Nuru’s Bubble Tea
“That’s pretty exotic.”
Nuru shrugged. “Not as exotic as getting to the Himalayas without a passport. How’d you do that?”
“It’s a trade secret.” Trouble hesitated.
“Oh, I save your life and you don’t tell me how you got here. Nice thing.”
“OK, um …”
“Well?” Nuru leaned over and cupped his head in his hands, prepared for a long story.
Trouble squirmed in his chair, reluctant to answer the question.
“Come on,” Nuru urged. He twisted a green plastic wristband, stretching it with his fingers. Impatient, he bounced his knee against his palm like a basketball player dribbling along the court. “You can tell me. I can keep a secret.”
“You can? You won’t tell anybody?” Trouble rocked back in his chair. His eyes ran around the room, looking everywhere except at Nuru’s face.
Nuru leaned over the table, pressing on Trouble with insistent body language. “Go on. Tell me. I wanna know.”
“OK.” Trouble exhaled a long slow breath. “It’s like this …”
“Yeah?” Nuru shoveled his hands, acting like he could pry words out of Trouble’s mouth.
“Well …um. I flew here.”
“I knew that.” Nuru acted disgusted. “How did you get on the plane? I mean without a passport.”
“I didn’t go the normal way. I wasn’t exactly a passenger.”
Nuru got excited. “You were a stowaway? Where’d you hide? You would’ve froze to death in a wheel-well where they store landing gear. Did somebody sneak you in?”
“No.” Trouble felt indignant. “I paid to be shipped.”
Nuru’s eyes got wide. “Shipped?” he asked in amazement. “Like a package?”
“Yeah. Air cargo.”
“You gotta be kidding. What’s the real story?”
“Air cargo,” Trouble repeated.
“Yeah, like someone overnighted you to Nepal. I’m sure.”
“Bleerio overnighted me, to be exact. I don’t have a credit card to buy a plane ticket, but my parents have an account to ship large crates by air cargo service, so I used it. Sometimes it pays to have parents in the antique business. People expect you to ship crates all over the world. Room for a backpack, bottled water, some Power bars. Gets cold, though. Cargo planes aren’t heated like passenger jets.”
“You’re serious, aren’t you?” Nuru pulled off the wool cap and ran fingers through his thick black hair like a comb. He stared at Trouble in disbelief. “Really serious?”
“Very.”
It was Nuru’s turn to say, “Wow.” He cocked his head. “How old are you anyway?”
“Thirteen last week,” Trouble answered.
“Yeah. Well, I was thirteen a month ago,” Nuru bragged. “What’s your name, huh?”
“I’m Trouble.”
“I know that, but what’s your name?”
“Trouble – really.”
“Uh, like, what’s it short for? You know, what’s your real name?”
“That’s it. My name is Trouble. My parents had this uneasy feeling about me, right from the beginning.”
“Yeah, well, so why aren’t your parents with you, Trouble? You didn’t come to the Himalayas all alone.”
Trouble countered, “Where are your parents? You didn’t come to the Khumbu Cybercafé alone, did you?”
“Hey, it’s my country. I just traveled a few days by yak. What’s your excuse? I mean, you came here from New York City. Visiting Namche Bazaar isn’t exactly like taking the subway to Greenwich Village. So, why aren’t you with your parents?”
“You sure want to know a lot.” Trouble acted evasive. He twirled a grungy spoon in his hand and realized the place setting probably never got washed, just wiped with a rag. He dropped the spoon and it clanked on the table.
Nuru rolled his eyes. “How are we gonna be friends if we don’t get to know each other?”
“Who says we’re friends?”
“Ouch.” The Sherpa teen recoiled from the comment, shoving his chair away from the table as though he were going to get up and leave.
Trouble apologized. “Sorry. That was rude. I’ve been through a lot. What’d you wanna know again?”
“Kids don’t go to foreign countries alone. Why aren’t you with your parents?”
“Because I haven’t seen them for two years.” Trouble made a quarter-turn in his chair, facing away from Nuru. Talking about this was hard for him, but he felt his friend deserved an explanation. “My parents are archeologists. My dad went on an expedition and didn’t return.”
“What about your mom?”
“My mother went looking for Dad. She hasn’t come home either.”
“Have you heard from them?”
Nervous, Trouble crimped the bill on the New York Yankees cap he was wearing.
Nuru grimaced at having his favorite baseball cap deformed.
“Oops. Sorry.”
Nuru sighed, “Oh well, nothing you can do about it now.” He cocked an accusing eye, cranking on the guilt. “About your parents?”
“Haven’t heard from them, no phone call or anything. Last correspondence I got from Mom was postmarked here. That’s why I came to the Himalayas looking for her. I can’t just sit around.”
“Did both your parents come to Nepal?”
“I don’t know if my father came here. But mom sent me a package from this area. I thought that was kind of weird. She usually sends things from Siberia.”
“Siberia? Like in Russia?” Nuru removed the yak hair cap he’d gotten from Trouble. The wool itched his scalp.
Trouble nodded. “Mom is always on a dig in Siberia. She specializes in uncovering kurgans, Scythian burial mounds.”
“Oh, well, that’s good. Um, what’s a Scythian?”
“Mom told me Scythians were savage warriors. They scraped all the flesh from their victims’ skulls and used them as drinking cups.” Trouble knew that image would gross out Nuru.
“Yuk,” was his reaction to drinking from a dead human’s head. “How’d your parents meet if your mother was always in Siberia, digging up old skulls?”
“My parents met in Siberia. Mom was working a tomb and robbers attacked her, trying to steal gold artifacts she’d collected. My dad’s also an archeologist. He was digging nearby and helped scare off the robbers.”
“What do your parents do with all the gold they find?”
“Most of it goes to the Russian government, for display in museums. They get to keep a few of the artifacts, as payment for their help in finding kurgans and digging up treasures. What my parents keep goes to our antique store in New York, for sale to private collectors. We have all kinds of stuff they’ve found over the years, on their expeditions.”
“Bizarre. If I found gold, I wouldn’t put it in a store. I’d trade it at the Namche Bazaar for cool discs and DVD’s, get me some really hot shoes and the latest trekking jacket.”
The owner interrupted them, slopping drinks on the table, a pair of glasses with tapioca marbles jumbled at the bottom of Chinese tea. The purple and white drinks looked thick as smoothies, but had a pungent odor, as if sprinkled with untold spices. “You want something to eat?” the owner grunted. “Got a special tonight on alu acchar and gundruk. Fresh and hot.”
“Gundruk?” Nuru complained. “Who’d want that? The stuff’s four days old. You were serving it when I first got here, last week. By now, it smells like the inside of a shoe.”
The Khumbu Cybercafé’s Kitchen
The Khumbu Cybercafé’s Kitchen
“You don’t like what I serve? Then pay your bill and leave. You can’t pay? I’ll take your computer.” The owner put a massive hand on the laptop display and squeezed, distorting the screen.
Nuru started to panic and his face twisted in fear. “Ah, no, don’t hurt my laptop.”
“Oh?” The owner smiled and squeezed the computer a little harder. “You have money to pay me this time?”
“Sure, um, just let me explain …” But Nuru didn’t get a chance to finish his appeal.
The café’s back door slammed open with a crash. Men in camo fatigues and heavy boots stood in the doorway, poking automatic rifles into the room. They radiated impatience and hostility. Trouble felt the heat of ugly stares on the back of his head and saw their images reflected in the tea glasses. Their sinewy bodies seemed taut as bungee cords stretched to the point of snapping. Pairs of restless eyes darted around the room, searching, watching for danger like rats daring a nighttime food hunt. Instantly, every PC was slapped shut and went mute. All conversation died. It felt quiet as a church.
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