Peeing in the Bush by Adeline Loh

Author:Adeline Loh
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: MPH Group Publishing Sdn Bhd

12. SIDE EFFECTS OF HAVING A GOOD TIME

At 5.45 a.m., I felt what I thought was the Great Rift Valley splitting open again. ‘Adeline! Adeline!’ TK called softly while jostling our tent wildly. ‘Wanna see elephants? They are just outside!’

I stirred and grunted in reply. A spine-cramping chill sneaked through the small window of our tent as TK lifted up the tarpaulin cover to expose the wondrous sight. Plucking the dried yellow crust from my half-opened eyes, I gazed lazily at the nebulous figures through the mesh netting. It took a couple of extended seconds before my brain thawed enough for me to appreciate what I was looking at: elephants stripping the bark of a tree a mere tumble away! Although I’d seen them many times from a vehicle before, sleeping near the animals gave me heart palpitations like nothing else.

‘Chan, come and check out the herd of elephants that terrorized you last night!’ I whispered elatedly, prodding her ribs. But she was dead to the world. Hurriedly grabbing my down jacket and head-sock, I stumbled out of the tent over her comatose body. Rebecca, Matt and Margot were already out in various states of dress armed with cameras, slack-jawed in the presence of the ten tusked behemoths and their three precocious Mini Me’s.

‘They passed your tent on their way to the river just now,’ TK divulged, pointing to the extra large pizza-sized footprints in the sand a hairline away from my tent. I was flabbergasted, imagining how Chan and I would have been flattened like pancakes had a clumsy tusker tripped over a root entanglement and landed sideways on us.

After the most spectacular wake-up call we’d ever gotten, morning pep biscuits and hot drinks were gobbled and guzzled respectively to the nascent warmth of the flame-coloured gleam along the tree line. It was a fitting start to another fun-filled, thank-God-I-bought-insurance day of canoeing. Chan and I received the usual one-two-three push-off and we all continued the steadfast routine: Paddle, paddle. Bang canoe. Hear hippos snort and grunt. Flee for lives.

Wisps of bushfire smoke curled up from the hills and blended into the morning mist. The infinite sky was a cloudless deep blue and the water was friendlier, not the psychopathic torrent that wanted to catapult us yesterday. So much so TK even consented to us lining up our canoes abreast of each other for a relaxing tandem float. Chan and I were sandwiched between the two canoes and all we had to do was hang on to their hulls with our hands. Sure, we still encountered the occasional hippo drama where I paddled like a loony only to wind up closer to the danger zone but I was starting to relish the near-death thrills. Off and on, we clunked Rebecca’s canoe in front because I didn’t want to slow down after expending so much energy paddling to gain momentum. Chan clucked her tongue at me every time we banged canoes. Sometimes she’d shout really loudly, ‘Stop, ST-O-O-OP!’ Without question, we were the ones causing the most commotion and scaring all the wildlife away.

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