trolley across the dust. “Quick-start! Load up our things. Let’s get them to the bus.” She pointed at an ancient-looking vehicle belching smoke. Sweat was pouring off Ollie by the time they’d crammed all the crates and bags into the luggage space under the bus. At least there was a floor between him and the python now.
Zinzi bought some mangoes and a few cooked mealies from a vendor. Ollie stood there looking uncertain. Zinzi gave Ollie a look. “Don’t act English.”
“Why?”
“You’ll be charged the tourists’ entrance into the Rain Forest. Locals get in cheaper.”
Ollie heard a booming and thundering sound and felt tremors running beneath the earth under his feet. Through the trees he saw huge clouds of smoke billowing into the air. Except it wasn’t smoke. It was spray. It hit them full on as they got closer and then surged up into the sky like rain going upwards. A man in a raincoat with a big black umbrella was striding behind them as they ducked under dripping branches towards the roar.
Ollie froze. Through gaps in the spray, was the widest river he’d ever seen. It roared and tumbled in torrents into a chasm of swirling mists beneath his feet. The only thing between him and this huge, bottomless pit was a small wooden railing as frail as a fence made of matchsticks.
His stomach turned a complete somersault.
“See what I mean!” Zinzi bellowed over the roar. “Mosi oa tunya! The smoke that thunders!” She put her hands to her mouth. “Mosi oa tunya … Mosi oa tunya …!” she yelled over the thundering roar of the river.
Ollie shuffled a tiny bit closer to the matchstick fence. The ground was muddy. The height was terrifying. One slip and he’d be over the edge. It was then that he saw the man. He was standing a little way back in his dark raincoat with his umbrella pulled down low.
“He’s following us.”
“Who?”
“That man.” Ollie jerked a thumb in the man’s direction. “He’s giving me the creeps.”
“He’s a tourist, Ollie.”
“He’s not dressed like one. He doesn’t have a camera.”
Zinzi laughed. “Not every tourist wears safari clothes and carries a camera. Don’t be so spooked. Quick-start! Come on!” She grabbed his arm. “Let’s get to the bridge.” They ran along a muddy pathway zigzagging through the dripping trees and triple rainbows of light. Then they were out of the rain forest and into the sunshine on the road to the bridge. A signboard stated:
YOU ARE APPROACHING THE ZAMBEZI BORDER
BETWEEN ZIMBABWE AND ZAMBIA.
NO UNAUTHORISED PERSONS.
PASSPORT NEEDED.
From the corner of his eye Ollie caught a flash of colour and heard a long drawn-out scream as a shape plunged over the bridge railings. “Someone …” he couldn’t get the words out, “… someone’s jumped off there!”
Zinzi laughed. “It’s a bungee-jump, silly. He’s tied to an elastic rope. Everyone knows that!”
Ollie gulped. Everyone except him! He read the sign attached to a cage that hung out over the railings in the middle of the bridge.
BUNGEE VIC FALLS!
LEAP INTO THE UNKNOWN! WE DARE YOU!
111 METRES OF PURE ADRENALINE!
Minimum age: 16 years. Minimum weight: 40 kg.
Maximum weight: 140 kg
He glanced over the railings. His stomach twisted. Far, far below, the river was churning through a narrow gorge of white rapids. But worse than that – someone looking no more than a tiny caterpillar on a thread, was hanging upside down by his feet, bouncing and twirling back and forth on the end of a rope with his head barely skimming the frothing water.
He gave Zinzi a quick sideways glance, trying to hide the sick lurch in his stomach and nodded. “I knew it was a bungee-jump!”
A man in a helmet whizzed down on a winch to help the person come back up. Ollie watched the next nervy jumper get harnessed and creep out onto the caged platform. The gate was clipped open and the boy sat dangling his legs into nothing but air. The river was a long, loooong way down. Ollie saw the instructor mouthing things at him. Then the boy leapt with his arms outstretched, his eyes tight-closed like Icarus falling to the earth.
Down … down, dowwwn! A never-ending fall. The cable seemed to stretch to its limit but still he dropped. He was going to die. To hit that water and die. At the last moment the cable sprang back and bounced him upwards into the air like a puppet, then down he went again. People at the railing cheered.
Zinzi gave him an elbow jab. She had a glittering fearless look in her eyes. “I’d do it if we had more time.”
“Lucky for you, we don’t.”
“I would. I’m telling you.”
“You’re not sixteen.”
“So …?” Zinzi grinned.
Ollie smiled back weakly. Try as hard as he could, his face wasn’t able to match her fearless look. Things in Africa were making him dizzy. As they turned to go back across the bridge, the man in the dark raincoat was still there.
Post-reading
| 1. | Why is Ollie suspicious of the man with the umbrella? What is there about him that suggests that he is not a tourist? |
| 2. | Zinzi is fearless – or is she just bragging about wanting to make a bungee jump to impress Ollie? Explain how you came to your answer. |
| 3. | Why does Ollie pretend that he knew that the person who jumped off the bridge was a bungee jumper all along? |
| 4. | Why does Ollie say that “things in Africa were making him dizzy”? |
| 5. a) | What is the last thing Ollie notices as they cross the bridge? |
| b) | What do you think this means? |
| 6. | If you could choose a scary or exciting sport like bungee jumping, white water rafting or sky diving which would be your choice and why would you choose it? |
4. A Whisper of Something Sinister
Pre-reading
| 1. | What does the chapter heading suggest about what will happen next? |
| 2. a) | “An icy flash of lightning streaked up his spine”. What does this tell us about how Ollie is feeling? |
| b) | How would you feel in this kind of situation? |
| 3. | Why does Ollie only “think” that his father is in Ilala? |
“You wouldn’t have.”
“Are you saying I’m chicken?”
“Your eyeballs would pop out.”
“Did
