so, to avoid any quarrels, she separated the candy into five Ziploc bags, even going so far as to cut the last gummy bears in pieces to even out the bags. It felt like we were in heaven to have all the great stuff from home that we’d so dearly missed.

“I know Steph doesn’t realize how important this candy is to us right now, but she will in a few days,” I said, savouring my bag of treats.

The grungy room she shared with us was a windowless, dank, hole but it was all for us – just Bree, Steph, and me. Having spent a week here already as we waited for Steph to arrive, it already felt like home and we girls were going to have the best slumber party ever!

As soon as Mom and Ammon left to go to their room, Steph turned to me. “So, tell me about Grady.”

I glared at Bree and, through clenched teeth, asked, “You told her? I knew I shouldn’t have trusted you not to open your big fat mouth.” I’d confessed my crush to Bree only a couple of days ago when Mom had left us behind for the day to go sightseeing with Ammon. Since we’d arrived in the capital, where Internet cafes were accessible and cheap, I’d spent hours and hours online with Grady almost every day. I would have burst if I hadn’t told someone. There was no way I could hold it in when Bree started prying, as only Bree can do – it wouldn’t have surprised me if she had already snooped through my stuff and seen the endless hearts with ‘G+S’ and ‘Savannah Jones’ written in my journal.

“Oh, we all knew anyway,” Steph barged in.

“Knew what? There’s nothing going on.”

“That you like him, duh!” I was a terrible liar at the best of times, and the deep blush I felt creeping up my cheeks couldn’t be blamed on the heat. I’d liked Grady for years, but we’d grown a lot closer lately (which was a bit ironic, given how far apart we were physically). I’d begun to wonder if anybody even noticed my absence until Grady started writing. Terri had been writing less and less, not because she didn’t care or still love me, but because high school and her other friends took a lot of her time and she’d sort of run out of things to say. Grady and I essentially became pen pals, waiting for each other online and talking every day that I could get online.

He was genuinely interested in what I had to say. If I didn’t come online, he would email to ask how I was and what kinds of adventures I was getting into next. I told him about my worries, hopes, and dreams, and he was amused by my struggles when I described our family dramas, long bus rides, and days without showers. When I told him about having to poo on the side of the highway in broad daylight, he burst out laughing. When Grady helped me see the comical side of my dilemmas, I couldn’t resist laughing, too.

He told me that he wanted to travel and wished he could be experiencing it with us. Having just graduated from high school like Stephanie, he’d gotten a job and said he wanted to save up to join us too. Oh, how I hoped he would. Grady showed me how lucky I was to be given the opportunity to travel the world with my family. He pointed out that I should take advantage of those moments and treasure every sight and smell. With his eye for detail and his naturally artistic nature, he was very convincing. He filled that empty hole of loneliness and homesickness, and he always seemed to be there for me. I’d never felt more important to anyone, and I was really happy about how close we were getting.

Once the girls had gotten it out of me that I liked him – heck, that I might even love him – the dam was open. My feelings for him flooded out endlessly, surprising even me, but it was a relief to be able to jump up and down on the bed and admit that I wanted him after holding it in for so long.

But then came the next problem. Did he feel the same way? And if so, how was I ever going to be with him when I was all the way over here? For three whole years I’d been crazy about him, and now that there might be a chance for us, I was on the other side of the blasphemous planet.

“He is a really sweet guy. I already kind of talked to him on MSN,” Stephanie admitted. “I asked him if he liked you–”

“No! You did not!” I gasped and slapped my hand over my mouth.

“Shhh, shhh,” she said, putting up a hand to calm me as I reached for a dirty, terribly flat pillow to hug and hide under. “And he said something along the lines of, ‘Yeah, we’ll see what happens when she gets back’.” She made a waving ‘tada’ motion, as if to say, “See? No worries.”

“No… Did he really say that?” I fell flat onto my back daydreaming, oblivious to the cobwebs and the water-stained ceiling.

“Yes, he really did.” I wasn’t sure if I wanted to allow myself to believe Steph’s story. I couldn’t stop thinking it over from a hundred different angles.
Hmmmm… ‘We’ll see what happens’. Like, as in, he might consider me as more than just a friend?

“He knew what you were asking, right? Like, if he ‘like’ likes me?” I was doing a poor job of hiding my excitement.

“Of course he did. He’d be an idiot not to be crazy about you. Look at what you’re doing. You are way more interesting than those bimbos at home,” Steph said, and I was surprised to hear that being a bimbo was something she would criticize other girls for.

“I’m just going to come right out and ask him,” Bree said impatiently. “He’s my best friend. He’ll tell me.”

“No, no don’t. What if…?”

“I already told you,” Bree said, rolling her eyes at my lack of faith. “The answer won’t be no.”

Slowly leaning back against the cold concrete wall and squeezing the grey pillow in my arms, I thought,
We’ll see, Grady, we’ll see.
In a swirl of both fear and excitement, the butterflies in my stomach were practically flying out of my mouth.

Flying High
35

T
wo days later we woke up at 6:00 a.m. to catch an early taxi back to Kathmandu’s airport. We were about to start the much-anticipated trek to Everest Base Camp. Getting through airport security involved a vigorous frisking. Luckily the examination lines were separated by gender, but having my freshly grown boobs fondled by anyone was enough to get my heart racing. I looked behind me just in time to see Stephanie’s eyes pop as the woman reached between her legs and made her jump.

“What was all that about?” I asked, straightening my shirt.

“I’m not sure, but I don’t want to tell you what just happened to my junk,” Ammon said. “My guess is that they’ve added extra security because the Maoist rebels have been acting up. In any case, I’m glad that part is over.”

“Okay, everyone. Time to take one of these,” Mom said, cracking out the pills. “It should be spectacular in the Himalayan Mountains. But we’re heading for what will probably – well actually, make that definitely – be our toughest challenge yet.”

“Ummmm, Maggie? What’s that you’re feeding us?” Steph asked with a curious smile. “Is this to get over that recent trauma?”

“Oh c’mon, you know you liked it,” Ammon teased.

“Oh, ha ha,” Mom laughed, looking down at her handful of pills. “It’s gingko, a natural herb to help prevent altitude sickness. We took them when we went over the high passes in Tibet, and we’ve been taking them for the last few days to help us adjust to this next hike. So far, they seem to work pretty well. Ammon came down with a mild case of altitude sickness, but the rest of us did fine.”

We’d bought plane tickets from one of the many travel companies in our neighbourhood. The one-way, thirty-five-minute flight from Kathmandu to Lukla, the kickoff point for Everest’s trekking route, cost us about ninety US dollars each. Apart from our initial six hundred dollar flights to where we started in Hong Kong and our hundred dollar Russian visas, this was our biggest expense yet.

It wasn’t long before we heard our boarding call, and a small tram took us to where we boarded from the tarmac – a new experience for me. We handed our two big backpacks over to be loaded in the under compartment of the small green-and-white Twin Otter and climbed up the rusty metal stairs. As I ducked down to get in, I saw that its small compartment had nineteen squishy passenger seats. It smelled faintly of petrol and the rickety plane reminded me of my first-ever airplane ride.

As part of the family tour business my parents had owned before we set out on this adventure, skydiving was one of the many activities we offered to ESL students coming to Vancouver from all over the world. I’d been watching Japanese students jump from planes since I was five years old. Because we brought so much business to the small, family-owned and operated drop zone, they offered our family free jumps and lessons.

I was thirteen and Steph and Bree were sixteen when we decided it was finally our turn to take the long-awaited plunge. It was a gorgeous fall day with an inviting blue sky, and when the three o’clock bell rang to release us from another boring day of high school, we invited Terri to join us. She had to decline because we couldn’t give her enough notice to get permission from her dad, so Bree decided to call Grady.

“Hey. Wanna go skydiving?” Bree’d asked over speakerphone.

“Yeah, sure. That sounds like fun. When?” Grady asked.

“Right now! Be on the street in ten minutes with two hundred bucks and a permission note from your Mom.”

“Umm… Okay, but my mom’s not actually home. Do you think it’d be okay if my aunt signed?” Ten minutes later we did a drive by and threw him in our van.

Bree and Steph were inseparable friends even then and naturally went up together in the first load. Only two tandem jumpers fit in each plane, so I’d had my secret crush all to myself. The tiny four-passenger plane had no seats; we sat side-by-side on the floor in the back, strapped securely to our instructors with our knees tucked up to our chests. The plastic door flap was rolled up even during takeoff, and the engine roared and wind blew fiercely as the short runway blurred beneath us. Sitting on the ledge beside the open door, I watched as the ground became smaller and smaller – how absolutely exhilarating that was. I couldn’t believe I was going to jump out of the first plane I’d ever climbed into.

The instructor began tightening our harnesses together and signalled me to shuffle my feet toward the door, where the wind nearly sucked me out. Inching closer to the ledge, about to willingly fall from the sky at two hundred kilometres an hour (120 mph), I suddenly panicked at the thought that, if I died that day, Grady would never know how I felt about him. Just in time, I turned and shouted as loud as I could over my shoulder and over the roaring of the engine, “I LOVE YOU!”

Then the whole world flew out from beneath my feet and I screamed with the joy and excitement of jumping and of having finally confessed my love to him. But that foolish, spontaneous act used up all the oxygen in my lungs. The high speeds and the thin air whipping past my face made it almost impossible to catch my breath again, and the wind blew tears into my ears. The earth below was a series of miniature golden cornfields cut into neat squares and patches, testing my grip on reality.

I wondered if Grady’d heard. Even if he had, would he have taken it seriously? He never said anything after the jump. Come to think of it, neither did my tandem master, whose face was inches from mine all the way down.

Two years later, here we were – Steph, Bree and I, three of the four who’d gone up in those planes together – in another tiny passenger plane about to fly over the Himalayan mountain range. The takeoff was really wobbly, and the propellers whined from the power of the engine as the flimsy tail swayed with every gust of wind. Despite this being the start of another new adventure, I couldn’t help thinking about being cut off from the Internet, and I desperately wished the fourth member of our original sky-diving party were here. I imagined my little MSN icon, sitting there stagnant and red, reading, ‘Savannah appears offline” for a whole two weeks. There was no way to grab him and keep him. I was like a bird’s song in springtime that’s been silenced. He could hear me, but he wasn’t able to hold me. I was afraid that he’d find another girl who was prettier and much more accessible.

Something positive came out of all that angst, though. The more I had Grady on my mind and involved in my journey, the less I missed home or dwelled on what I’d lost. Those longings were replaced by dreaming about sharing this kind of travel moment with him. I really hoped he’d be able to save enough money to come and see the world with me – ASAP. Maybe in India?

We were soaring over the most breathtaking mountain range I’d ever seen, flying amongst the tropical canyons and narrow gullies on a very intimate level. Rising through the white clouds and emerging so close to the tops of the mountains made me feel like Indiana Jones on the verge of a great adventure. My jaw slackened; I was both completely entranced and blown away by the view out the window. Only the deafening engine and mechanical smells kept me grounded.

“This is amazing. Will we see Everest from here?” Bree asked, her nose stuck to the small window. “Is that Everest?”

“Not quite, Bree,” Ammon laughed.

“So, then, what are the highest mountains after Everest?” Steph asked. Ammon paused long enough to give me a chance to answer her question.

“After Everest is K2, and then the rest of the list, from three to ten, are all in the Himalayan range,” I told her. “Oh, and K2 is in Pakistan.”

“And Kilimanjaro. That’s in Africa,” Steph said.

We’d been talking about the possibility of maybe seeing Africa one day, so I’d done some reading about Africa’s mountains. “Yep. Kili isn’t one of the highest in the world, but it is the highest free-standing mountain in the world and the highest in Africa. So that’s pretty cool. Reaching, how high was it again, Ammon?”

“Something like five thousand, eight hundred and ninety-five metres, so twenty thousand feet,” he said.

“I think that’d be really cool to see. I’d love to go on safari,” Steph said. “What’s the capital of Africa, again?” Ammon’s eyes popped even more than Bree had ever caused them to, and he was momentarily left completely speechless, but he somehow managed to say, ever so slowly, “Ummm… Africa is a continent, Steph. It has more than fifty countries, and each one of them has its own capital city.”

Lukla’s airport is notorious for being the world’s third most dangerous, because high winds and cloud cover significantly affects flying safety. Drastically changing visibility in the mountains often results in delays, cancelled flights, or the airport being shut down entirely. Luckily, we were flying on a spectacularly clear day, suspended between brilliant blues and blissful greens.

Leaning into the aisle, I could see straight into the cockpit and out through the windshield. We were approaching the mountainside’s short, uphill runway. Rocking slightly as the pilot precisely adjusted our alignment, the nose of the plane tilted down and we went for it. The axel of the fastened wheels seemed to bend as we bounced on impact and came to a rapid halt. Relieved passengers heaved unconscious sighs of relief in unison. As I peeled my fingers off the seat in front of me, the worn headrests made a lot more sense– the torn fabric was beginning to look like someone had been trying to get a grip by gnawing on it.

“I wasn’t expecting that, but it sure was great.” Mom smiled.

Once the pilot had dropped the cabin door down into a short staircase so we could exit onto the tarmac, Ammon filled us in. “So before we go anywhere, this is Lukla, the starting point for trekking to E.B.C. (Everest Base Camp). Sir Edmund Hillary, from New Zealand, and his local Sherpa guide were the first climbers to reach the summit of Mount Everest–”

“So what exactly is a Sherpa, then?” I asked.

“It’s a porter. I read up about it,” Steph said.

“Yes, but not quite,” Ammon said. “Today, that’s a slang term used more by foreigners to refer to pretty much any paid guide or porter working here. But Sherpas are actually an ethnic group from the most mountainous regions of Nepal. They’ve been living in these high altitudes and rough terrain for generations, so they are biologically conditioned to be great porters. They are a bit like mountain goats that way, and are capable of handling the intense labour required to do that difficult job. They were immensely valuable to early explorers of the Himalayan region, especially for expeditions to climb Mount Everest. And honestly, they get far too little credit. Did you know that Sir Edmund Hillary was knighted for being the first person to ever summit Everest? I think it’s his face on the New Zealand five-dollar note, too. But have you ever heard of Tenzing Norgay?”

“Ummm, no,” I admitted.

“He was Sir Hillary’s Sherpa, who summited Everest with him.”

As I beheld the exact same lands where those adventures had taken place, I imagined myself climbing right along with them. But we were going to do more than imagine it; ultimately, we would be standing in the same place where they had embarked on their renowned ascent up the famous mountain. First, though, we had to find ourselves a pair of Sherpas. This part of the trip felt a bit like a quest-style video game, where we needed to collect supplies and attain certain powers and characters. Everything was simply done and well set up in Kathmandu for buying or renting hiking equipment. Anything you needed was available there, from oxygen tanks to hiking poles to jackets, from booking flights to pre-booking Sherpa guides and porters. The only downside was the big commissions charged by the companies who arranged the bookings. Ammon had read that, for half the price, you could hire and choose your own Sherpa guide directly in Lukla.

All around the town of Lukla, big blue signs, hand-painted with white script, encouraged trekkers to support the Sherpa community: ‘Porters are the backbone of Nepal. Hire them. Treat them well’, ‘Hire a Porter. Hire a friend’.

“As planned, we made it here by late September, so we’re well ahead of the main trekking rush. Plus, with the Maoists acting up and the warnings against coming to Nepal right now, it will probably be a slow tourist season.