Once Upon a Camel

by Kathi Appelt

  For my darling Emma—

  With love,

  —K. A.

  For Kathi,

  thanks for reminding me look up

  at the night sky

  —E. R.

  1 Foothills, Chisos Mountains West Texas

  1910

  “Incoming!”

  Even in her sleep, Zada recognized that voice.

  The old camel raised one eyelid. It was still dark. There was at least an hour left before dawn. She did not recall setting an early alarm bird.

  Zada settled deeper into her sandy furrow, yawned. But before she could drift back off, here it came, a high-speed bundle of flapping kestrel feathers. American kestrel to be specific, smallest of the falcon family; and it barreled directly toward Zada’s face. Peck-peck-peck. Ouch ouch OUCH!

  “Zada! Wake up!”

  Perlita!

  In a pecking frenzy! Ouch, ouch, ouch and more ouch! Any chance for more sleep was now fully dashed.

  “Zada!” Perlita said. “It’s the worst news.”

  Perlita did a hoppity-hoppity dance on Zada’s nose. Then she puffed herself up, so anxious she could hardly contain herself.

  Zada waited.

  Perlita puffed.

  Long pause.

  More puffing.

  Long pause number two.

  Puff-puff-puff.

  Long pause number 5,863.

  Extreme puffing.

  Finally Zada couldn’t stand it. “Chirp it out!” she said.

  At last Perlita, still maximally puffed, cut loose with a dizzying trail of words that quickly turned into a torrent, which she strung together into an array of klees and killys. As best Zada could make out, Perlita’s monologue went something like…

  “There’s a mountain…

  “… coming toward us…

  “… a huge, HUGE, mountain…

  “… the TALLEST in history…

  “… and it’s so big… and so tall…

  “… it’s taking up the entire world…

  “… the entire universe.

  “And it’s moving our way.”

  Perlita’s voice had gone so fevered that it made Zada wince, even without the message that was attached to it. And the message was It’s going to eat us, Zada. I’m telling you. There’s a mountain coming our way. It’s sucking everything into its bigbigbig behemoth belly.

  Zada looked around. It was still dark, but she could tell by the thin rays of the dawn’s early light that the Chisos sat squarely in the same places they’d always sat. She could see their peaks, right where they should be, just below the stars.

  “I don’t see anything,” said Zada, trying to fathom what on earth had ruffled Perlita’s feathers.

  “You can’t see it from here,” said Perlita, her distress growing by the second. “It’s coming across the canyon.”

  “The canyon?” asked Zada. From their vantage point near the creek, the canyon was hidden behind a set of ridges and a wide plateau. Ordinarily, Zada avoided the canyon. When she stood at the top of it and stared down at its steep, jagged walls, it made her dizzy; standing at the bottom of it and looking up at its steep, jagged walls, she got woozy.

  Of course, a canyon is not a problem for a kestrel. Perlita flew over it all the time, which was how she had spotted the moving mountain, which she was sure was going to eat them, which made her… Peck-peck-peck.

  “Ouch.” Zada wrinkled her nose.

  “Oh, sorry,” said Perlita, catching herself mid-frenzy. A tuft of camel fur was caught on the side of her beak. She flapped into the air and zzzzzziiiippppp… she buzzed again, first one way, then the other, then she shot straight up, banked, and made a death-defying midair U-turn… zzzziiiippppp… she buzzed back the other way and paused in front of Zada’s face only long enough to say, “The mountain! It’s eating everything, even the stars!”

  “But Perlita…” Zada tried to follow her flight, when zing!, a second blurry object blew by her face.

  Pard! Perlita’s one and only. He zoomed by so fast he made the stars blink.

  Then he circled back and landed right between the camel’s eyes. “Zada!” he exclaimed. “There’s a mountain! It’s going to eat us!”

  2 Foothills, Chisos Mountains West Texas

  1910

  Zada knew that there were any number of things that ate tiny kestrels, as well as a few that ate large camels.

  Mountain lions? Maybe. Bears? Possible. Wolves? It could happen.

  Mountains? No.

  From her customary spot next to the cottonwood tree, she checked out the kestrels’ nest, a cavity chiseled there by a ladder-back woodpecker who had abandoned it years ago. Even in the dimness, she could not see anything amiss. Nary a nest robber in sight. Not a kit fox. Not a coachwhip. Nada. In fact, nothing was moving.

  This was usually the time of dawn when the black-tailed jackrabbits emerged from their dens to graze on the surrounding vervain and persimmon plants. Normally, Zada could see the shadows of their giant ears, bopping from one stand of sage to another. But just then? Nope.

  Ordinarily, she could hear the snuffle of the javelinas, rummaging for an early breakfast through the shrubby patches to the west. Again, nothing.

  Zada cocked her ears. There was no melancholy howling of the local song dogs, not a single, solitary note afloat, much less the usual dawn chorus.

  Where was everybody?

  Just then, the wind did an unexpected dance. From near stillness, it picked itself up. Nip! Nip! Nip! Tiny pricks of sand blew under Zada’s coat. A willy-willy tugged at her chin, followed by another that bumped against her side. The willy-willies were mostly invisible. Mostly harmless, thought Zada.

  But then she felt another… and another… and one more…

  Zada knew: don’t underestimate a willy-willy. They stay low, then whoosh! they grow and grow and grow until they become:

  dust devils,

  simoons,

  samiels.

  And they, in turn, become something larger still.

  3 Foothills, Chisos Mountains West Texas

  1910

  Zada looked back in the direction of the canyon. Where there should have been a whole blanket of fading stars, there was—oh no!—only a curtain of dark, dark brown!

  In that horrible moment Zada realized: coming toward them wasn’t a moving mountain, even though it looked like one. She knew exactly what this was: a haboob, a wall of dust and sand. She also knew it could doze down the shrubs and cholla and mesquites and even the mighty Spanish daggers that ruled over all the other desert shrubs.

  Like a tsunami. But instead of an enormous wave of water, she saw a gigantic wave of dust. Higher than any of the surrounding peaks, including Casa Grande. And it was gaining speed; it wouldn’t take long for it to reach Zada and her kestrel companions.

  She looked to the cottonwood nest, where Pard and Perlita now sat shivering. The old tree would normally be a perfectly fine place to ride out a storm. After all, it had survived a century or more of growing there. But a haboob was different. The roiling dust could suffocate most everything, including the nest’s feathered inhabitants.

  Now, a camel is designed for the desert. She has an inner eyelid and extra-long eyelashes for keeping the sand out of her eyes. She can close her nostrils in order to filter out the dust when she breathes. Even her rounded ears can divert the blowing sand. Made to withstand dust storms, that’s Zada. Not so much with kestrels. But at least they could fly up and over it. Couldn’t they?

  Then two of them—Perlita and Pard, to be exact—in a single voice, shouted, “We have to evacuate the babies!”

  The babies! Zada’s heart gave a bang. How could she have forgotten?

  Wims and Beulah, small round fluff
balls, hardly bigger than purple thistle blossoms. They were barely two weeks old. Aside from a few sprouting feathers, they still had their baby down. They certainly hadn’t fledged yet.

  Zada’s heart banged harder: How were the chicks supposed to evacuate if they couldn’t fly?

  As if Perlita could read her mind, she said, “You’ll have to give them a ride.”

  Of course! After all, no small number of birds had hitchhiked on her back through the years. They usually landed right on her hump. Once perched, they helped themselves to the sand fleas that were lodged beneath her camel coat. The bird got a ride and a snack and Zada got some relief from the fleas. It was a win-win. Perlita herself had taken many such rides.

  Zada was about to give the O.O.D. (Official Okie Dokie), but then a bead of worry scurried down her neck. Whenever the ride got too bumpy, Perlita could just hop up and fly away. But Wims and Beulah? Without sufficient wing power yet? All at once Zada realized: Everything would depend upon their baby toes, and their gripping abilities. But how strong were baby bird toes anyways?

  “We have to get to the Mission,” said Perlita, interrupting Zada’s thoughts.

  The Mission? The Mission was a good refuge, but it had been years since Zada had last been there. It would mean trekking across rough terrain. And though Zada had walked many… no… thousands of miles across the hot, burning sand, she was not the nimble young Camelus dromedarius she had once been. Her knees were creakier than ever. Her stamina was not at all staminus.

  Could she even make it?

  Before she could answer that question… from the depths of the nest, she heard peep peep peep. It was the universal language of all baby birds.

  “Klee, klee,” whistled Perlita. One worried mama.

  “Killy, killy,” chirped Pard. One desperate dad.

  “Peeppeeppeeppeeppeeppeep!” cried Beulah and Wims. Two adorable bambinos.

  In the midst of all this, she heard, “ZadaZadaZadaZada!” Riding on the currents above her head was a cloud of panicked black-chinned hummingbirds, their invisible wings whirring through the air.

  “ZadaZadaZada,” they chirred. “Ruuuunnnn! The mountain is moving.”

  Again, the question Could she make it? buzzed through her head and formed a cloud around her brain. She blinked her eyes, tried to clear it. Well, she thought, we are about to find out. “Binicileri getirin!” she said, and slowly… slowly… oh, so slowly… she raised her back end, followed by her front. The morning air always made her joints a little sticky. Lately, getting up and down took a major effort. Finally, all seven feet of her, from the bottom of her toes to the top of her hump, stood atop the desert floor.

  She gave her coat a great shake, sending sand flying in every direction. Then, with three long strides, she was at the cottonwood. Now she had to convince Beulah and Wims to hop onto her head. She leaned against the tree’s rough bark, raised her head until it was just underneath the opening of the nest, and with as much good cheer as she could muster, she urged, “All aboard, young kestrels.” Inside, Perlita and Pard worked to coax the babies toward the opening and onto the camel’s noggin.

  “I’m scared,” said Wims.

  “Me too,” said Beulah.

  And that was followed by… peeppeeppeeppeeppeeppeeppeeppeeppeeppeeppeeppeeppeep…!!!!

  “Hey now, hey now,” said Zada, in her most reassuring voice, which wasn’t all that reassuring because… haboob!

  “Hop on,” she said. The wind nudged up against her.

  A squadron of willy-willies swirled by.

  “Time is wasting…”

  Peeppeeppeepeeppeeppeeppeeppeeppeeppeeppeeppeeppeeppeeppeeppeep…!!!!!

  But the chicks wouldn’t budge.

  Not. One. Inch. Meter. Foot. Mile. Nary a budge was in the offing.

  What was in the offing was a growing panic. Zada knew a thing or two about that. She searched her memory.… There was a word she needed.… It was right on the tip of her tongue.… No, it was a phrase.…

  “Hurry,” said Perlita.

  “We’ve got to go!” shouted Pard.

  Zada closed her eyes. What could she say to convince the chicks to move?

  Pip-pip? No, not important enough.

  Step on it? Not right either.

  Get on, or else? Absolutely not.

  “Ah!” she exclaimed. “I remember!”

  Quickly, she whispered to the chicks, “En parlak yildiz ol.” It was an old saying, one from her earliest memories, one that she would explain later.

  Fortunately, for just that second, thanks to all that is good and right, the chicks seemed to understand, if not the meaning, at least the promise of the words.

  They tucked their not-ready-for-flight wings against their pudgy bodies, checked their peeps, and with a single hop, did a perfect two-chick landing, right into the thick tuft on top of Zada’s head, wrapped their toes around her fur, and clung with all their mini-avian might.

  4 Foothills, Chisos Mountains West Texas

  1910

  If only Perlita and Pard had kept their wings tucked too, all would have been hunky-dory. But even smart birds will instinctively stretch out their wings when they jump. And that was a major mistake. Instead of the kestrels landing next to their chicks atop Zada’s head, where there was just enough room to make a temporary nest for the whole crew, a stray dust devil blew up from beneath, grabbed the pair in its blustery fist, and rocketed them into the sky.

  “Noooo!!!” shouted Zada.

  “Mommy!” cried the chicks, gripping the fur between Zada’s ears. “Daddy!” But their urgent voices were no match for the dust devil.

  As Zada and the babies watched, the wind whirled Perlita and Pard into feathery specks, no bigger than motes.

  Then poof! just like that, it carried them high, high into the sky and erased them altogether.

  “Come back, come back, come back,” cried Beulah and Wims.

  Zada gasped. Perlita and Pard had been right in front of her, right in front of the chicks, and then they weren’t.

  “Klee, klee, klee,” called Wims.

  “Killy, killy,” Beulah cried.

  Zada lifted her head away from the tree, careful not to tip it too far back. Maybe, she thought, if they stood there, Perlita and Pard would magically drop out of the sky. But there was no sign of them. Just the darkening clouds of dust, circling, swirling, blocking the rising sun.

  5 Foothills, Chisos Mountains West Texas

  1910

  Killy, killy. Klee, klee. The more the babies called, the more the wind blew. Faster and faster it whirled. The twins would never be able to withstand the power of a haboob, Zada knew, no matter how hard they held on. Sharp pricks of sand began to pummel at them as the twosome burrowed deeper into her thick fur.

  Zada had to get ahead of this wind, find some shelter. Perlita had said to head to the Mission, but at the rate the dust cloud was moving toward them, there was no way they could make it there before the storm caught them. Not for the first time in her long life, Zada wished she could fly.

  Other animals raced past. Jackrabbits. Quail. A pair of bears. There was even a swarm of grasshoppers flittering by. They all had one thing on their minds: shelter.

  But where? Think, Zada. Think, think, think. They had to find a way station.

  “Auntie Zada,” cried Wims.

  “Where are we going?” asked Beulah.

  “Well,” she said, wishing she knew. “If we were badgers, we’d burrow into a deep hole underneath the ground.”

  “But we’re not badgers!” Beulah said crossly.

  “If we were fish,” Zada said next, “we’d swim down the river, where no dust could get us.” Of course, none of them were fish, so that was a nonstarter too. But where, Zada, where could an old camel with two fluffy kestral passengers go to get out of the way of a moving mountain?

  As Beulah informed her that they most certainly were not fish, somehow, amid all the clamor, kllloookkll, kllloookkll. Sweet, but barely there; a so
und she hadn’t heard in years.

  She stopped, flicked her ear.

  Kllloookkll. There it was again. The faint ringing of a bell. Like the coo of a pigeon. She leaned toward it, listened. But as quickly as it came, it disappeared, leaving only the thrum of the increasing rush of the haboob, coming on fast. A trick of the wind, Zada thought. But a trick was not what she needed. Shelter—that was the goal. Concentrate, Zada. All at once, she remembered: a shallow cave.

  The escarpment. Yes!

  She knew how to get there. It wasn’t that far! No more than a mile; two at most. It would do until the storm passed and they could continue to the Mission, where, once Perlita and Pard blew down from wherever they’d blown up to, the two parent birds would think to meet them.

  Zada and the chicks would be their own caravan. A caravan of three, she thought.

  How long had it been, Zada couldn’t help but wonder, since she’d last traveled in a caravan? She thought about her old camel compadres. Asiye. Halime. Naime. Rezan. Tarkan. Kahraman. Elif. Melek. Ending with her own name, Zada. Always with their cameleer, Teodor. No matter how hard the path, or how long the trail, Teodor would sing their names out loud. Over and over, in a chant, nine altogether.

  Which was what Zada did now. She sang out the old names, old friends, as loud as she could in the roaring wind, sang them in time to her careful steps.

  And it was almost as if they were all right there beside her, urging her on, when whoosh, a stray downdraft shoved against her. She swaaaaaayyyed to the left, then swaaaaaayyyed to the right, from one side to another and back. She took in a deep breath and waited for the wind to pass by.

  “Auntie!” cried the chicks, alarmed. Then: “Where’s Mommy? I want Daddy. I’m scared. Me too.” And of course, pppeeeepppeeepppeeeepppeeeeep!

  Zada dug her feet into the sand to brace herself. “Hey now, hey now,” she said, trying to keep her voice steady, even though nothing about her felt steady at all. “We are not badgers or fish. We are caravanners!”