Escape Under the Forever Sky (13 page)

The tracks led back through some trees, and before too much longer, there it was: a stream! My very own stream that I had found all by myself. It was trickly and meager, and maybe it was raging with parasites, but I didn't care—it was wet. I leaned down and began
scooping mouthfuls of water as fast as I could. It was warm and muddy and tasted like clay, but has anything ever been sweeter? I actually laughed as I drank, I was so relieved. Finding this stream felt like the biggest accomplishment of my entire life.

After I finished drinking, I carefully unwrapped my foot and inspected the damage. Thankfully, it didn't look infected—yet. I dabbed my foot in the water and used my hand and the bandage to clean the cut as best I could, grinding my teeth against the sting. Then I swished the bandage around in the stream and rubbed it against a rock to get as much dirt out as possible. When I was finished, my foot actually looked clean and the bandage looked a bit better too. I wrung the extra water out of the bandage and let my foot air-dry before wrapping it up again.

Now that I had found my stream, I was never going to leave it. My stream, I decided, was my salvation. It would give me water; it would lead me back to civilization. I named it Moses.

Okay, Mo. Whither thou goest, I too shall go. Isn't that in the Bible somewhere?
I walked along the edge of the stream, listening to the birds calling and the occasional scurrying
noise of some small animal I couldn't see. Luckily, there were no signs of Markos, Helena, or Dawit. Had they given up? Doubtful—it had only been a few hours. A few of the bushes had small red berries, but hungry as I was, I was too scared to eat them. A couple bites of
injera
would have to do. If I could forget about the awful reason for this walkabout, I could actually see enjoying myself. Exploring the African bush on my own had been a lifelong fantasy. I was Mowgli in
Jungle Book
, Tarzan, king of the apes (or in my case, of the colobus), and of course Lucy in Narnia.

But I couldn't forget. My progress was slow because of my foot, and as the afternoon wore on and there were still no signs of civilization, I got more and more worried. Finally I had to face reality: I was actually going to have to spend the night alone in the bush. I stopped short and hugged myself tightly, trying not to cry.
Deep breaths, Lucy. Think
. Staying on the ground would be suicide, I knew. I looked up at the trees. Okay, which one of you would be home for tonight?

It had to be easy to climb and with enough leaves on top to screen me from any nighttime predators. A
big, thick comfy (comfy!) branch was essential, and I didn't want to be too close to Moses, since animals would be likely to use the stream as a water source during the night—like the lions I had been hearing or, God forbid, hyenas.

There are a lot of hyenas in Ethiopia. At night they prowl in packs, their shaggy brown spotted fur matted with dirt, reeking of the blood from their most recent kill or of the “hyena butter” they secrete from their butts to mark their territories (how gross is that?). Their massive jaws are the strongest in the animal kingdom. Hyenas are the only animals I know of whose young kill each other—besides humans, that is.

I don't know why hyenas are called “laughing.” “Laughing” suggests something happy, like a good joke or a child playing on the beach. The hyena's bark sounds more like an evil witch's cackle. It's no wonder hyenas are to Africans what black cats are to Westerners. There's even a mythical were-hyena here—like a werewolf except that the man's killer alter ego is a hyena instead of a wolf.

Finally I found it: the perfect tree, with lots of leaves and big branches that wouldn't be too hard
to climb. It was a sycamore—the African kind, not the kind we have at home. Dahnie had told me the Egyptians called the sycamore the tree of life, which I decided was a good sign. I looked up and scanned the branches: no pythons. Next to the sycamore was an acacia, which I considered longingly. But the two-inch thorns covering every branch made the umbrella tree an impossible choice. Like a lion, my favorite tree is beautiful but dangerous.

It was getting dark, but before climbing up, I stopped for one last drink and bush stop. If I needed to go during the night, I would just have to hang my butt off the branch like a monkey.
Can my life get any weirder?

Hands on the trunk of the sycamore, I paused, irresistibly drawn to the thorny umbrella tree. I craved the safe and peaceful feeling the acacias gave me out in the bush. I thought if I could just sit under the acacia for a little while, maybe I wouldn't feel so scared and alone. Just a couple of minutes wouldn't be too dangerous, would it? Only five minutes, I promised myself, not a second more, and I'd keep my eyes peeled and my ears open the whole time.

I sat down slowly, leaned my back against the trunk, and felt my tight muscles relax. It felt so good to rest and to pretend I was anywhere but here.
I'm not in Africa, not alone. I'm home, under a tree. It's Christmas
.

Christmas is my favorite holiday, and my favorite Christmas was when I was eight years old. It was back before my mother had started working so hard, before everything changed. We were in Maryland for the holidays, and we were making our annual trip up to Philadelphia to spend the day with Mom's cousins, the ones Dad calls the Dreary Dunlops. Not that their last name is Dunlop. Dad does that with everyone; it's part of his strange sense of humor. I'm Lulu (after another opera heroine—this one gets murdered by Jack the Ripper), Mom's sister, Victoria, is Naughty Nora, and Grandma Catherine is the Battle-Ax.

Anyway, after acknowledging Dad's Jewish heritage with a breakfast of bagels and lox, we crammed the car with everyone's presents and set off.

Mom and Dad starting fighting almost as soon as we pulled out of the driveway.

“It's not as if we see them all the time, Dan. Is
it so terrible that I want to be with my family on Christmas?”

“Willa, you're not
listening
to me. Of course you should see your family on Christmas. But does it have to be the same thing, the same people, every year?”

“It's called tradition! Ever hear of it?”

I hated it when they fought. “Can you please have this argument some other time?”

“No!” they shouted in unison.

“All married couples argue, Lucy,” my father said in his most sincere fatherly tone. “It doesn't mean Mom and I don't love each other.”

I was beginning to feel nauseated, and I didn't think it was just from listening to my parents.

“I feel sick.”

“You don't feel sick,” Mom said. “You just don't want us to argue.”

“No, I really feel sick.”

“Why don't you lean back and try to have a nap, Lulu?” Dad suggested.

I closed my eyes and tried to tune out their whispered bickering, which got louder and louder every minute.

“Mom?”

“What!”

“I really think I'm going to be sick. Daddy, pull over!”

But it was too late. By the time Dad got the car to the shoulder, I had already vomited smoked salmon and cream cheese all over the new car—and Mom.

My parents looked at each other.

“No problem!” Dad exclaimed brightly. “We'll just do Christmas at our house!”

Half an hour later, there I was, tucked into my parents' bed, clean and cozy in my favorite blue flannel nightgown. My stomach felt a lot better, and Mom had brought me a tray of ginger ale and saltines.

“Ho-ho-ho!”
sang Dad. He and Mom stood smiling in the doorway, wearing matching Santa hats and carrying shopping bags of presents.

They sat on the bed with me, and together we opened our gifts. I don't remember them all, but I do remember Dad gave Mom antique garnet earrings and a matching bracelet, and Mom gave Dad a beautiful hourglass. I got a CD player, some books (of course), and best of all, a real fossilized saber-toothed tiger
fang that was more than 500,000 years old.

“Why don't you try to take a nap, sweetie?” said Mom at last. She was rubbing my back in big, slow circles.

I rolled over, and they both leaned in to kiss me at the same time, one on each cheek. A Lucy sandwich.

After they left, I played with Dad's hourglass for a while. The afternoon sun sparkled against the green and blue glass. I watched the sand stream through the narrow opening and pile into a dune in the bottom bulb until I drifted off to sleep, barely aware of the sound of my parents' laughter coming from the next room.

My parents' laughter? No! Those were
hyenas
—hyenas somewhere close!

I
NSTANTLY WIDE AWAKE
, I sprang to my feet and stared saucer-eyed into the black night. I practically flew the ten feet to the sycamore and scrambled up the trunk as fast as I could. My heart pounded in my chest, and I couldn't catch my breath. Hyenas! I had visions of my guts spilling out and my blood pumping into the dirt. I couldn't bear to think about it.

I wrapped both arms around the tree trunk and pressed my cheek against the reassuring solidity of its rough bark, hardly aware of the throbbing in my foot.
I'm okay, I'm okay
. Slowly I counted
one Mississippi, two Mississippi, three Mississippi
, until my breathing returned to normal. At two-hundred-four Mississippi, I noticed
my stomach growling and gurgling—though whether from hunger or parasites or both was impossible to tell. I ate the last of my
injera
and tried not to think about life alone in the wilds of Ethiopia with no food. The setting of the sun had taken the edge off the intense heat, although not enough to stop the sweat trickling down my neck and back. But, I reasoned, as long as I was sweating, I couldn't be too dehydrated. At least I had one thing to be grateful for.

I forced myself to keep thinking about all of my physical problems to take my mind off the hyenas that continued to squeal and cackle nearby. I could picture them clearly: their batlike faces, bushy spotted fur, and bizarre sloping haunches. After all, this wasn't my first hyena encounter.