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

station and get back to the hotel,” I said.
    “Whoa,” Zak said. “I thought we were going to Moon Surrie? That’s what we told the butterfly lady.”
    Apparently we weren’t totally on the same page yet. I noticed that a young kid with a smudged face was following us. He was maybe six years old and dressed in tattered clothing. He carefully collected the few fallen bills as they floated closer to him. In the heat of our conversation, I had forgotten to pick the bills back up. Maybe it was a good thing. The kid sure looked like he needed the money more than we did.  
    “Well, I think we should get back before your dad and my mom find out we’re gone.”
    “What about the Leopard?” Zak asked.
    “You picked the wrong girl, Zak. I've had a subscription to National Geographic since I was five. I know what a mastodon is, I know why a jumping bean jumps, and I know that there aren’t any weird creatures out there that haven’t been photographed. Whatever Rhino Butt was talking about is a myth. It's make-believe.”  
    “It’s never had its picture taken.”
    “Neither has the Easter Bunny, you know, in the wild.”
    “Whatever. This is your big chance. You know how great it would be to get a picture of it? You’d totally win the contest. Your whole class would go on that field trip. You’d get the camera. It would be sweet.”
    What it was, was maddening. I was back to feeling exactly like I had before Zak apologized. I couldn’t believe him. It was bad enough that he’d dragged me into that trunk, but now we had no idea where we even were and no way back, and Zak still wanted to keep going on? Ox carts pulled rolls of brightly colored fabric and wooden cases of soda through the flooded street. I looked around in disbelief as a couple more bills fluttered out of Zak's bag. I didn’t pick them up though. I couldn’t help myself. I felt my temper growing shorter and shorter until I snapped.
    “The truth is, you were looking for trouble weren’t you, Zak? That’s why you went into his room. You were bored at the hotel and you wanted some excitement. You’re probably glad we’re stuck out here wherever we are.”
    “Thums Up,” Zak said, pointing to a wooden sign hanging from a spice shop. “I saw a sign when we left the airport. I’m pretty sure we’re in Thums Up.”
    “Thums Up without the ‘b’ is some kind of soda, doofus,” I said, pointing to a guy drinking what looked like cola with a big red thumb on the bottle. “We aren’t in Thums Up. Where we are is a million miles from where we’re supposed to be. Does that make you happy?”
    I didn’t know if he was happy or not, but he sure was smiling. Probably thought we were on the adventure of a lifetime or something. I had no idea how he planned to address the rent-a-nanny problem. Even if our parents weren’t at the hotel, at some point the nanny would try to call them, that was if we didn’t get back soon. I pondered the notion as a man pushing his bicycle through the floodwaters said something in Hindi. I didn’t know what it was he said. All the words in Hindi blended together for me like I was listening to some kind of strange song. But I did notice that the ears of about a hundred younger kids seemed to perk up. I followed the man's gaze to the trail of soggy bills. When I think about it, it must have looked like we were dropping money instead of bread crumbs so that we could find our way home.
    It happened in an instant. Without warning an army of six and seven year olds descended on the money like a school of piranha. The kids scrambled for the bills getting closer and closer every second.
    “Zak?” I said.
    “Zoe?” Zak replied.
    “I think we need to run.”  
    “Good idea.”  
      We broke into a watery run toward a giant building with huge columns. People were coming and going from the place with suitcases on their heads and there were all kinds of strange food carts on the steps out front. We ran right through the