Ghost Leopard (A Zoe & Zak Adventure #1)

by Lars Guignard

  “Thanks for the hand,” I said.

  It was beautiful up there, sacks of fruit and watermelon, and a few other passengers riding the arched rooftop. I sat up and Zak handed me a slice of bright red watermelon. I didn’t ask him who had given it to him or think of a single snarky comment. For the moment, I was happy just to be alive. We were high up in the hills, that was for sure, but the height didn’t bother me as long as I didn’t look directly down. As the bus twisted back and forth through the hills, a firm hand on the roof rack kept me more or less in place. Even the weather seemed to be cooperating. The sky had cleared since we’d gotten up that morning. But that wasn’t the best part. The best part was that as the sun rose above us, we were confronted by an awesome sight. The snow-capped Himalayas, the highest, most rugged mountains on Earth, peeked out at us from behind the clouds. They were huge and majestic and totally mind blowing, like nothing I had ever seen. On the rooftop like that, fresh breeze blowing, nothing above us but the sun, nothing below us but the green valleys, for about a second I forgot all about my problems and felt truly alive. More alive than I had ever felt in my whole life so far.

  “Tell me this isn’t awesome,” Zak said.

  I didn’t answer him, and I don’t think he expected me to. Sometimes Zak could be cool like that. Then he reached into his plastic bag, and pulled out my camera. He must have remembered it when we’d left the hut. I couldn’t help but smile. I hadn’t lost my camera after all. I’m pretty sure I was as happy as I had ever been at that moment and I didn’t care who knew it. Zak, the one guy who did everything wrong, had finally done something right. And he was right about another thing too. It was awesome. Riding the roof of the bus in the Himalayas like that was the most awesome feeling in the world.

  10

  THE ROOF RIDERS

  The roof of the bus was exactly like a big sun deck in the sky, the huge snow-capped mountains rising off in the distance above us. There were a few other people up on top, mostly farmers I thought, judging by the sacks of fruit laying around everywhere, but not so many people that it was crowded. Zak and I lay on our backs in the middle of the roof, soaking in the sun. There were huge birds with wing spans wider than the bus circling above. I was pretty sure that the birds with their white and brown wings were Himalayan griffons. Not the mythological kind of griffon with the body of a lion and the head and wings of an eagle and all that, but giant birds of prey that lived high in these mountains. The griffons looked big enough to pick the people off the roof with their gleaming yellow talons and tear us apart with their sharp beaks. So far they hadn’t done it, but you never knew. I snapped pictures of the giant birds as they swooped down, their white underbellies reflecting the bright sunlight.

  At one point I thought I saw something else flying up there. It was kind of crazy. At first it looked like a flying carpet, as in magic-carpet-ride style. It swooped down low, then banked to the side. I could have sworn that crazy Mukta was flying it. I saw it for only a second and snapped a shot, but when I tried to get another shot, the carpet was gone and all I saw was bright sunlight. The really weird thing though, was that when I tried to look at the picture on the camera, all I saw was a blurry shadow. And I had the shot, I was sure of it. I had heard the shutter click. I thought I had to be imagining things so I went back to photographing the giant griffons swooping down low. Whatever I was taking photos of, I knew it was a numbers game. I'd have to take a lot of pictures to get one good enough to win the contest.

  It felt good to bask in the warm sun after the mud and rain from the night before. We had to hold on tight when we went around corners, but it wasn’t too bad because we were wedged between the burlap sacks of fruit. There were apricots and watermelon, of course, and apples and dates, and all the farmers seemed willing to share. A burlap sack at my back provided a nice back support, kind of like a super couch in the sky. Everything moved when we took a corner, but fortunately the roof rack, which extended around the whole roof, basically kept things in place. From his position on his back, Zak threw apricots in the air, trying to catch them in his mouth. The ride was so twisty, I hadn’t seen him get one in his mouth yet, but every time he lost an apricot it seemed like the huge Himalayan mountains got just a little closer.

  “You might want to leave some fruit,” I said.

  “It belongs to the farmer up front there. He said we could have some.”

  “Well, have some then. Just don’t waste it.”

  “I’m not wasting it. I’m catching it.”

  Zak threw another apricot up in the air, just far enough forward this time. The bus was going straight. Wind in my hair, I watched as the apricot went up and up and then down, past Zak's nose, straight into his mouth. He took a bite and pulled the apricot out.

  “Yes!”

  Zak jumped up and did a little dance around the roof, pulling his fist down in the universal sign for victory. Then Zak assumed a surfing position, staring down at me like he was some kind of surfer dude. At this point, I’d been around Zak long enough to know that he wasn’t trying to impress me, he was just hyper. I decided that if we were going to be friends, I’d have to go easier on him.

  “So what do you say, Zoe? How about we just take a little look for this Ghost Leopard. We’re up here anyhow right? Our parents aren’t back for a while. What’s an extra day or two going to hurt?”

  I had to admit, I was thinking the same thing, even though I hadn’t put it into words. The thing was, I really, really wanted a picture of that Leopard. I mulled the thought over in my mind, not even really noticing the thin, low-hanging electrical wire strung across the road in the distance.

  “You don’t even have any kind of plan,” I said.

  “Like what?”

  Two of the farmers on the front of the roof waved back at us. Looking at the farmers in their worn rubber sandals and woolen sweaters, I recognized for the first time that each of them also wore a coarse rope around their waists. I waved back at the farmers.

  “I don’t know,” I said. “But we need more of a plan than just doing whatever the crazy lizard guy said. How would we even survive up there in the mountains? Have you ever even been camping? And I don’t mean in an RV.”

  “No. Not really,” Zak said. “But I came prepared. Look what my dad got me at the airport.” Zak pulled a tiny book out of the pocket of his pajamas, still surfing the top of the bus. “Survival book. Being attacked by crocodiles? Page eight. Need to build a snow cave? Page sixty-four. Want to make a fire without matches? Easy. Page three. You get the idea, this little guy has got us covered. Come on, what’s the worst that could happen? Our parents get angry? Newsflash: The nanny’s going to figure out that we aren’t at the hotel. Our parents are going to be mad whatever we do.”

  I had to give him that one. There was no denying my mom was going to be mad.

  “What’s the worst that could happen?” Zak asked.

  I groaned. Zak had a point. The thing was, I really didn’t know what I wanted more, to get back to the hotel or to get a picture of the Leopard? I was torn. Suddenly everybody lay down flush with the roof, the wire zipping over the front of the bus.

  An old man with no teeth in a stained white turban screamed something in Hindi.

  Without even thinking, I reached up and yanked Zak down by his arm. The wire zipped by, just an inch above his nose. Any lower and it wouldn’t have just hit Zak, it would have hit the roof rack and we’d all have been electrocuted like the bugs in a mosquito zapper. The thought gave a whole new meaning to the word barbecue.

  “The worst that could happen,” I quietly said, “is that we fry like the mosquitos in my grampa’s bug zapper.”

  “Really?” Zak asked.

  “Really.”

  “That is pretty bad,” he finally agreed.

  Now given that Zak had almost lost his head and the rest of us had nearly been bug zapped with him, you might think that the balance had been tipped and that I would insist that we go back immediately. The funny thing
was though, the farther we got into the mountains, the less I thought about returning right away. I guess it was kind of like the story of the water and the frog. Drop a frog into a pot of boiling water and he jumps right out, but slowly heat the pot and he thinks he’s just taking a bath. I was the frog and the Himalayas were my pot of boiling water. I was just enjoying being there too much to bail quite yet, and so, against my better judgment, I decided to give the whole crazy adventure a chance.

  After all, I’d already left the message letting everybody know we were OK and besides, Zak was right about our parents getting angry whatever we did at this point. I knew I’d be grounded. I could probably say good bye to my privileges for a while. No TV. No YouTube. No phone. No going out to see friends. Once I got back home there would be nothing but school, piano lessons, and chores. I tried not to think about that and concentrated instead on the present. It was something I generally had a hard time doing, living in the moment, but this was a good chance to try it out. Maybe the Ghost Leopard was a myth. Maybe it could never be real in a million years. But Mukta, the yogi-lizard-guy, had shown us some pretty cool stuff the night before, stuff that looked almost magical. Whatever this mountaintop field trip was, nobody could say it wasn’t interesting. I vowed, for the next couple days at least, to see it through.

  Our bus stopped in a tiny town that wasn’t much more than a hole in a mountain wall. There was a big iron bridge with a river flowing beneath it and a bunch of stalls built into the cliffside. From what we could gather it would be about a fifteen-minute stop, so we got off the bus to see if we could get some camping supplies. Each metal stall was a little store. Since it was only a short stop, I knew we had to be careful, so I volunteered to watch the bus while Zak scooted around buying what we needed. My job was easy. Well, it was easy if you forgot about all the ducking I had to do. Zak had made a big pile in the center of the walking path where he was throwing all the stuff we’d need for the trip. The pile grew higher by the minute. It was filled with cookies and blankets and shoulder bags. We even got two of those cotton checkered gumcha scarves to stay warm and a funny yak-hair hat with little bells hanging off it. I ducked as a frying pan flew my way. I was starting to get worried about how we would carry it all.

  “Zak. Enough stuff.”

  “We still have more money.”

  “Great. You can buy a truck to put all of this in.”

  “I don’t have a driver’s license.”

  “You’re going to let that stop you?”

  Zak thought about it. “No. Come to think of it I probably wouldn’t, but Mukta said it was hiking only.”

  “Exactly. So enough already.”

  Zak threw a can of peanut butter into the pile. It landed with a thump. I looked at it. Peanut butter came in cans here. I didn’t know why. I pulled out the striped canvas shoulder bags and started to load them up: plain dry cookies, a canteen, matches, a yak-hair blanket. I hoped that Zak had thought of a can opener, but I doubted it. Zak was on the other side of me, stuffing his own shoulder bags full of stuff.

  “Check this out,” Zak said.

  “What?”

  Zak tucked in his pajama shirt displaying his new leather belt. “Whip holder,” he said. “Stryker’s new home. Very useful.”

  “Fancy.” I replied. “But does it open the peanut butter?’’

  “I haven’t tried.”

  Zak tugged on his belt. He was a very literal guy.

  “Zak. Do we have a can opener?”

  Zak thought about it. While he did that, I looked up. There was a plume of blue smoke rising into the air, but the bus was gone. I followed the cloud of smoke to see that our bus was now heading toward the bridge.

  “Come on!” I cried.

  I started running after the bus, Zak right behind me. It wasn’t far, but it was tough going getting past the crowds of people and onto the road. Then we had to run up the hill, the bus slowly chugging up the grade a hundred feet in front of us. Zak and I huffed and puffed, but we began to make real progress just before the bridge. We ran side by side up the straightaway, closing the gap between ourselves and the bus. The bus was so overloaded its rear bumper was actually dragging on the road, sparks flying, so I thought that we might just have a chance. There was a chipped painted ladder welded to the back of the bus that extended up from the bumper to the roof.

  “Faster,” I panted.

  “I’m going as fast as I can.”

  We were still running side by side, but I was a little taller than Zak and I knew that I needed to take the lead — there was only room on that ladder for one person at a time. So I broke into a sprint, my shoulder bags bouncing off my legs. I was close now, ten feet, five feet, three feet, two…. I grabbed onto the ladder with both hands and pulled myself up, sticking my foot on the bottom rung. I took a breath. I was there. But now I needed to get Zak on board. I turned my head. Zak wasn’t as close as I’d hoped. He was actually lagging behind. I felt the bus speed up, blue smoke coughing out of its tail pipe.

  “Run!”

  Zak gritted his teeth. I could tell he hated the idea of a girl beating him. Good. Maybe he’d run faster. The road started to head downhill and I felt the bus pulling away from him. I reached out to him with my hand, but he was too busy staring down at the ground to see it. Then he looked up. This was it. This was his last chance. Zak must have read my mind because he sprinted forward and took my hand, and then, in one final burst of speed, leapt onto the ladder.

  Zak held the ladder in both hands, his foot finding the bottom rung. Then he caught his breath. Both Zak and I stood there on the back of the bus as it sped up, Zak on the bottom rung of the ladder and me one rung up. I rested a couple more seconds and started to climb. When I was just about at the top of the roof, I swung my camera around on my neck and snapped a shot of Zak below me. Maybe not the most artistic shot, but with his hair all messed up and his face as red as a lobster, it was a funny one.

  “We got peanut butter. We got cookies. We’re campers,” I said.

  I climbed up the last foot or so and swung myself up onto the roof of the bus. I rolled over onto my back to take in a deep breath of the fresh, cool mountain air, but I noticed that something was different. This wasn't the peaceful bus roof I had spent the morning on. Things were crazy up here; people moaning, fruit and vegetables tumbling everywhere. Zak climbed onto the roof behind me, lying down to catch his breath. He held a box of wooden matches in the air. Ganesha, the elephant-headed, multi-armed god I remembered from the swimming pool, was printed on the match box.

  “We got cool matches with a crazy elephant god on it,” Zak said.

  Ganesha was supposed to be the bringer of good luck, which I thought was exactly the opposite of the kind of luck we were starting to have. I turned my eyes to the front of the moving bus where our not-so-good friend Rhino Butt was slashing open burlap bags with a gleaming silver knife.

  “Oh boy,” I said.

  Rhino Butt looked up from the burlap sack and stepped forward.

  “I was surprised you followed me here,” he said, “until I realized how stupid you two are.”

  Rhino Butt held up a bag of sunflower seeds and Zak's pocket survival book. “Are a bag of sunflower seeds and a picture book really all you thought you'd need to survive one of the least hospitable environments on Earth?”

  “We got peanut butter,” Zak said, pulling the can from his shoulder bag.

  “Yum,” Rhino Butt said.

  Both Zak and I rose. Even though we were on the roof of a bus, it really didn’t seem like a great time to be lying down. Rhino Butt lifted his gleaming knife. Zak dropped the can of peanut butter.

  “Your parents are a long way away and even if they were right here, they couldn’t help you, so let's make this as painless as possible, shall we? Which one of you has it?”

  Rhino Butt strode toward us as the bus twisted around a sharp corner. I lost my footing, stumbling to the side, as did Zak. Even Rhino Butt slid to the side of the roof. But
then he got up again. And he was angry.

  “I want it back,” Rhino Butt said.

  “Want what back?” Zak asked.

  “My map. Now!”

  Rhino Butt had moved much closer now and I was starting to get scared. The guy was a full-grown bully and Zak was too brave for his own good. I didn’t think Zak could back down if he wanted to. He was too proud.

  “Mr. Rhino Butt,” I said, the words barely leaving my mouth before I realized my mistake. “Sir,” I corrected myself. “I understand you’re mad. I’m mad at him too. Just calm down and he’ll give you what you want.”

  “You bet he will,” Rhino Butt said.

  Zak moved forward, standing between Rhino Butt and me.

  “Look,” Zak said. “I don’t have it.”

  “Then you’d better find it.”

  Rhino Butt lunged ahead with his open hand trying to grab Zak by the collar. Zak ducked to the side. Rhino Butt swiped at him again, but, once more, Zak was able to spiral away. The passengers on the roof cheered.

  “All you need to do is give it back,” Rhino Butt said.

  “What did I tell you? I don't have it.”

  The toothless man with the stained turban tossed Zak a rusty, curved blade. Miraculously, Zak caught the knife by its wooden handle, but I couldn’t believe it. Had Zak really played so many video games that he actually believed he could win a knife fight against this monster?

  “Just give it to him!” I screamed over the engine noise and wind.

  Zak and Rhino Butt circled around on the roof of the bus, a black tunnel approaching. It was like watching a midget battle a monster — I just knew it wasn’t going to end well. I strained my brain to figure out a way to help Zak, but I didn’t know what to do. I could jump on Rhino Butt’s back, but then what would happen? He’d toss me off. There had to be a better way. Rhino Butt picked up a sack of fruit as though it weighed nothing and threw it at Zak. Zak ducked, but I knew his luck wouldn’t last forever, even with that elephant god’s help. Rhino Butt was getting closer.