Stiletto Safari (12 page)

Definitely trust your first instincts! And yes, I can speak with authority given my track record of shitty relationships. Now that I think back, there have always been early warning signs—not asking for my phone number, turning up two hours late to a date without calling ahead to apologize, asking me out for dinner and then making me pay, and owning a car with a child seat (don’t believe the excuse that he’s just borrowing a friend’s car). It all made sense when I read He’s Just Not That Into You!

If you’re wondering why I’m posting this at 2:00 a.m. it’s because I’m still at work—yes, I’m feeling bitter.

Talk soon,

Sal

Another reply, this time from Laura, a close friend from uni:

I’m intrigued: why on earth were you in the middle of a schoolyard in your underwear? Freud would have a field day psychoanalyzing that one!

Maybe you should show the kids Bad Teacher—might be appropriate? Just kidding, of course; I’m sure you’re absolutely terrific. Who wouldn’t love a flasher as a teacher!

My face grew warm again at the mention of the shower incident. So embarrassing…

I logged off and rejoined the party.

“Hey Amy, thanks so much for letting me use your Internet; I really appreciate it. It sounds silly, but I was actually feeling quite homesick.” I went and stood by the now blazing bonfire, warming myself. The night had turned cold.

Amy gave me a kind smile. “No worries, Zara—any time. And no, it doesn’t sound silly. I felt like that too when I first arrived.”

“It’s such a shame to be leaving early, but duty calls. Thanks so much, Amy and Ismail, for drinks,” I said, reluctantly tearing myself away from the fire.

“Guys, who’s going to walk Zara back to the dorm?” Amy called out to the group. Everyone was looking pretty cozy.

“I’ll go.” Hamish was the first to respond.

“You know, the school is not far away; I think I’ll be fine by myself,” I replied. I really didn’t want to spend any more time with Hamish than necessary.

“Zara, you shouldn’t go anywhere by yourself at night. We’ve recently seen a large male leopard around this area. We think he’s interested in one of our female leopards,” Sam pitched in. “Either Hamish or I will take you back. It’s no trouble at all.”

Begrudgingly I nodded in Hamish’s direction given he was the first to offer and was already on his feet. “Okay, let’s go. I have less than ten minutes to make it back.”

Everyone called out their goodbyes except for Henrietta. Bitch. She so had a crush on Hamish. As far as I was concerned she was welcome to him.

Hamish broke the silence first. “Sorry about this morning; I really didn’t mean to startle you.” I could feel my face flushing scarlet. Thank god it was dark.

Attempting to laugh off the awkward moment, I responded in as lighthearted a way as possible, “Seriously, don’t worry about it; I’ve had such a crazy day I’d actually forgotten all about it.”

Liar, my false voice echoed in my mind.

“So is your story true—I mean the reason you’re here…?”

Stunned, I stopped in my tracks. “Do you really think I’d make something like that up? I’m not some kind of crazy attention seeker.”

Sheepishly he shook his head. “Guess not; it’s just a pretty wild story.”

“Well, obviously I’m not thrilled about how my life has turned out. Lately, it has been an unmitigated disaster.” My tone was bitter, but I didn’t care.

Hamish stopped dead in his tracks, which caused me to bump into him.

“What?” I said impatiently.

“Ssshhh.” He put his finger to his lips.

Shit, Hamish must have heard the wild leopard. I stood perfectly still, expecting to be mauled any minute. On the upside, I might get medevaced out of here. I wondered where they’d take me.

“Look.” Hamish pointed skyward.

“I don’t know what you’re looking at,” I hissed back. My eyes were fixed on the bushes, waiting for the imminent pounce.

“Isn’t it beautiful?” Hamish’s voice sounded whimsical. “Have you ever seen such a clear sky and experienced such silence?”

Looking up, I saw that the night sky was indeed amazing. There were so many stars. It made me realize that I hadn’t seen the sky this clear in years. Across the horizon streaked a shooting star. In the distance I could hear the roar of a solitary lion and a strange cackling sound.

“What’s that noise?” I whispered.

“It’s the sound of hyenas. They make that noise when they make or find a kill. It’s their way of calling out to other hyenas.”

“I didn’t know there were hyenas here. Are they dangerous?”

Hamish shrugged, “All wild animals can be dangerous, and hyenas are no exception. Generally, they won’t attack an adult, but they’ve been known to kill children if food is scarce. Just the other day, though, a hyena came too close to a village about an hour from here. It attacked a bushman and severed his arm. I tried to find the animal so it could be destroyed, but it had disappeared by the time I arrived.”

We continued walking toward the school. “Is it really necessary?” I asked

Hamish looked puzzled.

“To kill the hyena. I presume man has encroached on its natural habitat and it has nowhere else to hunt.”

“Yes; sadly, I think it is necessary. I’m a wildlife biologist, so obviously I don’t like having to kill healthy wild animals, but once a hyena—or a lion or leopard, for that matter—has attacked a person, it becomes incredibly dangerous. It starts to see us as easy prey and will continue its attacks. The two lion cubs we have at the camp were part of a pride that escaped from a national park during the recent drought. The pride went on a two-day rampage, killing a cattle herder and a large part of his herd. All the adults and adolescents in the pride were eventually shot by villagers, but the cubs were fortunately spared. I’ll take you to see them if you’d like.”

“Ooohh, I’d love to see the cubs! What about tomorrow after school…”

So much for first instincts, I thought as the words tumbled effortlessly out of my mouth. Still, who gets to see lion cubs? I could make one teeny exception.

“Here we are.” Hamish paused in the shadow of the dorm building. “Now, no more following Gabi’s advice.” He grinned.

“Hahaha, you’re hilarious…not!” As an afterthought, I added a tad ungraciously, “So thanks anyway for walking me. Try not to get eaten on your way back; I don’t want to feel guilty.”

This time I remembered to duck as I entered the dorm. It didn’t seem quite as dark as last night. The older girls were sitting around chatting. They seemed a bit unsure about me, so I called out a friendly hello. Most of them timidly smiled back.

I felt sorry for these girls. From what I’d seen, there weren’t many prospects in the village for educated girls, although I had read somewhere that they fetched a higher “bride price,” whatever that meant.

Anyway, 8:30 was an indecently early time to go to bed and I wasn’t tired. Given that I was only staying a few weeks, I decided a little fun wouldn’t hurt. Retrieving my iPad, I went and sat on the end of one of the girls’ beds.

“Do you guys want to watch a bit of a DVD?” I inquired.

The girls looked at me blankly. I considered my movie list for a few minutes before selecting
Lara Croft: Tomb Raider
. I decided we needed a kick-ass girl power movie.

For the next hour and a bit, the girls were totally transfixed. It didn’t seem to matter that my screen was tiny; they couldn’t get enough.

Realizing my iPad was powerful leverage, I decided to start cutting a few deals. When the movie finished, I told the girls that if they finished all their homework tomorrow without me having to hassle them, we’d watch another movie.

As an inspired afterthought I added, “And all the little girls also have to have showers tomorrow—including you, Gabi,” I said, pointing at her. “No shower, no movie for anyone. And I don’t want to have to nag you about this tomorrow.”

Peer pressure could do my work for me.

Chapter 19

T

he next morning the little girls all dutifully lined up for their showers. Gabi pulled a lot of faces, but true to her word, she showered and even washed her hair. I helped her select a “clean” dress and got the girls to help braid each other’s hair. Despite their odd assortment of tattered dresses, they all looked so much cleaner and neater! Satisfied with my efforts, we marched into the dining area for breakfast. The other teachers nearly fell off their seats when they saw how neat all my girls looked.

In direct contrast to yesterday, my morning was a breeze. As I was now totally into bribing the kids, I promised a dress-up quiz after lunch if everyone worked hard in the morning.

The afternoon’s class was devoted to history. Bizarrely, the time period selected was ancient Rome. As much as I enjoy history, the incongruity of teaching primary-aged bush children about ancient Rome was not lost on me. It didn’t seem remotely relevant to their lives. Still, the children seemed to enjoy the fairly bloody account of the life and death of Julius Caesar that I dutifully read them from the textbook. To help bring the narrative to life, I selected some of the kids to play the main characters. The result was hilarious, especially as the actors were each allowed to play their character wearing something from the bag. Caesar and Brutus wore dresses while Mark Antony clomped around in high heels. Following the skit, I gave the kids a comprehension test until the bell signaled the end of the day.

As I retrieved my clothes and packed them back in the bag, I mentally started counting down the days left in my teaching stint. Two days down, which left twenty-six days to go. Wearily, I decided that counting down the days was too depressing and so opted for weeks instead. Surely I could survive three and a half more weeks!

Leaving the classroom building, I quite literally bumped into Hamish. The impact caused my bag to fall to the ground.

Annoyed, I bent down to gather my things. Hamish obviously had the same idea, because our heads connected with a dull thud.

“Oouucchh,” I moaned, clutching my hand to my temple, my eyes smarting with salty tears.

“I’m so sorry, Zara,” Hamish exclaimed. “Where did I hit you?” His warm hand was on my forehead, rubbing my temple. “Was it just here?”

I winced in response. He kept rubbing my head, which felt surprisingly soothing.

“I think you’ll live.” His hand stayed on my brow for a moment longer than it needed to before he quickly withdrew it.

“What are you doing here, anyway?” I demanded crossly.

“Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten our date.” Hamish looked annoyingly hot in a fitted white shirt and cargo shorts. Even though I was trying not to notice, it was obvious that he had a great body.

“Date?” I practically snorted. I felt like adding, “Not with you in your lifetime,” but decided that was unnecessary.

“The lion cubs, remember?”

“Ohhh, the cubs,” I said, clapping my hands together excitedly. “I’d totally forgotten. Let me dump my things first.”

“No, don’t worry about it; we’ll just put them in the back of the truck.” Hamish pointed to a four-wheel drive. “Let’s go,” he said, grabbing the bag. “We’re missing out on the cubs’ playtime. They’re usually most active around this time because it’s not as hot.”

Surprisingly, Hamish was quite chatty on the drive to the cubs’ enclosure. He told me all about Shakira, the female cub, and Umbilly, the male cub. The cubs were about nine months old and their play was starting to get a little rough. They enjoyed stalking and pouncing on unsuspecting volunteers. Because of their increasingly boisterous behavior, the cubs were to be moved to a bigger enclosure and contact with volunteers was to be phased out over the coming months. Due to Hamish’s close relationship with the cubs, however (he’d nursed them when they first arrived at the orphanage), we were going to take them walking through the bush. I couldn’t wait!

Astonishingly, Hamish had never heard of Christian the Lion. Obviously he wasn’t a very good wildlife biologist, because Christian is only the world’s most famous lion. I loved the real life story of two young Aussies living in London in the 1970s purchasing a lion cub from Harrods. Christian lived in Central London before growing too big. Through a series of chance meetings, his devoted dads were able to send Christian back to Kenya and the world’s coolest lion was released to the wild. A year after his release, Christian’s dads traveled to Kenya, and their reunion with Christian is the stuff of YouTube legend.

When we pulled up at the enclosure, the cubs were nowhere to be seen. Instructing me to stay close, Hamish unlocked the gate and gave a few sharp whistles. From out of the thicket bounded two very healthy and energetic looking lions. Reflexively, I shrank back behind Hamish. The cubs were bigger than I’d imagined. Without slowing, they sprang on Hamish, licking his face.

When the cubs settled down, I was allowed to meet them. At first they eyed me suspiciously, but then, Umbilly, came up and head-butted my leg. He rubbed his head back and forth against me like a domestic cat. Instinctively I reached down and patted his ears and under his chin. He started to purr!

Shakira was more standoffish. It was only after Hamish gave her a nudge toward me that she came over and licked my arm. Her tongue was rough like sandpaper, but the lick was gentle enough.

“Let’s go.” Hamish headed out of the gate and the cubs trotted off behind him.

“Do we need leads or anything?” I called.

Hamish chuckled and slung a backpack I hadn’t previously noticed over his shoulder. “Not where we’re going.”

For a few minutes we wandered along in silence. The cubs continued trotting beside Hamish, although every now and then they would stop to smell something or to mark their territory.

Finally, we halted under an enormous shady tree perched on a river bank. Due to the recent drought, the river was a mere trickle, but the combination of shade and the sound of running water was enough to make the area feel cooler.