Escape Under the Forever Sky by Eve Yohalen Page B

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 scurryingnoise 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. Abig, 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 hardto 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