 I more or less acted like a school bus to my brothers. I had to carry them and it was two hours to go to the school and two hours on the way back. By 15, Lakpa had left her family to work for the tourists who came to climb Mount Everest. I even cut my hair so no one would know that I was a girl. The other Sherpas and porters that I trekked with, they know. But because I worked so hard and because I could carry anything that they gave me, they didn't mind it.