Kalahari by Jessica Khoury

backpack, and I pulled it out and spread it on the ground.
    “We’re west of the camp,” I replied, circling an area on the map. “And a little bit south.”
    “How can you tell?”
    “The sun. And the nests.” I pointed to a nearby Terminalia tree, at the pod-like nests of woven grass that hung from the branches. They looked like Christmas tree ornaments, some of them messy globs woven by the younger birds, others tightly knit orbs made by the expert weavers—the latter were more likely to attract females. “They indicate the compass points, and I’ve been keeping an eye on them while we’ve walked.”
    “What are they?” asked Sam, holding up a hand against the sun as he stared at the nests.
    “White-browed sparrow weaver nests,” said Avani, before I could say a word.
    I frowned. “No, actually. The sparrow weavers make those bushy nests, pushed back into the branches. Like those over there.” I pointed to a nearby wattle tree, its branches thick with bundles of grass. “The hanging nests are made by southern masked weavers.”
    “Um . . . pretty sure you’re wrong,” said Avani.
    “Pretty sure I’m not,” I muttered. As she consulted her guidebook, I continued, “They build them in the lee side of the tree, safe from the wind. The wind here blows from the east, so the nests are on the west side of the tree.”
    They considered this thoughtfully for a moment.
    Then Joey said, “They look like balls.”
    “You can’t be serious,” Miranda sighed, burying her face in her hand.
    “Dude, don’t they look like balls?” Joey looked to Sam for support, but Sam just looked away, shrugging.
    “I’m just saying,” said Joey, “I mean, we were all thinking it, right? Right, guys?”
    We walked on, and he gave up badgering us for a response. I glanced at Avani and noticed she’d shut her guidebook and was pointedly avoiding my gaze, her lips pinched together.
    I watched carefully every time someone took a drink of water or ate a muesli bar. I hated to be a tyrant, but we couldn’t afford to have anyone run out. I’d made each of them take as many bottles of water as they could carry, and we’d split the muesli bars between us. We each had five—enough for one, maybe two days. But it was the water that worried me most. The Kalahari climate was so dry you could almost feel the air sucking the moisture from your body, and our bodies each needed at least a gallon of water a day to stay hydrated out here.
    The sun rose; the sun fell. As it began to sink toward the horizon ahead of us, the trees turned into black silhouettes. I took out the radio from time to time to call Dad, but I heard nothing in reply. The silence did little to soothe my nerves. I didn’t say it to the others, but I knew we should have found
something
by now. Dad had said he was fifteen miles from the camp. We were approaching that fifteenth mile now if we hadn’t passed it already, but there was no sign of Dad, Theo, or the poachers besides the monotonous tire tracks. Dismayed, I began to rule out the possibility that he was on his way back to the camp, safe and sound. If he were, we’d have met up with him by now.
He could have gone back by another route,
I told myself. But my hope was soon swallowed by my mounting dread. My thoughts spiraled like water down a drain, circling and circling only to inevitably end at the same conclusions: He and Theo were either injured and unable to radio, captured . . . or dead.
    As evening grew closer, I knew we would have to stop soon to set up camp, but I pressed on, telling myself,
Just a few more steps, just to that tree, just a little farther. . . .
Then, right when I was about to call it a night, Dad’s tracks changed.
    At first, my heart leaped with relief: The tracks had doubled, almost as if Dad had turned back and driven toward camp. But when I bent down to look closer, I saw that both sets of tracks led in the same direction—and the second, fresher set did not belong to