Sherpa was sharing his tent with Sunny. 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. Sherpa, on the other hand, had some work to do and he told Sunny to proceed to the tent and sleep. Sunny went towards his tent and Sherpa went to Luke Sir's tent.
Sherpa had been asked to accompany the students and their teacher on the camping trip. After all an adult and helper were needed. He was both in one. Ha-ha. Luke Sir had told him that he would join them at the base of the forest where the bus stopped.
He belonged to Nepal originally as his parents were from there. He had come to City B to earn a living and joined this High school as a part-time peon at the age of 18. Slowly he got accustomed to the environment and settled down. The school had given him a quarter at the back of the school. After school, he was the caretaker under whose command the security guards kept vigil.
Almost 15 years had passed since he took up a job here. Now he was 33 years of age and had seen many children pass out of school and becoming responsible citizens of society getting good jobs. Some of them had got married and even admitted their children in this school.
He had been seeing mountains covered with snow since childhood and had been climbing mountains since he was a child. His parents were no longer alive and he did not know where his siblings were.
The mountains covered with snow looked beautiful always in the moonlight or without moonlight. He had heard of the 'Mountain Man' or as people called him Yeti, Big Foot, etc. He had seen a huge hazy figure when had gone to graze his goats on the mountainside. He was a child at that time and he was this mountain man walking near the snowline. It was like a huge man-animal walking. The height would be about 18-20 feet and his body was covered with hair. He did not walk straight but with a slight stoop.
The information about the huge footprint of the Mountain Man could not be false. After all, it was reported the Indian Army Mountaineering Expedition Team. The sighting was of the huge footprints close to Mount Makalu Base Camp on 09.04.2019. Mount Makalu is about 40 km away from Mount Everest, in Nepal. 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.
Sherpa reached Luke Sir's tent and Luke handed him the equipment. Then they both proceeded to a level area away from the tent to set up the equipment. It needed to be set on a tripod and upon further examination; Sherpa saw that the equipment was some sort of an infra-red camera. One camera was placed facing their camp and the other was placed facing the cliff side to note any activity on the snow-covered mountainside.
"Luke Sir, I can understand the infra-red camera being placed facing the camp but why place another facing the cliff side and pointing to the snow-covered mountain?" Sherpa could not control his curiosity. Do you think you can see some sort of life there perhaps the Mountain Man?" he added.
Luke started laughing.
"Yes, Sherpa I do not want anything to go unrecorded. Who knows, we may also have a Bigfoot sighting? But at present, all I can see in the clear moonlight sky are a few bats flying around in circles from the other side of the hills from where we had come towards the snow-covered and back to the hills area."
He liked Luke Sir and Zia ma'am and felt that they would eventually get married. But such things were controlled by destiny. The least he could do was giving them both a push towards this destiny. Sherpa was thinking all these and smiling away.
"What are you smiling at? Is there a joke that you need to share?" Luke smiled.
"Luke Sir, Zia Ma'am is nice and why don't you talk to her?" Sherpa questioned with raised eyebrows.
"What do you mean, Sherpa?"
"I know you like her and you regard me as a friend. I am just a small fry but I would advise you not to leave things till you get back." He replied looking at the mountains and then at Luke.
"Once this trip is over, you both will get busy with your lives. It is better to start talking to each other during this trip itself."
If you let things slide then she will go away and your parents will find a girl for you to marry.
"Goodnight Luke Sir! Think over what all I said." Saying all this, Sherpa left the equipment area and went off to his tent to sleep.
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 his equipment.
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 dreams that Sunny and Sherpa were having. Sherpa quickly jumped out of the sleeping bag and raced towards the exit of their tent telling Sunny to follow suit. Within seconds Sherpa was out of their tent 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.