Escape Under the Forever Sky

www.chroniclekids.com

Simien Mountains,

Ethiopia

DUST IS EVERYWHERE. Red-brown, soft as silt. It coats the windshield, the dashboard, our clothes, our skin. Streams of sweat trace tiny paths down my neck and bigger ones down my back. My legs stick to the seat.

The windows of the jeep are open. They let in a hot breeze that whips my hair but does nothing to cool us. They also let in more dust, which crusts inside our noses and throats.

But the open windows let us see out, let us see the sky. Huge forever sky, framed by mountain crags and undisturbed except by the eagles.

Below, farmers and their mud huts dot moorlands of dry, rocky earth. Bony cattle and goats graze among stands of giant lobelia trees.

Stop! I yell to Dahnie.

He slams on the breaks. What is it, Lucy?

"That grass," I whisper.

He raises an eyebrow at me.

I’ve never seen anything like it, I explain.

Dahnie shrugs, happy to go along. He’s used to me by now, the wildlife-obsessed American kid tagging along with the Ethiopian park ranger every chance she gets. I open the door and jump down onto the uneven dirt road. Dahnie gets out too. I notice that he leaves his rifle in the car. We’re not going far.

Mounds of fluffy yellow grass pillow the hills on either side of the road, like something out of a Dr. Seuss book. I fight the urge to roll in its springy softness. Instead, I grab fistfuls and plunge my arms in halfway to my elbows, as deep as they will go.

Suddenly I hear thunder, even though the sky is a cloudless blue. I snatch back my arms and turn to Dahnie.

What is it? I ask him, anxious.

He backs slowly toward the car and motions for me to follow.

Masses of dark bodies crest the hilltop, taking on shape as they speed toward us. I’m frozen where I stand, my heartbeat nearly drowning out the roar, until Dahnie throws back his head and laughs.

It’s hard to hear his voice over the avalanche. Gelada baboons! he yells.

Hundreds of huge monkeys pound the earth, shrieking at each other, ignoring us completely. They cross the road right in front of us.

Go to them, Dahnie murmurs in my ear.

What? I spin around to look at him. Are you crazy?

No, I am not. The geladas are the only species of baboon that is friendly to humans. They are vegetarian and perfectly safe. And this is the only place in the world where you will find them. Go!

I take a slow step toward the ones that are crossing the road. Countless more continue to flood the hill above us.

How many do you think there are? I shout without taking my eyes off the stampeding horde.

It is an entire troop. At least three hundred, he shouts back.

As soon as they cross the road, the baboons settle in the grass on the other side, all signs of wild frenzy gone. Some of them groom each other; some dig in the dirt looking for food. The males are massive, maybe fifty pounds each, brown as earth, with huge tufts of fur around their heads like lion manes and bright red triangles on their chests. They have long hourglass-shaped muzzles with deep wrinkles across the bridge, and their expressions seem to be saying to me, How odd you are, O skinny furless one. But do walk among us if you must.

I’m maybe ten feet away now. I take another step. How close will they let me get? Closer, closer. Close enough to touch them now. I reach out my hand to a female, palm up. She looks at it and extends her own hand, which looks so much like mine. Closer—no!

I’m awake.

Chapter One

Day One

I WAS AWAKE and in Ethiopia, but not in the Simien Mountains. In fact, I’d never been to the Simien Mountains, and at this rate I’d never go. Instead, I was in Addis Ababa, in my own house, in my own bed, living a life about as far from the adventure of my dream as it could possibly get.

We had moved here six months ago, when my mother became the American ambassador to Ethiopia. At around the same time, my father was offered a job in Indonesia with the World Bank, and my parents decided they could make the whole long-distance-family thing work. It didn’t. My dad was supposed to come here once a month and every holiday, but it ended up being more like just Thanksgiving and Christmas. Meanwhile, my mother was working all the time, and I wasn’t allowed out of the house except to go to school. That was mostly because of my mother’s overprotectiveness and partly because of my own stupidity. But I’ll get to my stupidity later.

This morning was typical of my nonexistence. After I woke up, I raced to check my e-mail. It was spring break, so my life was even more boring than usual. The only computer in the residence (that’s what an ambassador’s house is called—a residence) is downstairs in my mother’s study. And because of all our heavy security, it’s slowww. No IMing for me.

Thank God! There was an e-mail from Tana, which she’d sent last night after she’d gotten back from her family vacation in Spain. Tana’s Ethiopian, and she’s one of the two close friends I’ve managed to make here so far. Unfortunately, Americans aren’t very popular at my school. The European kids seem to think that somehow it’s our fault every time our government does something they hate. Tana and I go to the International School, which is where most of the ex-pat (as in expatriate, as in people who aren’t Ethiopian but are living in Ethiopia, as in me) and rich Ethiopian kids go. Plus the usual handful of scholarship kids, like my other friend, Teddy, who was home visiting his family down south in Guge for the whole break.

Tana is everything I’m not: calm, patient, beautiful, charming. She’s at least five inches taller than I am, with perfect posture and skin like melted milk chocolate (in contrast to my general gawkiness and freckles). My mother loves her. I would hate her except I know that all that loveliness is just a façade camouflaging a really brave and interesting person.

To: lucy

From: tana

Subject: everything

hi. i finally got your e-mail. ughhh. sounds UNBEARABLE. will your mother let u go on game drives again soon???? . . . it rained yesterday on our last day in paradise, so i told emama i had a headache and snuck down 2 the bar with a boy (!!!) while she, ababa and tamirat went shopping. nothing interesting to report . . . he was GERMAN ;-) . . . so happy 2 b home . . . can u come over tomorrow?

xoxoxoxoxo . . . t

ps no matter how bored u r NO making crank calls 2 SW . . . at least not without me!!!

I sighed. SW—Stephen Willet—is the best-looking boy in tenth grade—and a huge jerk. I see him sometimes at diplomatic shindigs because his father is the British ambassador. But even though we’re usually the only people under fifty at these things, he somehow fails to notice that I exist.

To: tana

From: lucy

Subject: nothing

heyyy . . . i may b bored 2 death, but i’m not that desperate!!! well, at least not for another 3 or 4 days. lol . . . game drives definitely not happening anytime soon . . . we had another HUGE fight about it last night. I’m starting 2 think she LIKES keeping me grounded at home all the time. 1 less thing 4 her 2 have 2 think about . . . I’ll come over at 2. btw, there’s music today at mmmm my flavor. any chance we can go?????

cul8r . . . me

ps u sure there’s nothing INTERESTING to report???

Mmmm My Flavor is a restaurant, and yes, that’s really its name. Tana and I had been there a couple of times to hear some local bands, but there was no way my mother would let us go now. Ever since the Market Incident (see Lucy Hoffman’s Stupidity), I’d been under total lockdown. I’d only just earned back Tana-visiting privileges. But I was hoping that maybe we’d get lucky and Tana’s mom wouldn’t be home, so we could sneak out.

With the highlight of my morning over, five empty hours stretched out ahead of me. I put in my contacts and took a quick shower, being careful to keep my mouth closed so I wouldn’t swallow any of the microscopic parasites that lurk in the tap water. Then I twisted my wet hair into a ponytail, threw on some clothes, and headed outside to the veranda.

The veranda is my favorite place in the residence. It’s basically just a big back patio covered by a sunshade. It has fans to keep the air moving and an incredibly comfy couch with soft green pillows that’s a perfect place for reading. There’s a table where I eat breakfast and lunch a lot of the time and where Iskinder and I build our card houses. Iskinder works in the residence, and I spend more time with him than with any other person here. I guess you could say he’s the third close friend I’ve managed to make in Ethiopia.

It was pretty warm outside, even though it was still morning, so I stopped in the kitchen and poured myself a huge glass of iced Wush Wush tea, one of the local brands. Breakfast, as every healthy young woman knows, is the most important meal of the day, so I stuffed an entire chocolate-chip mini-muffin into my mouth. Then I grabbed a handful of granola from the plastic container on the counter and picked up the iced tea with my free hand.

After setting my glass on the table, I jogged to the middle of the back lawn to start my morning ritual. Standing perfectly still on the prickly dry grass, I whistled a long, fluttery call. I whistled again.

What an entrance: John, Paul, Ringo, and George—superb starlings I had befriended after two very patient weeks of making tempting overtures with wilted lettuce, dried mango, and other birdie delicacies. They swooped down and clustered two birds on each wrist, gently pecking my closed fists, where they knew I was hiding their breakfast. Their talons felt like pinpricks on my skin. I marveled at their glossy feathers, a psychedelic rainbow of iridescent blue, green, orange, and white.

Morning, guys, I said softly, opening my fingers so they could enjoy their meal. I brought your favorite today.

I’ve always been good with animals. They’ve been my passion for as long as I can remember. Back home in Bethesda, when I was little, I’d had absolutely no interest in dolls, but I had mountains of stuffed dogs, bears, lions, tigers, monkeys, even a wild boar named Schweinken. My mom offered to get me one of those amazing African grey parrots that live to be seventy years old and speak in full sentences, but I think it’s wrong to keep animals in cages.

Hi, Luce, what’s on tap for today? It was my mother, and of course the instant the Fab Four heard her, they flew away. Annoyed, I turned around.

She looked impeccable, as always. Her gray pantsuit and white shirt would be as crisp and clean at the end of the day as they were now. She carried her briefcase in one hand and her silver coffee thermos in the other. Tall and perfectly proportioned, with my straw blonde hair and her own brown eyes, my mother looks like the kind of woman who should be riding horses in Virginia, not running an embassy in Africa.

"What’s on tap? Let’s see. First I thought