Zahrah the Windseeker (19 page)

I thought I'd gotten a good idea of the jungle's range by reading the digi-book and from my own experiences, but the next three days really broadened my view.

I saw black-and-white, long-limbed spider monkeys, frowning day owls, huge snails that sucked the bark and moss from trees, oily black spiders fat with venom, papery-skinned chameleons, fire ants that glowed orange with poison, anteaters that fed on the fire ants and breathed out smoke after each meal, black honeypot ants with bulbous behinds and long, thick antennae, grasshoppers the size of my hand, friendly dwarf impalas that barely came up to my knees, snickering parrots, laughing doves, and plenty of nofly birds (orange-beaked black birds with lovely wings who refused to use them) running from bush to bush.

There were wild light-bulb trees that glowed all sorts of colors at night and short fat current trees (I made sure not to get close to these trees. The electrical current they produce will make all the muscles in your body cramp up if you just brush against one). I even saw a wild CPU plant! Now I know what the plants are like when free of human manipulation. It grew as a giant red flower with a wide leafy base. The flower was a monitor, and it was so bright that that night I could still see it glowing a mile away. I wondered if the flower connected itself to the network and what it did once there.

Eventually I did come across a few ponds. Some were large, others small. I refilled my water bottles and washed quickly in the ones that weren't mucked up with algae. In two of the larger ponds, I spotted armored alligators, blue-veined turtles, and glass fish. I giggled with delight when I came across a yellow balloon frog. The moment it saw me, it did exactly what the field guide said it would: puff itself up with self-produced helium and float away. And, of course, there were all kinds of mosquitoes, gnats, and flies.

Not surprisingly, I encountered more deadly pod plants. I'd looked them up in my digi-book the night I'd seen the first one eat a horse. They were called Carnigourds, and they ate anything that came close enough. I'd been lucky and smart to keep my distance. The second time I encountered one, however, I wasn't so fortunate. This Carnigourd was hidden behind several high bushes and creeping plants. I didn't walk directly in front of it, but I did walk close enough for it to grab my ankle with one of its dry brown roots.

I was deep in thought. It had been so many days, and with each day, I worried more about how I was running out of time. But how could I hurry when I didn't know exactly where I was going? All I knew was that elgorts were deep in the Greeny Jungle, and to go deep meant going north.

I diverted my mind to thinking about my friendship with Dari instead. I remembered how we used to climb trees and study together, and how he used to laugh at me when I was at a loss for words. And how he laughed even harder at my fear of heights and sometimes the dark.
I'm no longer really afraid of either one, Dari,
I'd been thinking.

And I wasn't. I was no longer afraid of many things. I wasn't afraid of the pink-skinned lizard I'd seen that second day in the jungle. These lizards were quite common, and they usually searched for their meals in the morning. They ate parasites that clung to the roots of trees. This was good for the trees, since these underground plants tended to sap nutrients directly from the trees' roots.

These ferocious-looking Morning Skin Dragons, as they are called, were actually bashful creatures that ran away when anything approached them, including me. Once, however, I dug up a root parasite and was able to coax a small dragon to take it right from my hand.
If Dari could only dee me now,
I thought.

I remembered how pleased he'd been three years ago when I'd finally followed him up into a baobab tree. He'd been trying to persuade me to climb one since the fifth day we'd met.

"Just the first branch," he'd always say. "It's fun up here."

I'd believed him. As I clung to the low branch for dear life, Dari clapped with delight and laughed. He laughed so loud that my mother came out to see what was going on. When she saw me in the tree, she exclaimed, "Zahrah! You're in the tree! That's great!"

That had been a good day.

"We'll have more good days, Dan," I said as I walked and the Carnigourd's root crept up behind me.

I looked up at the sky through the trees, and at that moment I saw something yellow zoom by. It was the size of a ... person? Was that a person? I wasn't sure. I stopped and stood staring at the sky, hoping to see it again. This was my biggest mistake. I had almost been out of the Carnigourd's reach.

Its root took advantage of the moment, quickly wrapping itself around my ankle and pulling me to the ground. I hit my forehead painfully in the dirt and felt my side being scraped by pebbles, rocks, and dead leaves as the Carnigourd slowly pulled me across the jungle floor. My mind reeled with images of Dari, crushed bones, plant digestive juices, and pain. I panicked, thrashing my body back and forth in an attempt to free myself.

Then it happened. The scorpion poison kicked in and everything just went black. It was the kind of sleep you fall into when you're extremely tired and your bed is extremely comfortable. One minute I was mentally there, the next I was in delicious darkness.

I was brought back to consciousness when an especially sharp rock scraped my arm. I'm sure that rock saved my life. Oh, if I had not awakened in that moment! The Carnigourd behind the bushes was in full view, and I screamed. I thrashed some more. Then I remembered my blood pressure. I had to keep it low. I breathed out of my mouth as I collected myself. I took a deep breath. "Wait!" I shouted at the plant. "Um...
please!
"

Oddly enough, the plant's pull slowed.

I tried my best to remember what I'd read in the digi-book about this common meat-eating plant. It lowered its pod, its mouth open, and I feared I'd fall asleep again from the sight of it. There were no teeth and the inside was red. There were two holes near the back—one large one that led to its stomach and the other hole ... I gasped. The smaller one was its
ear,
I remembered. Carnigourds responded to sound as a palm-wine lover responds to palm wine; if it was sweet, then he was happy, his brain relishing nothing but the happiness. I started singing the first song that came to me.

Um ... Close the door
Light the light.
We're staying home tonight.

My mother used to sing the song when I was very young. The Carnigourd immediately stopped pulling, savoring with pleasure the sound of my voice.

Far away from the bustle
And the bright city lights.

I slowly unraveled the plant's vines from my ankle as I sang.

Let them all fade away
Just leave us alone
And we'll live in a world of our own.
We'll build a world of our own that no one else can share.
All our sorrows we'll leave far behind us there.

I slowly stepped back, now thankful that Carnigourds didn't have eyes. The pod had closed and it slowly moved side to side as I sang.

And I know you will find
There 'it he peace of mind
When we Live in a world of our own.

I stopped singing, turned, and ran as fast as I could, as far from the Carnigourd as possible.

The next two days were like the previous ones. Deadly.

I'd been in the forbidden jungle for two weeks, and somehow I was still alive. If I made it home, no one would believe all I'd been through. I'd walked so many miles that my body was starting to gain useful muscle. The walking was coming more easily to me. At night, I no longer climbed into the trees. I simply floated up.

I made sure my things were nicely hidden. Nothing was likely to steal them from so high up. As for the many bush cows, or "bandits of the jungle," I'd fed several of the quiet furry creatures some of my overripe mangoes and left even more at the foot of whatever tree I slept in. I was sure that the bush cows were smart enough to find a way to get to my things if they wanted to, so it was my way of compromising with them. So far, my plan had worked.

"Compass, so now after all you've seen, do you still think the forbidden jungle should be forbidden?" I asked as I sat high in a baobab tree.

The compass's yellow rotating flower lit up my cupped hands in the night.

"Of course I do. Go back home to your parents, young lady," it recited. "I can tell you how many days it'll take if you go seven miles a day."

"That's OK. Compass, I have to do this." I was talking more to myself than to the compass. "And the jungle is crazy but it's just another place. "

"Do you know how far away from home you are?"

"I don't want to know."

"Many, many miles."

"Don't tell me, compass."

The next day, when I started seeing half-eaten deer, bush cow, and even horse carcasses hanging high in the trees, I didn't panic. I couldn't afford to. I knew what I had to do. I kept an eye on the treetops and immediately found a patch of lemongrass. I picked some, crushed it up in my hands to release the oil, and rubbed it all over my skin and clothes.

On my fifteenth day in the jungle, a panther jumped out of a nearby tree and charged at me without making a sound. I could hear its partner coming at me from behind.
On their four legs, they stood taller than I, and their fur
did
look like black oil. I froze, my eyes wide and my mouth half open.
Don't run, don't run, do not run,
I thought. I could feel myself shaking as I breathed with my mouth open, concentrating on keeping my blood pressure down and my body still. No matter how I smelled, I had a strong feeling that if I fell asleep in front of these beasts, they would not be able to resist such an easy meal.

They stopped in midcharge, their nostrils flaring wide as they sniffed the air. I slowly blew out air, standing my ground. The other one stepped around me to stand next to its partner. In their eyes, I saw a sharp cunning. The panthers could easily kill me if they chose to. It was all up to them. Still, I was determined not to let my condition get the best of me. One of them spoke.

"You look scared," the panther said. She purred her words more than she spoke them, and her voice was smooth.

"You should be," the other one said. His voice was low like the large drums played during the New Yam Festival back home.

"Please," I said. How come the book had said nothing about the panthers' being intelligent enough to talk? Gradually I was noticing that though full of useful information, the field guide was not complete. There were plenty of holes in its extensive chapters. Once again I noticed that you could never fully trust anything you read or that was told to you. Human beings simply weren't perfect. I hoped the book was, at least, right about the elgort egg's healing properties. "I-I just ... please don't..."

"Do you think we're so stupid? As if we don't know that you just rubbed lemongrass all over yourself," the male said.

"You may smell bad," the female said, "but we know that under that foul-smelling skin is tender, sweet fresh meat."

"Skin is easy to separate from meat when we want to," the male said.

I shivered with revulsion. The panthers paced back and forth as they spoke, rubbing against each other's fur and keeping their large green eyes on me.

"That horrible smell you've bathed yourself in won't keep us from eating you," the female said.

"But it might cause us to give you one chance to convince us why we shouldn't eat you," the male said. He looked at his mate, and they both chuckled, obviously enjoying the prolonged moment of intimidation before their meal.

I was thinking fast, my eyes scanning all the nearest trees. But climbing the trees was even worse trouble. And if I floated up, the trees would be too close together. The panthers would easily ambush me.
What reason can I give them to not eat me?
I wondered.
I can tell them that I'm on a mission to save my best friend. But what will they care? They'll
probably want to eat Dari too.
And so I took a chance and blurted out the strangest thing about myself.

"Um ... I can fly," I said. "Sort of."

The panthers stopped pacing, their eyes narrowing as they looked at me for the first time as more than just meat. Then they looked at each other, and the male growled something to the female that I couldn't understand. Then the female looked at me and said, "Show us."

"Yes," the male said. "Show us."

Even under the stress of my life being at risk, I was able to do it. I floated up two feet in the air.

"She doesn't lie," the male said.

"Another Windseeker," the female said, resting on her haunches. "It's been a while."

"The last Windseeker we met was several years ago. A female, tall for a human," the male said. "Nothing like you. She laughed when we attacked. When we saw that she could fly and appeared to be skillful with two small sharp knives she hid in her dress pockets, we decided to make a swift retreat. Wasn't worth the trouble."