David A. Poulsen's Young Adult Fiction 3-Book Bundle. David A. Poulsen
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… morning,” I called out. I didn’t want to let on that I might need to be rescued from a bloodthirsty insect, but I wouldn’t have minded if the old man happened to look into the tent right about then.
He didn’t. “Hey, Nathan, gather up that mosquito netting as you’re getting up. We’ll need it again tonight.”
I pulled my hand out from under the covers and gently reached up, touched the spider’s web. Mosquito netting.
“Uh, yeah, mosquito netting. I’ll gather up the mosquito netting. I’ll just gather it up. No problem.”
“Good.” I heard the old man saying something to Mr. Vinh. I was pretty sure the phrase “strange kid” was part of what he said.
I gave up on the netting long enough to pull on the rest of my clothes. It didn’t take long since I hadn’t totally undressed the night before. I’d pulled off my shirt and running shoes and that was it. I had this feeling that sleeping in your gonch in the jungle was an open invitation for some creature to sneak into your sleeping bag and start gnawing on some private area best left un-gnawed.
I’d just finished getting the shirt and shoes back on and picked up the jumble of netting when the old man and Mr. Vinh stomped into the tent, wearing slickers but looking wet anyway. Raining outside. The old man was carrying the briefcase. He opened it and pulled out what looked like some maps … and a couple of old photographs.
They both sat on the floor of the tent. The old man was sitting cross-legged with the briefcase in his lap, lid down, and one of the maps lying on its surface. Mr. Vinh sat next to him. Both were staring hard at the map.
The old man pointed at a couple of points on the map. Mr. Vinh nodded and spoke in a mix of Vietnamese and English that was pretty well gibberish to me. The old man answered him also with a mix of words, most of them one syllable. As usual, I understood pretty well nothing.
But it was quite an animated conversation. A couple of times Mr. Vinh didn’t seem to know the answer to whatever the old man wanted to know. When that happened, he shrugged and shook his head. The old man’s voice got pretty loud right about then. After maybe the third time it happened, the old man looked up at me. It was like he suddenly realized I was there, still sorting mosquito netting and watching the two of them.
“Get that sleeping bag rolled up and into that duffel bag outside, the bigger one. The mosquito netting too.” That was it. He went back to the map, except that now he had some of the photographs spread out on the briefcase, and he was pointing at them too.
I gathered up the netting and sleeping bag and stepped out of the tent. The rain wasn’t hard, but there was enough of it that I knew I’d be soaked pretty fast. There was a gathering of branches next to the tent, sort of a lean-to and the two duffel bags were under it. I didn’t remember the lean-to from the night before. Maybe they’d put it up after I’d gone to bed or maybe it was there from before. I didn’t know and it didn’t matter. What mattered was that it was dry under there. I took my time packing up the rest of the gear.
The old man and Mr. Vinh came out of the tent, and the old man tossed a slicker to me. I pulled it over my head, lifted the hood into position and stepped out from under the lean-to. It was raining harder now, a lot harder. Even with the slicker I got pretty wet … pretty fast. Not as bad as after the swamp episode but fairly damp just the same.
I went around to the other side of the lean-to to take a leak. It was the most privacy I could hope for unless I wanted to go out into the jungle a ways. And I didn’t want to do that.
We ate bananas, two each, under the lean-to before heading out. Nobody was going to get fat on this trip. That was obvious. I pulled my hood back just long enough to check the sky. It looked like the clouds were about fifty metres above our heads and the rain was coming down even harder. Nice day for a walk in the jungle.
I gathered the canteens and the backpack. The old man had stashed the briefcase in the bigger duffel bag, so I didn’t have to carry it anymore. Mr. Vinh grunted a couple of times and started off across the clearing, machete in hand, toward the jungle that was on the other side. This time the old man nodded that he wanted me to go next and that he’d be at the back. I didn’t mind that actually. At least this way I wouldn’t get lost in the jungle or picked off by some python without anyone even knowing.
2
I don’t know how long we walked. I do know that the rain stopped. Trouble was, it was actually worse after that. Hot with a humidity of maybe four hundred percent. Steam was actually rising off the jungle floor. I pulled off the slicker, but it didn’t matter. I think I was wetter when it wasn’t raining than when it was. I laid on my second layer of mosquito repellant. I noticed something unpleasant. The mix of sweat and mosquito juice and the lack of shower facilities (I didn’t count my dip in the swamp) didn’t make for a really great-smelling boy. I was pretty sure neither of the Jens would have found me all that attractive right about then.
We finally came out of the jungle, and there was this field stretched across in front of us. Neat rows of plants stood maybe a foot high in a layer of water across the whole field. The water looked to be about fifteen centimetres deep. Maybe more. The old man came up alongside me.
“Rice paddy,” he said. “There was one in about this area the last time I made this walk. May be the same one.”
I was thinking who cares.
Then he pointed. There was another stretch of jungle on the other side of the rice paddy, not very big this time, and a hill that kind of rose up out of it. Behind that hill there were a couple of good-sized looking mountains.
“That’s where we’re going. Hill 453. Not a very exotic name is it? Not like Hamburger Hill, the one they made the movie about — that’s over there.” He waved an arm in an arc to his right, but there were lots of hills and mountains in that direction, so I didn’t know which one he meant. I’d seen the movie but I couldn’t remember very much about it, other than the name.
I looked at the hill we were heading for. Not a real big deal. Hill 453 definitely didn’t look like it was worth fighting for. Or dying for. I wondered if people had died on that hill during whatever happened when the old man was there. And I wondered if I’d find out.
“Stay as close to him as you can,” the old man told me, nodding toward Mr. Vinh. “And don’t decide to stroll off the path any.”
“What path?” I wasn’t trying to be funny. If there was a path, I was having a tough time seeing it. Yet there had to be one since Mr. Vinh’s machete was hanging from his belt as he walked through the growth.
“Just stay in his line. Step in his footsteps if you can.”
I looked at him. I was going to ask why, but he beat me to it. “Unexploded ordnance. Shells and stuff that didn’t explode. An average of five people a day die in this country from coming in contact with unexploded ordnance. And this is a bad area. Walk where he walks.”
No kidding. Unexploded ordnance. Doesn’t sound all that nasty. Oh, look a shell. Make a great souvenir. Think I’ll just … BOOM!
I hustled after Mr. Vinh at pretty close to a sprint. I didn’t want him out of my sight. This was one time I wasn’t going to argue with the old man. If he said walk in Mr. Vinh’s footsteps, that’s what I planned to do. I wondered whether the old man had mentioned unexploded ordnance when he’d talked Mom into letting me go on a little summer road trip.
We set out across the rice paddy. No hip waders this time. Just sloshing water up to your ankles and in your shoes and soaking your socks. Just as we got to the other side, a woman came running up to us. She was yelling and waving her arms. My guess was that she was pissed off about us walking through the rice paddy. Her rice paddy. I didn’t know if we had wrecked any of the plants or not — I’d tried not to — but I could see her point.
The old man kept walking, and I figured I’d better follow along. Don’t forget the unexploded ordnance. We left Mr. Vinh to deal with the rice paddy lady. Almost immediately we were once