Free Ghost Leopard (A Zoe & Zak Adventure #1) by Lars Guignard

Stranger things have happened. Whoever owned the place didn’t exactly wash the floors very often. Once again I pushed the image of the paw prints away, concentrating on our surroundings instead. It had rained so much that we are up to our waists in the brown floodwater. A man on a rooftop cast a fishing line. Miraculously, a slimy green catfish with bulging eyes took the bait.  
    “I ask him to slice that up, we’ve got sushi,” Zak said.
    “For breakfast?”
    “Yeah. Why not?”
    A cream-colored cow with long horns splashed toward us. I ignored the cow. “Here’s why not: A — we’re in India, not Japan, and B — We eat that fish raw and we could   get really sick. My mom told me we shouldn’t even drink the water.”  
    “We drank it last night in the soup.”
    “It was boiled.”
    “So?”
    “So boiling kills the bacteria.”
    “Holy cow!” Zak said.
    “You didn’t know that?”
    “No, I mean holy cow. Look at the cow.”
    The cream-colored cow splashed past us.
    “You know that really is a holy cow,” I said. “Cows are sacred in India.”
    Zak looked at me like I’d said the most profound thing since his third-grade teacher had told him that the moon wasn’t actually made of green cheese.
    “No way,” he said.
    “Way,” I replied.
    “Wow,” Zak said quietly to himself. Then he opened the plastic bag he had been carrying to reveal a scratched tin box. It looked like the kind of box my grandmother used to keep tea in. “Did you see this?” he asked.
    “What is it?” I said.
    “I took it out of the trunk.”
    “Why?” I said.
    “Well, I thought we might need it.”
    Zak opened the lid of the box. A few brightly colored bills fluttered out, landing in the water.
    “Money,” Zak said.
    I just looked at Zak. I couldn’t believe it. “You stole Rhino Butt’s money?”
    “We didn’t have any.”
    “That doesn’t make it any better. This is way worse than just accidentally finding a map. You’re robbing this guy. Why did you steal it? What’s wrong with you?”
    “Well, I don’t exactly think it was stealing.”
    “Well, you’re wrong. That’s exactly what it was. It was his money and you took it. That’s stealing. Just like the map.”
    “The map we took to give back.”
    “What about the money?”
    “The money I borrowed, because, I don’t know, I thought we might need it.”
    “I think I might need a cow to make a milkshake. You don’t see me borrowing one.”
    “Holy milkshake,” Zak said, cracking himself up. Then he saw how irritated I was. “I guess sometimes I just do stuff,” he said.  
    Another holy cow sloshed by. This one was browner with less-twisted horns. Probably would have made a chocolate milkshake. Sometimes Zak just did stuff. You’re telling me. If I gave him the benefit of the doubt, I bet Zak had felt a little weird since his mom and dad had split up. I hadn’t had a dad, but I’m pretty sure something like that would make me feel weird too. So he didn’t know why he had taken the box from the trunk. What did it matter? I thought about it. Who was I kidding? I knew why it mattered. It mattered because it was wrong. Zak looked at me for a long while like he wanted to say something.
    “What?” I said.
    “I saw you, you know.”
    “You saw me what?”
    “Crying last night.”
    I felt my face turn deep red. It was an automatic reaction and I couldn’t stop it, even though I felt stupid.
    “I saw you,” he continued, “and I’m sorry I made you feel like that.”
    I lamely pretended like I didn’t understand him. “Feel like what?”
      “You know, alone.”
    I didn’t have a good come back for that one. I was embarrassed that Zak had seen me, but at the same time, I had to admit that I was happy that he had apologized, even if everything that had happened wasn’t, strictly speaking, his fault. His apology made me feel like there was hope for him. Like he wasn’t totally out to lunch.
    “Let’s just find the train