Ghost Leopard (A Zoe & Zak Adventure #1) (15 page)

“Double gross,” I said quietly.

The mahout ignored me. “The Vanara is evil. Elephant knows,” he said.

The mahout took a small cotton sack out of his pocket. The sack was off-white and exactly the same as the sack he had hanging from a black cord around his own neck. I recognized the cord as elephant hair. It was thick, like leather, and they sold it at the jewelry-making shops back home that I sometimes went to with my mother. The mahout opened the sack and stuck the steaming elephant poop inside of it. Then he tied it tight with a second black elephant-hair cord. The mahout reached toward me.

“No, no, no,” I said, ducking away, back toward the elephant.

Unable to reach me, the mahout turned to Zak with the elephant-poop necklace.

“Easy now,” Zak said.

The mahout looped the stinking charm around Zak's neck. Zak checked it out. I swear, he seemed to like it. I guess it didn’t smell too bad. Not compared to his own head. The mahout then reached into his pocket and pulled out an old, brightly colored postcard. The postcard was creased and worn, but it showed what looked like a warrior or soldier fighting off an evil-looking Monkey Man under a fiery orange sky. The monkey and soldier looked kind of like what Mukta had shown us in the brass pot. Not only that, but the warrior wore the same sort of yellow yak-hair hat with jingling bells that Zak had bought back at the bazaar.

“Follow the way, Mud Devils,” the mahout said.
 

Mud Devils? That was weird. How did he know Mukta had called us that? The mahout bowed his head and put his hands together, his fingers pointing upward, just as the other people we had met had. Then he walked away.

I walked toward the stalls. I wasn’t really hungry, but I was curious. The stalls looked like they mainly sold chai, the donkeys with thick blankets on their backs tethered outside.

“Want anything?” Zak asked.

I shook my head as Zak wandered inside one of the stalls. I stayed outside and paced. I guess maybe curious wasn’t the best way to describe how I was feeling. I was wired. I felt like I was still on that rooftop flying through the air at a million miles an hour. My heart was still racing and I knew I need to slow it down. If I didn’t, it would probably explode. I looked around. The road ended a few feet from where I stood, a path continuing between two towering rocks. I guessed we were in Tatura. Mukta had said that where the road ends, the way to Tendua Tibba began. What I really wanted, which I hadn’t told Zak, was a minute to compose myself. I took a deep breath to try and slow my racing heart. Though I hoped that the guys in the Jeep were gone, I wasn’t counting on it. That would be too easy and nothing about this trip had been easy so far. I took a deep breath, in and out, in and out, my heart slowly calming. Not long after, Zak came back out pulling two donkeys on a rope behind him. He held a handful of samosas in his open palm, one already in his mouth.

“You have to try one. It’s a samosa,” he said. “Potato and spices in this triangular shell. They’re like a three-dimensional corn chip. They’re great.” Zak finished chewing. “I rented these donkeys. The guys inside say they know the way.”

I was silent while Zak shoved the samosas into his mouth.

“It’s really simple. We pull the donkey’s tails to get them to go. Pull again and they stop.”

I didn’t speak.

“OK. I admit Rhino Butt and his meat cleaver were a little unexpected.”

I turned away from him. I saw Zak reach for his running shoe out of the corner of my eye.

“Look. I know I shouldn’t have kept the map.”

“Or the money,” I said.

“Or the money.”

Zak removed the folded map from his shoe. I didn’t know he had put it in there. It was a little wet, but otherwise fine.

“If you want, we can give the map back. You know, if we see him again.”

“What I want is to see what he’s so excited about.”

Zak unfolded the map. The weathered parchment was stained brown from the water and mud in Zak's shoe, but that wasn’t the only way it looked different from the way it had looked back at the hotel pool. Parts of the map were glowing. And not just a little either. Among all the X’s on the map, one of them glowed a hot yellow. A fiery golden path led through the mountains toward it.

“This is totally hot,” Zak said. “Like it feels
hot
.”

“Maybe it was the water that did it, like invisible ink.”

“Maybe it’s Mukta showing us the way.”

 
“Come on, do you really believe him?”

“You saw the same thing I did back at the hut. Mukta said the Ghost Leopard would climb Tendua Tibba under the light of the full moon.”

“Mukta was a crazy man,” I said.

“Maybe,” Zak said. “But what if he’s right?” Zak pointed out Tendua Tibba on the map. “If he is, the Leopard will be there.”

I shrugged. I had to admit, seeing the map glow had undone all of that deep breathing I’d just done to calm myself. Sure, this Rhino Butt guy was a problem, but even though I was loathe to admit it, I was really starting to think that there might actually be a Ghost Leopard out there. I wasn’t ready to talk about it though. Not yet. Zak handed me a samosa.

“Look, Zoe, I’m sorry for everything. If you want to go straight back right now, I totally get it.”

I took a couple of steps beyond the road to the two giant stones standing on either side of the path like a gate. Actually, I was pretty sure Zak didn’t get it. This wasn’t about being chased by Rhino Butt. It wasn’t about almost dying in a bus crash. It was about what was possible. I stepped forward so that I stood between the towering stones. They rose on either side of me, my body casting a somber shadow across the path. Walking beyond them would be committing. I would not only be committing to help Zak find the Ghost Leopard, but I would also be committing, to the idea at least, that maybe some of the things I had seen in Mukta's hut last night, some of the things that looked almost magical, might be real. It was a big thing and I took my commitments seriously. I wasn’t going to continue on unless I thought there was chance, however small, that we might actually find this Ghost Leopard. And even though everything I had learned in school told my there probably wasn’t a chance, everything I had seen so far on my trip to India told my that there was. Besides, I didn’t have to listen to everything Mukta said. If we found this Ghost Leopard I might be able to get a really cool picture. Or not. Everything about this trip was a risk.

I couldn’t decide what to do. Not rationally. Not with my brain anyway. So I closed my eyes and listened to my heart. When I did, I could see nothing, but I felt my feet move of their own accord. They took me one, then two steps forward, beyond the towering rocks. When I opened my eyes again, I was in a different world. Almost like magic, the clouds parted in the sky above. Rays of sunlight shot down revealing the green terraced rice fields in the valley far below, the giant Himalayan mountains shooting above. Zak walked through the stone gates behind me, dragging the donkeys. I looked him in the eye.

“I want you to promise me that you’re going to try to stop doing crazy stuff that will get us killed.”

“I promise,” Zak said.

“Really?”

“I promise to at least try,” he said.

“Then let’s get a picture of this thing.”

I hopped up onto my donkey, reached behind me, and pulled on its tail. That was all it took. The next thing I knew I was galloping down the path to who knew where.

After a while my donkey calmed down and I was able to snap a few pictures as we rode. The sun shone and the birds chirped and my heart finally began to a beat at a more normal pace. Even though we had only just escaped Rhino Butt that morning, we were off the road in a place his Jeep couldn’t get to us. That felt good. And the landscape was beautiful. Speckled sunlight shone through the pine trees as we headed along the narrow ridge, a river running through the valley below. I did get the feeling that we might be being followed, but not by land, by air. Like the same magic carpet was keeping tabs on us or something. A couple of times I pointed my camera at the sky behind me and clicked the shutter, but I only ever got a blur. The sun got into the shot somehow. I tried to let go of the feeling we were being shadowed. I was probably just being paranoid after our crazy morning.
 

A woman with a giant bundle of twigs on her back approached and I snapped her picture. It looked like she was collecting firewood.

“Do you ever wonder why your dad brought you along on this trip?” I asked Zak.

“I don’t know. He asked if I wanted to come.”

“I know. But your dad and my mom have been going on these trips for ages. I’ve gone, I think, twice total. How about you?”

“Once before. I went to New York with my dad.”

“So why are they letting us come with them now?”

“I’m not sure,” Zak said. “I think my dad is worried about me since he and my mom split.”

“I know what you mean,” I said.

“I didn’t know your mom split with your dad.”

“She didn’t,” I said. “I mean, I didn’t know my dad. What I was trying to say is, I think my mom is worried about me too.”

The donkeys plodded along. The path was wider here and we could walk side by side. The trail was busier than I would have expected. What looked like a giant, shiny black lump was coming down the trail. It wasn’t until it was right beside us that I figured out what the huge shiny thing was. It was a piano, a baby grand by the looks of it. The piano had worn ebony and ivory keys and the man who carried it was bent nearly all the way over, holding the piano steady with a thick canvas strap around his sweating forehead. I couldn’t believe it. I didn’t think it was even possible for one person to carry a piano.
 

“Heavy,” Zak said, staring at the piano. “Why is your mom worried?” he asked.

I didn’t answer. I eased my donkey to the side of the path, letting the piano man past.

“Namaste,” I said, bowing my head and putting my hands together in the traditional greeting I had now seen many times.
 

The man with the piano on his back smiled back at me, beads of sweat running down his cheeks. He was called a coolie. His job was to carry things and for a long moment, I felt very guilty that I had a donkey to ride and this poor guy had to carry somebody’s piano. It didn’t seem fair. I would have given him my donkey, but I don’t think the donkey could have carried it. One thing I vowed to do was think about the poor guy every time I practiced the piano after school. It wouldn’t make carrying the piano any easier for him, but at least it would make practice seem not so hard. The piano man bowed his head as he passed.
 

“Why’s your mom worried?” Zak asked again.

It was me who had stupidly brought the topic up, so I knew I was going to have to answer. I gently pulled the tail on my donkey to get him walking again.

“A couple of weeks ago I found out some stuff about being adopted,” I said.

“Whoa,” Zak said. “Like you didn’t know before?”

“No, I knew I was adopted, but a couple of weeks ago, I actually found the paperwork and some pictures and stuff. I was looking for something in my mom’s office, going through her stuff, and there it was, the date my mom got me and everything. But there was no mention of my birth parents. It just said unknown.”

“What did your mom say?”

“Nothing.”

“What do you mean nothing?”

“She didn’t say anything. We didn’t actually talk about it.”

“Well, if you’re worried about it, shouldn’t you ask her?”

“I don’t know. I left her office in a hurry when I heard her car pull in. I left the papers out, so I’m pretty sure she knows I was looking around.”

“And she didn’t say anything?”

“Not yet. That’s what I’m worried about. I think that’s why she brought me on this trip. So we could have some quality time together. So maybe she could tell me about my birth parents.”

“That is going to be mega awkward.”

“Tell me about it,” I said.

“Did you find out anything else? Like where you were adopted from?”

“St. James hospital in Virginia. That’s it. That’s all I know.”

“And I thought my little chat about behaving myself around my dad’s new girlfriend was going to be a
 
pain.”

“He has a new girlfriend?” I asked.

“Not yet, but in case he gets one.”

We came to a creek cutting across the path. A stream of diverted water ran over a banana leaf and through the legs of the stone sculpture of a five-headed god. The god looked a lot like Hanuman, the monkey god, but all the gods had so many arms it was really hard to be sure. The donkeys started to drink so Zak and I got off. Zak bent down and opened up his mouth, taking a drink from the water running off the banana leaf.
 

“I told you, you shouldn't drink the water,” I said. “You can get sick around here.”

“I guarantee we’ll get sicker if we don’t drink anything at all.”

“Well, when you put it like that…”

I knew Zak was right so I knelt down and drank. The bubbly water was fresh and cold. It probably came straight from some mountain glacier, so I wasn’t too worried about getting sick. Plus, I didn’t realize how thirsty I was. I thought I might open a pack of cookies too. But as I wiped my mouth dry I had that funny feeling again. The feeling that we were being watched.

“What do you think about this Ghost Leopard?” Zak said. “They say it’s a ghost wandering around all the time and it only becomes real, like with a body and everything, once every hundred years. That’s crazy.”

“Shh…”
 

“Imagine only getting your body back once every hundred years. You’ve only got that one night to enjoy yourself and poof, when the sun comes out you’re a ghost again.”

“I said be quiet.”

“If I knew I was going to get my body back for only that one night, I’d enjoy every moment of it. I’m talking a good time. I’d probably eat lots of pizza. And ice cream. Chocolate ice cream. Do you think a ghost feels full when it eats?”