Ghost Leopard (A Zoe & Zak Adventure #1)

by Lars Guignard

  “You will see,” the blind woman said.

  Maybe I would see, but whatever I did, whatever I saw, I knew that I couldn’t stay where I was. I carefully shuffled away from the snake woman and climbed into the back of the rickshaw.

  Zak pedaled the rickshaw through the crazy streets as the weird jumbled madness of the city flew by. There were pigs snuffling through heaps of garbage. There were tiny stores selling all kinds of medicines and meats and nuts. And there were thousands, maybe millions of people just waiting in the rain. Now that I was done with my crying jag, I almost felt numb. It was like I wasn’t even there. Like I was watching the craziest movie of my life. I sat in the back of the rickshaw with the woman in blue on one side of me and the rickshaw wala on the other, feeling nearly hypnotized by the never-ending activity around us.

  “Why are you helping us?” I asked the woman.

  “Because you need a place to stay.”

  “You know we have no money to pay.”

  “I know.”

  “What’s you name?” I asked.

  “Amala.”

  “Amala,” Zak said loudly. “I like that name.”

  “Do you know why we’re here, Amala?” Zak asked.

  “Yes,” Amala said.

  Zak turned his head to look back at us, narrowly avoiding a pole as he did.

  “You’ve come to find the Leopard,” Amala said.

  “No way. How did you know about that?”

  “Many people seek the Leopard,” Amala said.

  “Wicked,” Zak said.

  “Pull to a stop there, in front of the white building.”

  There was now at least a foot of water in the street and Zak braked as best as he could. The bicycle rickshaw’s brakes screeched as the water sprayed off of them. The white building had a lone lamp above the door and a cracked wooden sign hanging off the front of it. The sign’s brass letters identified the building as the Swallowtail Lodging House. The place looked like something right of a fairy tale. There was a beautiful spotted blue butterfly on the sign. The butterfly was a good size, like the one I had seen in the street and it twitched its wings gently. The same spotted blue butterflies hovered in the doorway. Though the hotel was tiny and run-down, I was pretty sure it would be dry.

  “Second floor, third room on the right,” Amala said. “Please stay for the night. If you’re hungry, Sai will cook for you. Tomorrow I have a friend I’d like you to meet.”

  The rickshaw wala handed me an old-fashioned brass skeleton key and a photograph. Even the key looked like something out of a fairy tale. And I haven’t even gotten to the photograph. The old streaked color photo was a picture of a guy that, to me at least, could only be described as a crazy man. The man was quite old. He was at least as old as my grandfather and his hair was a wild thicket of gray and black. He wore yellow and red face paint and his body was covered in white ash. His lips were bright red and he had what looked like a wooden necklace of brown and red beads around his neck. He sat smiling and cross-legged, and basically naked except for a lungi and a large spotted lizard on his shoulder. From what I’d read, I guessed that the man in the picture was a sadhu, the Hindi name for a holy man, or maybe a yogi which I kind of thought was the same thing. I knew a yogi was someone who did so much yoga that they somehow developed almost magical powers. I didn’t know if the guy in the picture was magical or not, but he sure looked nuts.

  “His name is Mukta,” Amala said. “Take the Number Six train to Moon Surrie in the morning. You’ll find him from there.”

  We sat there for a moment in the rickshaw, the rising floodwaters flowing past its tires. Zak didn’t move from the bicycle seat, so I tapped him on the shoulder. It was raining so hard that the fast-moving drops ricocheted back up off the flooded street creating a storm of white water. I could barely see Zak through the mist. Finally, Zak stepped down into the watery street. The floodwaters were already up to his shins. When I stepped down to join him, I noticed that the rickshaw wala was still there, but Amala wasn’t. I joined Zak on the steps of the hotel and, as I did, a storm of blue butterflies fluttered past me. Their wings were so soft that I felt like I was walking though a flying carpet. As they flew into the street, one of the butterflies came to rest on my hand. I admired its spotted blue wings before turning to take a final look up and down the flooded street. Amala was nowhere to be seen.

  6

  STRANGERS IN A STRANGE LAND

  We ate at in a little kitchen on the bottom floor of the hotel. There was a woman there, Sai, I guess, with some noodle soup in a big blackened aluminum pot. Sai stirred the soup with a long crooked stick. I don’t know why she didn’t use a spoon, but I was too tired and hungry to ask. I’m pretty sure the soup was the Indian version of Mr. Noodles and I thought it was pretty good. I knew we didn’t have any money, so I was thankful she didn’t ask us to pay. We sat at a wooden table in the smallish room and slurped back the slightly spicy broth. I kid you not that I did not say a single word to Zak. He seemed to get the hint because he didn’t say anything to me either. Maybe he’d seen me crying earlier. Maybe he was just respecting my privacy. I didn’t know. We thanked Sai with a smile and a little nod when we were done, and went up to the room.

  What can I tell you? The room was no Delhi Grand Palace, but I didn’t really care because I was totally exhausted and just glad to have a place to rest. The medium-sized room had a concrete floor and stained plaster walls, with two beds and a single ceiling fan churning the heavy air. The rough wooden beds had scratchy ropes strung across them to make mattresses, kind of like a hammock. I locked the door with the dead bolt and lay down on the nearest bed without saying a word. I swear I was fast asleep before my head hit the ropes.

  I had another one of my weird dreams that night. It started off pretty normally given the events of the day. I dreamt I was in a confusing, crowded city. I was being followed. I looked behind me and I couldn’t see who was following me, but I knew that whoever it was, he was there. I walked more quickly, bumping into people as I moved, but still, I was being followed. I broke into a run, then hid in a doorway. It didn’t matter. Whoever it was, was still coming. I ran up the stairs and hid in a room. The room looked a lot like the room I had gone to sleep in. Plaster peeled from the walls and a ceiling fan spun slowly above. I could hear footsteps. There was nowhere to go. I hid on the cool concrete floor under the rope bed. I couldn’t see much from under there, but I heard the footsteps enter the room. Then the footsteps faded away. Sunlight flooded the room. It was day. And when I looked across the floor I saw four giant muddy paw prints on the concrete.

  I woke up. I was in the same room as in my dream. The slow-moving fan continued to spin, sunlight filtering in through the dirty, cracked window. Zak was still asleep on the other side of the room. I watched as more of the delicate spotted blue butterflies fluttered around. I had read about them in the flora and fauna section of my guide book. They belonged to the Swallowtail butterfly family. I was pretty sure the one’s here in the hotel were called Blue Mormons. I stood up and stepped across the room to shake Zak awake.

  “Wake up,” I said.

  “Sleeping,” Zak murmured.

  “Wake up, or else.”

  “Or else what?”

  “Or else I’ll never talk to you again.”

  Zak opened an eye. “Is that a bad thing?”

  I looked away from Zak. Even after he had gotten us into a mess like this, he was still making jokes. I had to admit, even I thought it was almost funny. My eyes wandered around the simple old room, before settling on the floor. There were four giant, muddy paw prints on the bare concrete floor. Zak saw them too.

  “Whoa,” Zak said.

  Whoa was right. I didn’t say anything. I just stood there looking at the paw prints; two by the door and two on the other side of the bed. They were exactly like my dream. And they weren’t there when we came into the room the night before. I was sure of it. At least I didn’t think they were. But it was dark, so who kn
ew? I pushed the thought from my mind.

  “Come on, let’s go,” I said.

  We had no luggage to pack except for a plastic bag Zak had picked up somewhere, so we left the key on one of the beds and headed outside. The sun was already high in the morning sky and it felt good on our backs, warming us up even as we sloshed through the brown floodwaters. Though I tried to push the muddy paw prints out of my mind, the thought of them just kept coming back. I told myself that just because the paw prints matched my dream, it didn’t mean anything. There were a lot of explanations. Maybe the guest before us kept a tiger in the room. Stranger things have happened. Whoever owned the place didn’t exactly wash the floors very often. Once again I pushed the image of the paw prints away, concentrating on our surroundings instead. It had rained so much that we are up to our waists in the brown floodwater. A man on a rooftop cast a fishing line. Miraculously, a slimy green catfish with bulging eyes took the bait.

  “I ask him to slice that up, we’ve got sushi,” Zak said.

  “For breakfast?”

  “Yeah. Why not?”

  A cream-colored cow with long horns splashed toward us. I ignored the cow. “Here’s why not: A — we’re in India, not Japan, and B — We eat that fish raw and we could get really sick. My mom told me we shouldn’t even drink the water.”

  “We drank it last night in the soup.”

  “It was boiled.”

  “So?”

  “So boiling kills the bacteria.”

  “Holy cow!” Zak said.

  “You didn’t know that?”

  “No, I mean holy cow. Look at the cow.”

  The cream-colored cow splashed past us.

  “You know that really is a holy cow,” I said. “Cows are sacred in India.”

  Zak looked at me like I’d said the most profound thing since his third-grade teacher had told him that the moon wasn’t actually made of green cheese.

  “No way,” he said.

  “Way,” I replied.

  “Wow,” Zak said quietly to himself. Then he opened the plastic bag he had been carrying to reveal a scratched tin box. It looked like the kind of box my grandmother used to keep tea in. “Did you see this?” he asked.

  “What is it?” I said.

  “I took it out of the trunk.”

  “Why?” I said.

  “Well, I thought we might need it.”

  Zak opened the lid of the box. A few brightly colored bills fluttered out, landing in the water.

  “Money,” Zak said.

  I just looked at Zak. I couldn’t believe it. “You stole Rhino Butt’s money?”

  “We didn’t have any.”

  “That doesn’t make it any better. This is way worse than just accidentally finding a map. You’re robbing this guy. Why did you steal it? What’s wrong with you?”

  “Well, I don’t exactly think it was stealing.”

  “Well, you’re wrong. That’s exactly what it was. It was his money and you took it. That’s stealing. Just like the map.”

  “The map we took to give back.”

  “What about the money?”

  “The money I borrowed, because, I don’t know, I thought we might need it.”

  “I think I might need a cow to make a milkshake. You don’t see me borrowing one.”

  “Holy milkshake,” Zak said, cracking himself up. Then he saw how irritated I was. “I guess sometimes I just do stuff,” he said.

  Another holy cow sloshed by. This one was browner with less-twisted horns. Probably would have made a chocolate milkshake. Sometimes Zak just did stuff. You’re telling me. If I gave him the benefit of the doubt, I bet Zak had felt a little weird since his mom and dad had split up. I hadn’t had a dad, but I’m pretty sure something like that would make me feel weird too. So he didn’t know why he had taken the box from the trunk. What did it matter? I thought about it. Who was I kidding? I knew why it mattered. It mattered because it was wrong. Zak looked at me for a long while like he wanted to say something.

  “What?” I said.

  “I saw you, you know.”

  “You saw me what?”

  “Crying last night.”

  I felt my face turn deep red. It was an automatic reaction and I couldn’t stop it, even though I felt stupid.

  “I saw you,” he continued, “and I’m sorry I made you feel like that.”

  I lamely pretended like I didn’t understand him. “Feel like what?”

  “You know, alone.”

  I didn’t have a good come back for that one. I was embarrassed that Zak had seen me, but at the same time, I had to admit that I was happy that he had apologized, even if everything that had happened wasn’t, strictly speaking, his fault. His apology made me feel like there was hope for him. Like he wasn’t totally out to lunch.

  “Let’s just find the train station and get back to the hotel,” I said.

  “Whoa,” Zak said. “I thought we were going to Moon Surrie? That’s what we told the butterfly lady.”

  Apparently we weren’t totally on the same page yet. I noticed that a young kid with a smudged face was following us. He was maybe six years old and dressed in tattered clothing. He carefully collected the few fallen bills as they floated closer to him. In the heat of our conversation, I had forgotten to pick the bills back up. Maybe it was a good thing. The kid sure looked like he needed the money more than we did.

  “Well, I think we should get back before your dad and my mom find out we’re gone.”

  “What about the Leopard?” Zak asked.

  “You picked the wrong girl, Zak. I've had a subscription to National Geographic since I was five. I know what a mastodon is, I know why a jumping bean jumps, and I know that there aren’t any weird creatures out there that haven’t been photographed. Whatever Rhino Butt was talking about is a myth. It's make-believe.”

  “It’s never had its picture taken.”

  “Neither has the Easter Bunny, you know, in the wild.”

  “Whatever. This is your big chance. You know how great it would be to get a picture of it? You’d totally win the contest. Your whole class would go on that field trip. You’d get the camera. It would be sweet.”

  What it was, was maddening. I was back to feeling exactly like I had before Zak apologized. I couldn’t believe him. It was bad enough that he’d dragged me into that trunk, but now we had no idea where we even were and no way back, and Zak still wanted to keep going on? Ox carts pulled rolls of brightly colored fabric and wooden cases of soda through the flooded street. I looked around in disbelief as a couple more bills fluttered out of Zak's bag. I didn’t pick them up though. I couldn’t help myself. I felt my temper growing shorter and shorter until I snapped.

  “The truth is, you were looking for trouble weren’t you, Zak? That’s why you went into his room. You were bored at the hotel and you wanted some excitement. You’re probably glad we’re stuck out here wherever we are.”

  “Thums Up,” Zak said, pointing to a wooden sign hanging from a spice shop. “I saw a sign when we left the airport. I’m pretty sure we’re in Thums Up.”

  “Thums Up without the ‘b’ is some kind of soda, doofus,” I said, pointing to a guy drinking what looked like cola with a big red thumb on the bottle. “We aren’t in Thums Up. Where we are is a million miles from where we’re supposed to be. Does that make you happy?”

  I didn’t know if he was happy or not, but he sure was smiling. Probably thought we were on the adventure of a lifetime or something. I had no idea how he planned to address the rent-a-nanny problem. Even if our parents weren’t at the hotel, at some point the nanny would try to call them, that was if we didn’t get back soon. I pondered the notion as a man pushing his bicycle through the floodwaters said something in Hindi. I didn’t know what it was he said. All the words in Hindi blended together for me like I was listening to some kind of strange song. But I did notice that the ears of about a hundred younger kids seemed to perk up. I followed the man's gaze to the trail of soggy bills. When
I think about it, it must have looked like we were dropping money instead of bread crumbs so that we could find our way home.

  It happened in an instant. Without warning an army of six and seven year olds descended on the money like a school of piranha. The kids scrambled for the bills getting closer and closer every second.

  “Zak?” I said.

  “Zoe?” Zak replied.

  “I think we need to run.”

  “Good idea.”

  We broke into a watery run toward a giant building with huge columns. People were coming and going from the place with suitcases on their heads and there were all kinds of strange food carts on the steps out front. We ran right through the open doors to find ourselves in the middle of a railroad station holding a crowd of people that could fill five stadiums. There was a towering ceiling and dirty tile floor, and amidst the litter and filth and people selling tea and cakes, sat a gleaming steam train.

  I mention the train because it was so out of place next to everything else. The thing was perfect while everything around it was literally falling to pieces. The train wasn’t particularly long, but it was impressive. There was a cherry-red locomotive and eight carriages and a caboose. Each of the polished red carriages had gleaming golden bands on their steel wheels. The same carriages had golden sculpted monkeys peeking out from their rooflines. And there were spikes, almost like claws, curling up around every window. The red locomotive was blowing steam everywhere. Three men descended from a carriage near the front of the train, but I couldn’t really make them out through the crowd. None of these things would matter, of course, if the train wasn’t completely blocking our way.

  The thing was, the kids were still behind us, chasing us down. I knew there was probably a way under or over the track, but right now, we just needed to get out of there. I jogged in place, waiting for the train to move out of the way. I didn’t really want to have to fight off the little kids grabbing the money. I just wanted to be left in peace. I’m not sure why I did it, but I stood up on my tip toes and stared into one of the gleaming carriage windows as the train inched slowly past. I don’t know what I was expecting. A king maybe, wearing a crown? But instead of a king I found myself locking eyes with an olive-faced man who had deep-set eyes and jet-black hair. The man held a silver chalice in his hand — the kind of goblet an old-fashioned knight would have drunk from. I couldn’t tell how old the man was. His skin was tight and waxy like he had been around forever, or maybe not long at all. It was really hard to tell. Something about him bothered me though. It was as though I had seen him before, but for the life of me I couldn’t remember where.