KALAHARI

Chapter One

The lions were napping on the runway again.

I held up a hand against the blazing African sun and stared at the small silver plane that was just minutes away from touching down. I’d have to move the pride before it landed.

“Theo!” I called. The Bushman was sitting on the hood of the Land Cruiser, and when he looked my way, I pointed at the three lionesses and two cubs sunning themselves on the hard-packed sand. Laughing, he leaned backward and honked the horn of the truck, his way of saying we’d have to chase them off. I nodded and ran back to the Cruiser, tossing my folder of papers in the backseat.

In a moment, I had the engine roaring and we were off, rattling down the runway toward the sleeping lions. They yawned and chuffed at me in a lazy attempt to scare me off, but I bore down on them. I recognized the pride; the lionesses were sisters, used to us rambling around the bush. They barely opened their eyes as the truck trundled up to them.

            I stopped the Cruiser, leaving the engine  running,  and climbed onto the hood. From there, I shouted and waved my arms, to the amusement of the cubs, who rolled and yowled and stretched. At last, their mothers lifted themselves up huffily and ambled off the runway. They were soon lost in the waving golden grass, their tawny coats blending into the dry savanna. Just the black tips of their tails showed, flickering slyly above the foliage, and then those too vanished.

I drove the truck back to the other end  of the runway and parked it, then  grabbed my folder out of the backseat. The plane was dropping lower in the sky, lining up with the runway.

Theo glanced at me sidelong. He was part Bushman, with the lovely golden skin characteristic of his nomadic  ancestors, and though he was older than my father, he was no taller than I was. He had found a praying mantis somewhere, and the insect was crawling over his hands, from one to the other. As soon as it crawled onto one hand, he lifted the other and placed it in front, so that the mantis was continually crawling forward but getting nowhere. Theo could charm any creature that walked, crawled, flew, or slithered. “You look like you got a toothache, girl,” he said.

“Two weeks,” I murmured,  my eyes still on the  plane. “What are we going to do with five teenagers from the city for two weeks?”

“You’re a teenager.”  He  grinned,  taking far too much delight in my dismay. “I am sure you will have a grand time.”

“Yeah. A grand old time.” I sank lower in my seat and flipped open the folder, riffling through the documents inside.

“I went to school for three months in the States once, did you know that? The kids in my class called me Mowgli and threw bananas at me during lunch.”

“What is the problem? At the end of the day, it was you who ended up with all the bananas.” Theo turned in his seat, and though he was still smiling, his dark eyes were serious. “Tu!um-sa, it will be good for you. You cannot live your whole life with only animals for friends.”

“I can try.” I sighed and shut the folder. “Here they come.” The plane touched down in a cloud of dust, its silver sides reflecting golden grass and blue sky. It taxied down the short length and then turned, the propeller whipping up a whirlwind of sand. Theo  and I got out of the truck and walked toward the plane, and I held my scarf over my mouth  and nose to keep from breathing in the dust.

After the engine died and the propeller wound down, the pilot ran around the front of the plane and opened the passenger door. I drew a deep breath and put on what I hoped looked like a welcoming smile.

“And here we go,” I muttered through my teeth.

An Asian boy with a bright red baseball cap cocked sideways over his long, shaggy hair tumbled out of the plane. The pilot, a young Frenchman  named Matthieu, was standing at the door and tried to help him out, but the kid ignored him and fell to the ground, where he promptly puked onto the hard-packed sand.