We Are Not Eaten by Yaks by C. Alexander London

smushing her. She really wanted to be at home right now, comfy on the couch watching something about romance or a game show or anything that didn’t involve hanging upside down off a cliff with her brother and her unconscious father in the highest place in the world.
    Oliver watched the tiger lick its lips. All this falling from the sky and hanging from trees and giant hungry tigers was growing tiresome, and Oliver was fed up.
    â€œI am fed up,” he said. The tiger let out a low growl and didn’t take his eyes off of Oliver. “This is so boring.”
    â€œI’ve been looking at the same patch of mist for an hour,” Celia complained.
    The tiger still didn’t move.
    â€œNothing is happening,” Oliver said. “This is like watching a blender commercial.”
    â€œOr an awards ceremony.”
    â€œOr the local news.”
    â€œUgh,” Celia said. “You win. It’s like that. Only without the threat of deadly escalators or killer pickle jars.”
    The tiger moved on, having lost interest in the children.
    â€œI hate this!” Oliver pouted. His sister hated when her brother pouted. He had this way of sticking his chin out and clenching his forehead and it looked like he was going to cry or explode or both. “We should be home on the couch where there aren’t any evil flight attendants or deep gorges or giant boring tigers or tall men with machine guns!”
    â€œI know, but stop whining, would you—wait. Tigers?! What? Tall men with what?”
    â€œUp there,” Oliver said. “Right above us.”
    Celia bent her head around to look up and saw that, indeed, there was a very tall man standing on the rock where their raft was caught. He had a machine gun and was pointing it at them.
    He was bald and his face was wide, with deep wrinkles. He was quite old, but how old the children could not tell. He wore simple sandals with socks, light pants and a monk’s robes. Over his robes, he had a bandolier of bullets, like a cowboy in an old western, except the bullets were long and thin, and clearly intended for the machine gun he was holding. Each bullet was carved with a pattern of symbols. He had a small backpack on his back.
    â€œDr. Navel?” he shouted down to them in English, much to the children’s surprise. “Are you alive?”
    â€œUmmm, we think he is,” Oliver yelled back.
    â€œWho are you?” Celia shouted up. Oliver was always too willing to talk to strangers. Celia was far more careful. She wished her brother would let her do the talking.
    â€œMy name is Lama Norbu,” the man answered, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. “And I assume you must be Celia and Oliver.”
    â€œYeah . . .” Oliver said hesitantly.
    â€œAnd your father?”
    â€œHe got knocked out by an air marshal and a stewardess. They threw us out of the plane,” Oliver said.
    â€œShhhh . . .” Celia whispered. “Don’t tell him too much. We don’t know if we can trust him yet.”
    â€œYou don’t look like a llama,” Oliver called up to the old man. Oliver had seen a cartoon about a talking llama, so perhaps, he thought, they could exist. He never thought he’d meet one in the real world.
    â€œNo, I suppose I don’t,” was all the man said in explanation, and then he broke into a wide gleeful smile. “I am glad to see you are alive. I had arranged with your father and Ms. Thordup to pick you up at the airport, and it seems I won’t be able to. I apologize. I would, however, be happy to help you now. It is not wise to hang there any longer. There are snakes and insects, and much worse here above the gorge.”
    â€œWe’d appreciate that,” Oliver called back, as Celia shot him daggers with her eyes.
    â€œWhat?” he whispered. “We need to get up somehow.”
    Lama Norbu went to work right away. He pulled a rope from the knapsack