Trapped In Time - Chapter 16 Sunny

Sunny was sharing his tent with Sherpa. Their tent was adjacent to the tent occupied by Danny and Ben on one side and on the other side was the forest area below and the conifers and the reforestation area as well as the small hills and the alpine pastures with rhododendrons spread out. The boys had occupied tents at the extreme ends and kept the tents of the 5 girls and their teacher in the middle. This was to provide protection to the girls in a way.

As soon as the girls bid good night and headed for their tents to sleep, the boys also made their way towards their respective tents. Sunny also decided to sleep as he was tired, so he bid good-night to his fellow students, Zia ma’am and Luke Sir. Then he headed towards the end of the tents on the forest side as their tent was the last one. Sherpa, on the other hand, told Sunny to proceed to the tent and sleep. He had some work to finish first.

Sunny had been very excited about the camping trip. He had read up about the area where the camping site was and he was very happy about the three days trip. In a way, it was an adventure for him.

The mountains covered with snow looked beautiful in the moonlight. When he was holding the telescope to gaze at the stars, he had turned it towards the mountains to focus on the sides to see if he could have a sighting of the Yeti. No one had brought any proof. Whatever videos were available were fake. Even he could not see any Yeti.

But now, there was solid proof of its existence. For the first time, a government department, an Indian Army Mountaineering Expedition Team, had sited huge footprints close to Mount Makalu Base Camp on 09.04.2019. Mount Makalu is about 40 km away from Mount Everest, in Nepal. These footprints belonged to the ‘Abominable Snowman’ also called ‘Yeti’ or ‘Big Foot’. The Indian Army was on a mountaineering trip in Nepal to ascent Mount Makalu. They had taken measurements and had also made a video film of the footprint. These videos will be examined and with computer imaging, some sort of height can be gauged maybe a figure can also be made. The footprint was 32 inches long and the width was 15 inches, three times that of a normal male foot. This would mean that the average height of bigfoot would be about 3 times say 18 feet.

As he walked towards his tent he was thinking that if they venture towards the snow-covered mountain and then the glacier area, they could meet the Yeti. Whether it was friendly or not was another issue.

The sky was so clear that one could see clearly even a few bats flying around on the other side of the hills from where they had come.

Sunny soon entered his tent. After taking off his shoes, jacket, etc, he got into his sleeping bag.He knew that he would probably be asleep before Sherpa came to the tent.

His parents had agreed to this camping trip so that he would have some experience of managing himself alone for a few days. His father’s name was Harish and his mother’s name was Hersha. They were both working in Government departments. His younger brother, Anil, was about 12 years of age and was studying in the same school.

He liked Luke Sir and Zia ma’am and felt that they would eventually get married. But it was none of his business to think about them.

He could not see his mobile. Without phones, life was extremely difficult. He could not even read his favorite novels on web-novels. They all were getting a taste of no connectivity, no phones, no mobiles, no net, no YouTube, etc. and no electricity.

In spite of push buttons phones and dialing the numbers phones in those times these were also advancements in technology. The dialing phone was cumbersome. One had to place the index finger in the respective slots, one after another, and dialing all the way around till a click sound was heard. Thereafter one proceeded to the next digit and so on. After completion of the dialing of all numbers could your call be connected. The computers used to be huge even occupying one full room. Slowly and with time they became compact. The then huge computers were instrumental in sending someone to space and the moon in 1969. At that time, that technology was advanced.

What one imagines, another person creates. The old TV serials of Star Trek shows communication devices that looked something like the present day flip type mobile phones which were launched by Motorola Company. Who could have imagined that these communication devices seen in Star Trek could become the communication devices called mobile phones?

Anyway, it was quite peaceful without phones ringing everywhere. Technology had its disadvantages too. He also wanted to call his parents to let them know that all was well with him. Parents do tend to worry about their children. In the morning he would try to contact his parents.The guest-house should be having a system whereby they could contact their relatives just to tell them that they were safe. If the guest-house could not help then, of course, there was the Sat phone with Luke Sir.He had mentioned that he possessed one when they were trekking to this camping site.

He also started to count sheep and was successful in falling asleep in a short while.

When Sherpa came into the tent, Sunny was snoring away to glory. Sherpa mentally set an alarm that he should be up before 5 a.m. as Luke Sir had asked his help to dismantle the equipment that was set up just now.

Soon Sherpa was also asleep and both Sherpa and Sunny entered into a snoring competition.

A sleuth of Bears had been moving through the forest areas and had followed their scent and the food scent right up to the camping site. The bears had stopped at their stopping area where they had had their lunch. They even found a few pieces of food dropped by the campers.

They neared the camping site and found the fire, but there were no leftovers there. The bears could smell the food scent. First, they all made their way to the last tent opposite the cliff side. But strange noises were heard coming from inside the tent and they seemed to be even more terrifying than their grunts. They thought there was some other dangerous creature inside this tent. Actually, it was Sunny and Sherpa snoring away in a snoring competition. The rest of the bears moved to the periphery of the forest and one daring bear made his way sniffing at the food scent right up to Ben’s tent.He was the hungriest and thought he would get something to eat from inside this tent.

It was around 5 a.m. when the bear started to pull at the tent in which Danny and Ben were asleep. The tearing sound and the grunt sounds and Ben’s screams broke the sweet dream that Sunny was having. He saw that Sherpa was already out of the sleeping bag and was running towards the exit of their tent telling him to follow suit. Within seconds Sherpa was outside and running towards the entrance of the tent of Ben and Danny. Sunny slowly followed Sherpa in coming out of their tent.

Sherpa reached the outside the tent entrance of Ben and Danny. Just then a shot was fired. Sherpa helped the two frightened boys to come out. Luke was running towards the back of the tent with his gun and fired another shot. The huge animal which had been trying to rip the tent apart took to his heels after hearing the second shot as the bullet just missed his ear by a few inches.

After the bear ran off, Luke came over to Danny, Ben, and Sherpa who had helped the two boys get out of the tent. He wanted to know if both the boys were ok. When he found that they were just scared and Ben was shaking a lot. He asked Sherpa to give Ben a glass of normal water with sugar dissolved in it to calm him down as he was in shock.

Sherpa immediately ran to the tent he was sharing with Sunny and got out his sugar solution. He carried it in a paper cup to give to Ben. Sunny also joined them and so did the rest of the campers. All of them knew that Ben must have been eating in bed as is his habit.