Kalahari (18 page)

M
iranda yelled for everyone to hide. It took me a moment to realize what was going on, but then I saw it: low and ominous and black, hovering over the savanna like a giant dragonfly. I could just make out the faint
chop chop
of its rotors.

I didn’t think it had seen us yet, because it was moving slowly, sweeping back and forth in a methodical pattern that would spell disaster for us if we didn’t find somewhere to hide. The problem was, the trees and bushes around us were mostly bare and offered no good cover. The chopper was so low that its occupants would have no trouble spotting us, even if we were crouched under the foliage.

I looked around frantically, trying to find a solution, walking back and forth as the others peppered me with questions.

“What do we do?”

“Should we run?

“Sarah? It’s getting closer!”

My feet found the answer before my brain did. I hadn’t noticed the network of holes until I tripped over one, landing awkwardly on my hands and knees in the sand. I froze, blinking at the hole, as I weighed the dangers underground against the dangers above it. It took less than a second to decide which was more likely to kill us.

“Over here!” I said, waving. “We can hide in these holes.”

The others stared at them, doubt plain on their faces.

“How are we supposed to fit?” Avani pointed out.

“The openings are small, but crawl in a few feet and you’ll find a somewhat bigger chamber where the—” The roar of the helicopter began to drown out my voice. “Never mind! No time!”

It was Sam who stepped forward first.

“I hope you know what you’re doing,” he said to me.

He started to kneel down at the hole, but I held up a hand.

“Wait.” I studied the ground around it, noting the aardvark tracks, the sliding marks of porcupine quills, and a lot of warthog hoofprints.

“Hurry . . .” Sam muttered, shifting from foot to foot and eyeing the approaching chopper.

The aardvarks dug these holes, but they were used by many creatures as hiding places. Diving in without first checking to see if the hole had any residents was just asking for trouble. I didn’t want any of us to come face-to-face with an angry mother warthog three feet underground with nowhere to run. After confirming that all the tracks that led
in
also led
out
, indicating the hole was deserted, I stepped back.

“All clear. Hurry.”

He drew a deep breath and shimmied into the hole. I knew his cuts had to be stinging him, but he didn’t complain.

Without waiting to see his legs and feet disappear into the ground, I turned to the others. “There are holes all around here. I can’t check each one, so you’ll have to do it. Look for tracks leading
in
but not
out
. That’ll tell you if they’re still in there.”

“I can’t tell that from a few scuffs in the sand!” Miranda protested. “You check it for me.”

I cast an anxious look at the chopper. It was only getting closer, and we had less than a minute before it was right on top of us. Then we’d have no chance at all.

“Avani, can you read the tracks?”

She nodded uncertainly. “I think so.”

“Good. Take Joey and go. I’ll take Miranda and Kase.”

We split up, searching for more holes. Kase found one and I checked it, and then he kissed Miranda swiftly before diving inside.

“Your turn,” I said when we reached the next hole.

Miranda looked ready to cry. “I can’t do this,” she said.

“Sure you can. The Bushmen did it all the time, when they were hunting.”

“Have you done it before?”

“Loads of times,” I lied. “Miranda, they’re almost here.”

“I can hide under a bush or something!”

“They’ll see! And if they find you, they find the rest of us.” I resisted the urge to grab her shoulders and shake her. Why couldn’t she understand that the humans in that chopper posed a far greater threat than any critters underground? The sound of the chopper was almost deafening now, drowning out all other noise. For all I knew, they’d already spotted us. We were bent low and dressed in camouflaging khaki, so I thought we might have a chance still, but I didn’t want to risk it any further.

“Miranda,” I said, looking her in the eye, “if they see you, they’ll kill you. And then they’ll kill Kase. Do it for him.”

That must have struck a chord, because she nodded and squared her shoulders.

Dizzy with relief, I watched her wiggle into the narrow opening, and once her top half had disappeared, I sprinted to the next hole.

There was no time to check the tracks. I just had to hope for the best.

I crawled as fast as I could, knocking loose so much sand that I was afraid I’d collapse the tunnel and bury myself, but somehow it held. I choked on the sand, shut my eyes against it, and crawled blind. The space was so narrow that I had to wriggle on my belly like a snake, my hands stretched in front of me. I had no idea if my whole body was concealed or if my legs were hanging out for the guys in the helicopter to see. Half expecting someone to grab my ankles and pull me backward, I pressed on, feeling roots snatch at my face and hair.

The walls around me began to open, and I wiped the sand from my eyes so that I could look around. I’d found the small cave that had been dug out by aardvarks and the other furry residents who had used this space, creating a chamber just large enough for me to turn around in if I needed to. It was dark and dusty. Only the faintest bit of light trickled in from the mouth of the tunnel. I guessed I was about three feet underground, not very deep, but deep enough to hide me from the eyes in the sky.

I stopped crawling and lay very still, listening to the sound of my heart and my breath. Together they were almost as cacophonous as the chopper had been; the aircraft was still roaring above, but it was muffled. I couldn’t tell if it was right above me or already moving off. I wouldn’t make a move until it was completely silent.

Shutting my eyes, I tried to distract myself by summoning a pleasant memory. I went back ten years, to a sleepy village in Bangladesh. We’d lived there for a year before moving deeper into the jungles in search of tigers, and I’d attended the tiny school with the Bangladeshi children. It was one of the few times I could remember making real friends with kids my own age. At the end of the year, we’d moved on and I’d cried as we loaded our belongings onto the backs of the elephants and walked into the jungle. My mom picked me up and let me ride on one of the elephants, right behind the huge flapping ears that the villagers had decorated with earrings and paint, and she told me that it was okay to cry for the friends I’d left behind, if only I promised to smile when I was done and be glad for the time I’d had with them. I realized this memory had come to my mind because my mom’s words seemed to echo what Sam had said.

In the darkness of my tiny hideout, covered with sand and roots, I smiled.

I could almost hear my mom whispering in my ear, soft and sibilant, like a . . .

Snake.

My eyes snapped open and my mind focused intently on the present.

I was not alone in this hole.

The hissing grew louder, and though I couldn’t see it, I knew the snake was in front of me, slithering toward my face. My hands were at my sides but I didn’t dare move them, didn’t dare breathe, didn’t dare
blink.

The slightest movement could incite the snake to strike, and if it was a black mamba or a puff adder or a Cape cobra—all distressingly likely cases—then I was dead. No negotiation, no magical Bushman cure, no 9-1-1
call. I wouldn’t live to see the sunset.

I held my breath and went so still I swear my heart stopped beating altogether. I might have been a corpse already for all the life I displayed.

The snake’s hissing was my only indication of its position, and even as my other senses shut down, my ears sharped, honing in on the sound.

It moved past my left ear.
Ssssss
, soft as silk over glass.

I felt its tongue flicker across my neck and my stomach heaved, bile rushing up my throat. I didn’t move. I didn’t scream. I didn’t even think. I just waited.

I was blocking the snake’s exit, but that didn’t discourage it. It simply chose to go
over
me.

Cold, smooth scales slid across the back of my neck. I could feel the muscles beneath them working, bunching and releasing, taut and strong and smooth as liquid.

Not inside my shirt, not inside my shirt, not inside my—

It slithered under my collar and across my bare back, and I have no idea how my eyes didn’t pop out of my head then and there. They were so wide they ached, but I couldn’t shut them out of pure horror.

This snake was
big
. Seven or eight feet, I guessed, which meant it wasn’t a puff adder or a Cape cobra. Most likely it was a mamba. Maybe it was even the same mamba that had slithered through our camp two nights before.

Of course, black mamba was the worst possible option. One bite held enough venom to kill twelve men in under an hour. At least a puff adder’s poison would give me a chance to crawl out of this hole and die with the sunlight on my face.

Thankfully my shirt was untucked, so the snake didn’t get trapped inside. It slithered out the other end and worked its way down my leg, over my pants, which were scrunched up to my knees from crawling, and my bare calves. It moved slowly, unhurried, which was good because it meant it wasn’t alarmed by me, and which was bad because it took it
ages
to traverse my length.

By the time its head reached my ankle and slid off onto the sand, the tail was just slipping inside my collar. I endured in silence, barely aware of the tears burning in my unblinking eyes.

Then finally, blessedly, I felt the tip of the tail slide over my leg and into the sand, and I was almost free. I’d stopped listening for the helicopter and now I turned my hearing back to the world above.

Silence.

It had moved on, and we were safe for another few hours. I didn’t relax quite yet, not until I was sure my way back would be clear.

Gradually my other senses reawakened. I blinked, and the tears that had been balancing on my lashes fell down my cheeks. I tasted blood; I must have been biting my lip the whole time. A slow, cold shudder worked its way down my body, from head to toes, and still I waited another few long minutes while the others searched for me aboveground, calling my name over and over with increasing panic.

At last, I began maneuvering myself around in the tiny chamber.

I crawled out at a snail’s pace: I wasn’t taking any chances surprising the snake from behind. As I neared the tunnel’s exit and the light strengthened, I could make out the long, thin track the reptile had left behind. Seeing it made me shudder all over again.

Sam was the first person to spot me as I peeped out of the ground. He ran to me and helped me out.

“You okay?” he asked. “We thought maybe they’d grabbed you. What took you so long?”

“Snake,” I gasped.

Now that I was on my feet, I was trembling, on the verge of throwing up. I bent over and put my hands on my knees, sucking in air as greedily as I had when I’d emerged from the underground lake.

After a moment, I was able to recount what had happened. They made faces of disgust at the story, but I don’t think any of them could understand just how horrible it had been.

“We’re safe,” said Sam. “That’s the important thing.”

“Yeah,” I replied, my voice still shaking. “No problem.”

He cocked his head. “You’ve, uh, got some dirt on your face.”

I wiped at my cheeks, but he shook his head. “Here.”

Gently, he brushed the pad of his thumb over my eyebrow and temple. I shut my eyes, letting his touch steady me, even as it sent a nervous thrill shivering over my skin.

“Better,” he murmured. “Can you keep going?”

I nodded, dazed, starting forward, and picked up the elephant tracks once more. Avani caught my eyes, raising her eyebrows and pursing her lips smugly. I gave her a quick defensive look before striding past her, ignoring her soft laugh.

T
he encounter with the helicopter left me shaken and paranoid. Now I mistook every bird I saw in the sky for the approaching chopper. Any hopes of Abramo forgetting about us were vaporized, and the grim desperation of our cross-country journey left my stomach in knots.

We walked until the elephant tracks led us to a fat, lone baobab tree. A small troop of bored-looking baboons was lounging in the branches. They perked up as we approached.

I grinned. It was about time we had a win. “If there’s still fruit in the tree, we can eat it. And if there are baboons, there must be water nearby. Spread out and look for it, but please,
please
watch out for snakes and elephants and lions.” I paused, then added, “In fact, just watch out for
everything
.” Better to be on the safe side.

They scattered through the grass, each of them moving with hyperawareness. I went to the tree and eyed the baboons.

There was fruit all right. The baboons had it, and I wanted it. Baobab fruit is not only delicious; it’s a superfruit, packed with all kinds of vitamins and iron and carbs that our bodies desperately needed after meager meals of grass seeds and
bi
root. If I could get my hands on some of the fruits and if the others found the water source, then we’d have ourselves a Kalahari feast.

But there was the problem of the baboons.

After a bit of hunting, I found a termite mound and broke off a piece of it. The dried dirt was nearly as hard as rock. I went back to the tree and picked out the baboon on the lowest branch. It was a male, and he was holding a beautiful whole fruit the size of a melon. I was salivating just looking at it.

I tossed the dried mud in my hand, then pulled my arm back and threw it with all my strength. The time I’d spent playing cricket with the kids in Bangladesh had given me a strong right arm and good aim, and the clump struck the branch the baboon was sitting on. He jumped up with a shriek, showing me his long, yellow teeth. Then he chucked the fruit at me.

I had to dodge aside to avoid being hit, and I shot the baboon a startled look. His aim was impressively accurate.

With a laugh of triumph, I picked up the fruit and bowed to the monkey. “Thank you,” I called out. “Much appreciated.”

“Talking to monkeys, I see,” said Joey.

I turned around to find him twirling a finger beside his temple. He added, “Looks like someone’s had one too many swallows of root juice.”

Indignantly, I threw the fruit at him. He caught it against his stomach like a football and grunted, wincing a little.

“You’re welcome,” I said. “Now are you going to help me?”

“You mean you want me to throw rocks at a bunch of monkeys in a tree in order to compete for food and prove that I, man, am the superior species?
Chica
,” he said, clicking his tongue, “I’ve been waiting for an opportunity like this my whole life. Uh . . . they won’t, like,
attack
, will they?”

“Unlikely. There are only six of them, and we’re bigger. And look—their male is scrawny and young. He won’t mess with us.”

We gathered an armful of chunky dried mud from the termite mound and spent the next ten minutes lobbing the pieces at the monkeys. My mom would have been horrified to see such wanton zoological warfare, but the baboons were giving as good as they got, and twice I was struck by flying fruit. It was astonishing how quickly hunger could change you, making you forget the high ideals you’d once lived by. Only the fed could afford morals. Out here, it was jungle law: eat or be eaten. The strong survive; the weak become prey.

By this time, the rest of the our group had joined in with gusto. At some point it turned into a contest to see who could elicit the most fruits from the irritated baboons. I was in the lead but Joey was close behind. He had wicked aim. Miranda and Sam weren’t half bad either, but all of Avani’s and Kase’s throws went wide.

Soon the baboons ran out of missiles and resorted to screaming at us and baring their teeth, and I called a stop to our little war.

Victorious, we carried our hard-won spoils a short distance away, where Miranda proudly showed us the water she’d found. It was in a wide pan of hard-packed sand and mud that, when the rainy season came, would be flooded to the brim. The water that was there was left over from the last season, so it had probably been sitting for months and there wasn’t much left. The sand around the pool was riddled with all kinds of tracks: lions, hyenas, leopards, wild dogs, aardwolves, hartebeests, zebra, and the wide, wrinkly prints the size of my head that belonged to our lone elephant.

Joey made an immediate dash for the water, but I called for him to stop.

“That water’s been sitting there for months,” I said. “And hundreds of animals have been walking through it, slurping from it, and defecating around it.”

Joey giggled. “You said
defecating
.”

I lifted my eyes skyward and dug very, very deep for a scrap of patience. “The water must be boiled before we can drink it.”

“We should do it now,” said Miranda. “We can fan the smoke to keep it from giving away our location.”

Everyone stared at her.

“What?” she said, shrugging. “I can have ideas too.”

“And good ones,” I said. “Let’s do it. Make a fire now, then let it die, and keep the embers going through the night. It’ll still be pretty cold, though.”

We devoured the fruits we’d won in our battle with the baboons, relishing the tangy flavor, and filled the shells with water. After fifteen minutes of blistering my hands by rubbing one stick into the other, I placed the shells around the fire, near enough to heat the water but not so close that they caught flame. While we waited for the water to boil, we sat and stared at the shells like jackals waiting for a lion to finish its meal so we could sweep in and grab the leftovers. We took turns fanning the smoke with a branch in an attempt to dissipate it. Otherwise, it might as well have been fireworks that spelled
We’re over here!
for Abramo to follow.

Finally, I pronounced the water safe to drink. It was still brownish, but at least any bacteria in it would be harmless now. Infused with the taste of the fruit from the shells, the water actually tasted like a strong citrusy tea. None of us waited for it to cool before gulping it down.

“Baobab,” said Joey suddenly. “
Baobab
. Funny word.” He said it again, drawing out the syllables in a deep, rotund voice, and then he began to sing it to the tune of a song even I recognized.

“Baobab,” he sang, “bao-bab, baobab!
Bao-
bab!”

At that point, Kase unexpectedly jumped in with the lyrics, breaking out in a high falsetto. “In the jungle, the mighty jungle, the lion sleeps tonight!”

The rest of them exchanged looks and shrugs, and chimed in: “In the jungle, the mighty jungle . . .” while Joey kept up his “baobab” rhythm. Then, still singing in a deep bass, he jumped up and began dancing like a maniac around the fire, stomping his feet and shaking his hips. He looked so ridiculous that we had to stop singing because we were laughing so hard. I felt some of the tension between my shoulders ease; the laughter was like a balm to my weary and frayed nerves.

For the first time since we’d climbed out of the underground lake, my thirst was fully sated. I was still hungry, but it wasn’t the pinching, maddening hunger it had been before. The rich nutrients in the fruit were already boosting my energy, and, obviously, the others’ as well.

At some point, Sam rose and said he was going to look around. He had been quiet through the meal, smiling but not really laughing. I watched him as he meandered through the grass and finally sat down on the edge of the pan, staring at the sunset.

While the others kept laughing and attempting to sing, I stood up and began scouting the area, just to see if the lion tracks I’d spotted were fresh or not. I determined that the pride had come through that morning, which was good news. They wouldn’t be back again for another few days, so we were safe for the night. From lions, anyway. I figured we could handle any other animals that came through.

Pretty soon, I found myself standing near Sam. He was lying on his back, with all the colors of the Kalahari sunset reflected in his eyes.

“Mind if I join you?”

He looked up at me as if I’d startled him, but smiled and patted the ground.

I lay down next to him with my head a foot away from his.

“How are you feeling?” I asked.

“Not bad.” His hand went to his abdomen. “The cuts aren’t bleeding.”

“That’s good. We should use some of the water to clean them properly, though.”

“In a while,” he said sleepily.

We stared up at the sky in silence, watching a pair of hawks circle one another on a thermal, their pale undersides standing out against the darkening sky. I tilted my head back to look at the setting sun and held up a hand against the crimson glow. Light streamed between my fingers.

Sam’s nearness set me on edge. Or maybe it was Avani’s words.
You were studying him like you were prepping for an anatomy exam.

I yanked a piece of crowfoot grass from the ground beside me and vengefully nibbled at its seeds.
Was not.

“Crazy couple of days, huh?” said Sam. “Is your life always this nuts?”

“You should know,” I said. “You read all about it.”

He said nothing.

I sighed and rolled over, propped on my elbows. “Sam . . . I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that, really. I feel like I’m hanging over the edge and losing my grip. I keep seeing Theo and wondering about Dad when what I need to do is concentrate on keeping us in the right direction. . . .”

“No. It’s okay. I get it.”

“I just . . . I wish . . . I wish we had
time,
you know? Time when we’re not running or hiding or worrying about what we’ll eat or where we’ll sleep. I wish we had time to talk. To . . .” I hesitated, torn between embarrassment and boldness. “To get to know each other,” I finally confessed, glancing sideways at him nervously, hoping I didn’t sound like a total idiot.

He tilted his head backward to meet my gaze. “What do you want to know?”

Unable to hold his stare, I looked down at the sand and idly drew a circle in it with my index finger. “I don’t know. Like . . . what’s your favorite color?”

He laughed, a soft, husky sound that made my heart leap. “Blue. But not, like,
blue
blue. Sort of a steel blue.”

I nodded. “Okay. Favorite movie?”

“
Dead Poets Society
.”

“Never saw it.”

“You’ve
never
seen
Dead Poets Society
?”

I spread my hands apologetically. “I don’t watch many movies. Not much electricity out here, remember?”

He shook his head. “Man, that is tragic. About the movie. Not the electricity part. I could get used to the quiet out here.”

“What do you do in your spare time?”

“Read, mostly. Nonfiction and history. I love studying ancient cultures—Mayans, Phoenicians, stuff like that. I always imagined I’d go into archaeology or something.” He said it a bit sheepishly.

“You should do it!” I said.

“Really?” He looked pleasantly surprised. “I haven’t told anyone about that yet. But I want to travel first. I’m almost eighteen, so the state will probably put me up somewhere for a few months, and then I’ll find an apartment. Get a part-time job. I’ve got one year left of high school. After that, I’m going to travel.”

“Yeah?”

“Egypt’s top of the list. I want to see the pyramids. They’re the only one of the Seven Wonders of the World that still exists. Kind of sad, don’t you think?”

“I’ve never seen the pyramids.”

“Really? I’d have guessed you’d seen everything.”

“No,” I said softly. “Not everything.”

“Then we should go. You and me and the pyramids.”

I blinked in surprise. “What?”

Sam cleared his throat, looking suddenly shy. “I mean . . . since neither of us has been . . . Never mind, that’s a stupid thing to—”

“No,” I interrupted. “We should go. It would be fun.”

Sam stared at me as if somewhat amazed. “Really? Well, yeah, okay. So the pyramids. Then India. Then Mongolia. Have you been to Mongolia?”

“Once. Briefly. My dad was visiting a friend of his who’s studying snow leopards up there.”

“I want to see it all,” he said. “Just got to find a way to pay for it.”

“You could get a job as a research assistant with a field team,” I blurted out. “My dad had an intern for a while from Boston. His name was Pete. Maybe Dad could—” My throat constricted. “I mean, if he’s still—you know.”

“That would be great,” Sam said firmly, cutting me off before I could voice all my deepest fears about Dad. “I’d love that.”

“Oh, Sam.” My ribs seemed to shrink, squeezing my lungs and heart, making me choke. “What if it’s already too late?”

Sam sat up and looked me squarely in the eye. “He’s out there, Sarah,” Sam insisted.

I smiled, but it was weak.

“You
will
find him,” he said. “And I’m going to help you.”

I raised an eyebrow. “No. In a few days we’ll reach Ghansi, and then you’re going
home
.”

Sam’s brow creased and he cocked his head, studying me as if I didn’t add up. I lowered my gaze, suddenly shying away from how deeply he seemed to look into me. Then I felt his fingers in my hair, running down one of the tendrils that had escaped my ponytail. I held my breath, lifting my eyes to meet his. Sam gave me a slight, quizzical smile. “You don’t honestly think I’d just
leave
, do you?” he said softly.

“I don’t need protection,” I retorted, bristling a little.

He raised his hands in defense. “I think it’s obvious that out here, you’re the one taking care of
me
. What I mean is, nobody should be alone through something like this, Sarah.”

That left me at a loss. I felt as if a hole had opened inside me, sucking away all my words, all my defenses. He was right. I had no one. He’d seen right to the core of my misery, and I suspected it was because he knew exactly what I felt.

“Were you alone?” I asked in a whisper. “When you found out . . . you know. Adam.”