Peak by Roland Smith

Author:Roland Smith
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

Bear and Bull

THREE TEAMS: A, B, AND (SHH!) C.

We were the C team: Sun-jo, me, the film crew, and Holly—led by Zopa, Yogi, and Yash. (I guess the brothers had not hitched a ride to find a job on the mountain. They already had a job. Zopa had hired them to help him get Sun-jo to the summit.) And I think the C stood for “covert,” not third, because we were getting the first summit shot, not the last, and somehow we were supposed to keep all of this quiet.

The night before, Josh and Thaddeus hadn’t told us to outright lie to the other climbers, but they came pretty close to it.

“We’ll have to keep this to ourselves,” Thaddeus had said, lowering his voice despite the fact that it was ten degrees below zero outside and the wind was howling down the mountain at about twenty-five miles an hour. It wasn’t likely someone was standing outside the flap eavesdropping.

“Thaddeus is right,” Josh agreed. “Some of the other climbers are real head cases. There’ll be a fight over who goes first. It’s ridiculous, but it’s the same every year. They can’t get it into their oxygen-starved brains that reaching the summit has nothing to do with the order you climb. It depends on the weather.”

Josh was fudging this a little. Sitting at Base Camp, or up at ABC waiting your turn, increases your chances of catching a virus or twisting an ankle, to say nothing of the sheer boredom and psychological damage of lying in your cramped tent day after day wondering if you are going to make it to the top.

We were getting the first shot because of my birthday. Period. It could take every one of those thirty-plus days to get me to the top before I turned fifteen.

“In case anyone asks,” Thaddeus said, “this is what we’re doing.” He looked at the film crew. “You’re making a documentary about Sherpas.” He looked at Holly. “You’re writing a story about Sherpas.” He looked at me. “You’re just tagging along to help with the filming. As far as anyone knows, a summit attempt is not part of the documentary.”

“Sun-jo’s going to have to move to the porter camp tonight,” Josh said. “It’s the only way we can keep him under wraps. Can you arrange that, Zopa?”

Zopa nodded.

Josh looked at Sun-jo. “Captain Shek and the soldiers rarely go to the porter camp, but just to be safe, you need to dress and act like a porter. No fancy western climbing clothes. The porters are hauling supplies up the mountain the day after tomorrow. You’ll all go with them. When you get to Intermediate Camp, out of sight of the Chinese, you can change into your climbing gear. When you come back down you’ll need to change your clothes and stick with the porters. If Shek catches you, you’re toast.”

“Toast?” Sun-jo asked.

“You’ll be chipping boulders into gravel,” I explained.

“Oh.” A look of dread crossed Sun-jo’s usually calm and cheerful face.

“So,” Josh continued, “Zopa will lead the C team.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.