The White Giraffe

by Lauren St. John

  Best of all, he taught her how to make a natural compass. First, he selected a straight stick about three feet long. He pushed it into the ground in an area away from any grass or vegetation, so that it cast a clear shadow.

  “When you’re sure that the stick is standing up nicely, you mark the tip of the shadow with your finger or a twig,” he told Martine. “Wait fifteen minutes. When the shadow moves, mark the tip again. Draw a straight line through the two marks, like so. This will be your east-west line. If you now put your left foot on the first shadow mark and your right foot on the second one, you will be facing roughly north. There are more accurate ways of doing it, but for you, I think, this is the easiest.”

  Martine could have gone on listening to bush lessons all day long, but she knew Tendai had work to do, so she thanked him and they continued down the escarpment. The path was overgrown and their way was frequently blocked by cacti and massive boulders. Once, when Martine was about to jump from a rock onto a soft pile of leaves, Tendai’s arm shot out and he pushed her back so hard that she slipped and grazed her bare knee. She was opening her mouth to ask, a little crossly, what he was doing, when she saw Tendai’s somber face. Lying in the leaves, completely camouflaged by the browns, grays, and yellows, were a dozen baby Berg adders. Tendai assured her they were every bit as poisonous as their mother.

  Martine was shaken. It was the second time in less than two weeks that her life had been saved. “What would have happened to me if I’d been bitten?”

  Tendai smiled. “But you weren’t.”

  “But what would have happened if I had been?”

  The Zulu refused to answer. “With any snake bite, you must stay as calm and quiet as possible. Try to identify the snake and walk slowly to get help.”

  Urine, it turned out, was an excellent antiseptic and the perfect thing to use if there was no water nearby when a cobra spat in your eye. Martine tried to imagine herself calmly peeing into a cup or even her hand and then using it to wash out her eyes. Ugh, she thought, and shuddered as she remembered her close shave with the cobra the other evening. She resolved to give snakes a wide berth in the future.

  Tendai saw her expression and erupted into laughter. “Don’t worry, little one. Snakes usually do their best to avoid people and seldom bite unless they are cornered or threatened.”

  “Mmm,” murmured Martine doubtfully.

  13

  When they reached the jeep, Tendai put the breakfast things in the cab and took out his rifle. They set off on foot across the valley. The sun was so searing that even the earth smelled baked and the sky was as blue as a kingfisher’s wing. At this hour of day there was no shade to speak of, but the lacy-leafed thorn trees were alive with bees, cooing doves, and crested gray louries, which her grandmother and Tendai referred to as “go-away birds” because that’s what they seemed to shout at potential predators. These were the sounds Martine had come to associate with Africa.

  She stuck close to Tendai, who walked with his hand on the trigger of his rifle, alert for elephants, buffaloes, and lions, the most unpredictable animals in the reserve. He noticed everything. He showed Martine a nest of hoopoe bird babies, a comical chameleon, and the spoor of a female leopard and two cubs. He could even tell how big the cubs were and how fast the little family had been traveling.

  The more Tendai talked, the more obvious it was that he knew Sawubona like he knew his own heart. Martine felt safe with him. With his gravelly voice and patient way of explaining things, he reminded her of her father.

  All at once, Tendai broke off. He made a clicking noise of irritation and took some pliers out of his pocket. They were in the valley to search for snares, wire nooses, or iron-jawed traps left by poachers, which strangled animals or broke their limbs and left them to die slowly. Martine watched him as he sprang a trap, almost invisible in the long grass, and cut the rusty wire binding it to a tree.

  “I don’t know what to do anymore,” he said as they walked into the welcome cool of a grove of trees. “No matter how many snares I remove, they are always there the next day. And recently we’ve started to lose our big game as well. A lion and a buffalo have disappeared in the last month. I wish we could employ a guard, but money is very tight.”

  Listening to him, Martine began to feel frightened for Jeremiah. What if her giraffe (she’d already begun to think of Jemmy as hers) had his legs broken in a steel trap?

  “Tendai . . . ?”

  The Zulu put his finger to his lips. He indicated that she should creep forward quietly and crouch with him behind a tree. They sat motionless. After a few minutes, a magnificent kudu bull stepped gracefully into the clearing in front of them and stood in the dappled sunlight. He seemed to be listening for something. Martine thought that next to Jemmy he was the most gorgeous animal she had ever seen. He had spiral horns and almond-shaped eyes in a broad, fawn-colored face. Long silky white fur traced the line of his throat and delicate white stripes adorned his back, which was humped at the shoulder.

  “He’s amazing,” she whispered to Tendai, who grinned down at her.

  BANG!

  A bullet ripped into the tree trunk above Tendai’s head, simultaneously spraying him with splinters and terrifying Martine. Before they could move, a second bullet hit the kudu in the throat. Blood spurted from his neck in a fountain and he dropped to the ground and lay still. Martine screamed.

  Alex came strolling through the trees, smoke rising from the tip of his rifle. His blond hair was standing up in sweaty spikes.

  “Sorry about that, guys,” he said. “The sight on my gun’s been playing up. Lucky I missed you, hey! I was trying to hit that kudu over there. From where I was, it looked like it was caught in a snare.”

  Tendai was enraged. “There was nothing wrong with that kudu, nothing!” he shouted. “Where is the snare? What did you have to go and shoot it for?”

  “What can I say?” Alex mused chirpily. “These things happen. At least it’ll make good eating.”

  This incensed Tendai even more and the two men started to argue. Neither of them noticed Martine steal away and run as fast as she could to the fallen kudu. His eyes were glazed over and his lovely fawn coat was scarlet with pulsing blood. The rifle blast had left a big jagged hole in his white-bearded throat.

  Martine bent down beside him. She was in a trance, just as she had been when she held the wild goose. Ordinarily, she would have been inconsolable at the mere idea of anyone shooting an animal, but today she didn’t feel any sadness at all. Instead she felt charged with energy, as if the purest, most perfect electricity in the world was coursing through her veins. Her hands became boiling hot. She put them over the kudu’s heart. There was a faint beat, already fading.

  Martine thought fast. Shock and loss of blood had caused the kudu to lose consciousness and she knew from the first aid her dad had taught her that without emergency treatment he would be dead in minutes. But that didn’t mean he couldn’t be saved. The bullet had pierced the kudu’s throat, passed straight through his windpipe, and made a clean exit. If Martine could stem the blood and heal his failing heart, then maybe, just maybe, the kudu would breathe again.

  In the distance, she heard Alex snap sarcastically, “The trouble with you, Tendai, is you always put sentiment before business. A dead animal is not always a disaster, my friend. Sometimes it’s just a furry bit of money.”

  Martine shut him out and put her hand over the hole in the kudu’s throat. Blood bubbled through the gaps in her fingers. Every second counted. She scanned the area around her, desperately searching for something that could help to seal the wound. There was nothing but pale dirt, tufts of dry grass, and a big anthill. An anthill! Martine had a sudden flashback of Miss Volkner telling the class how the Shangaan tribe had once used soldier termites, which had very large mandibles or pincers, to “stitch up” wounds. What made it so effective, Miss Volkner had told them, was that the termites’ saliva worked as a natural antiseptic.

  “The down side,” she
’d added, with what Martine had thought was unnecessary relish, “is that, after the soldiers have locked their jaws, you have to rip their bodies off. That way, they won’t be tempted to let go.”

  Martine had been squeamish about the decapitation of the poor termites at the time and, as she watched them making their way innocently home past her left knee, she didn’t feel any better about it now. But she also knew she had to save the kudu.

  The soldier termites were easy to spot. They had bulbous red heads on tiny cream bodies and their black mandibles waved in the air like weapons. As quick as a flash, she brought the edges of the wound together in a neat line, grabbed a passing soldier by the non-biting end and held its pincers to the pink flesh. It clamped down hard. Before she could think about it, Martine whipped off its rear. It worked! The soldier’s black mandibles curved into the kudu’s skin exactly like a stitch. She picked up another termite and did the same thing again, telling herself that at least it had died for a good cause. It hadn’t just been stepped on by mistake or something. In under a minute, twenty termite heads sealed the wound as tightly as any surgeon could have done. Not a trickle of blood escaped.

  Martine placed her hot hands over the kudu’s dying heart and began pressing down every few seconds. Under her touch, the beat grew stronger and the kudu’s skin became warm. When he opened his eyes and saw Martine, he appeared confused, but not frightened. He climbed to his feet shakily and, with a flick of his tail, bounded weakly away.

  She watched him go, flooded with an indescribable feeling of joy. All she could think was: Dad would have been proud of me.

  That’s when she realized that somehow, without noticing it, she was finding her feet in her new world, and because of that, happiness was creeping up on her again. Three times in the last few weeks—saving the Egyptian goose, finding Jemmy, and now healing the kudu—she’d had to do things on her own, with nobody else’s help, even when she was very, very scared, and each time something amazing had happened. And that made her trust herself more.

  Even so, she was scared to look at the two men in case they’d witnessed what had just taken place. Fortunately, it seemed they hadn’t. Alex had his back to her and Tendai’s view was blocked by the game warden’s body. They were still arguing. She used a tuft of grass and some spit to wipe the blood off her hands and walked over to them.

  “Kudu’s gone,” she announced casually.

  The men stopped ranting and stared at the spot where the kudu had been.

  Tendai rubbed his eyes. He went a funny gray color. His gaze went from Martine to the clearing, then back again.

  “Where’s the kudu?” roared Alex. “Where’s the kudu? It was dead. How the hell could it have moved?”

  “He felt better,” said Martine. “He decided that it wasn’t a great idea to hang around while the sight on your gun isn’t working.”

  Alex made a move toward her as if he were going to throttle her with his bare hands.

  “You again,” he snarled. “Remember what I told you. Be very, very careful. Next time you might not be so lucky.” He turned to Tendai. “And as for you, just for the record, you should know that it’s not the new South Africa on this game reserve.”

  He picked up his gun and stormed off into the trees.

  Martine waited until she heard his truck speeding away.

  “He could have killed you,” she said.

  The Zulu was sitting on the ground with his head in his hands. There were two ugly gashes on his face caused by ricocheting splinters. He lifted his head. “Please don’t say anything to your grandmother.” He didn’t want to distress her unnecessarily.

  “Tendai!”

  “Please.”

  “Okay,” Martine agreed unhappily.

  They were silent for a minute. Then Tendai said: “My aunt was right, wasn’t she, little one? You have the gift.”

  Martine didn’t answer.

  “The kudu,” persisted Tendai. “It was dying. What did you do to it?”

  “He was resting,” said Martine. “The kudu was just resting.”

  And with that Tendai had to be satisfied.

  14

  The combination of Alex’s bizarre behavior and the bone-crushing snares Tendai had destroyed in the valley had unnerved Martine so much that rather than waiting for the white giraffe to find her, as she’d promised herself she would, she became determined to find him again. For once, luck was on her side. Eight days after her outing with Tendai, a Sunday, her grandmother received a call to say that a close friend of hers had been rushed to the hospital. The hospital was in Somerset West, a couple of hours’ drive away, and Gwyn Thomas would have to spend the night. She wanted to take Martine with her, but Martine convinced her that it would be much better if she stayed at Sawubona.

  “I don’t want to be tired for school in the morning.”

  “That’s true, although I’m surprised to hear you say so,” retorted her grandmother. “But in any case I’ll be worried about you here on your own.”

  “I won’t be on my own,” Martine assured her. “Warrior and Shelby will keep me company and if I’m scared I can call Tendai. Besides, I’ve got some homework I need to finish.”

  At two o’clock she waved good-bye to her grandmother, smiling what she hoped was her most trustworthy smile. That in itself made Gwyn Thomas suspicious and before half an hour had gone by, Tendai was at the door, checking up on her. Luckily Martine, who really did have a school project to finish, was already sitting at the dining room table surrounded by books, so she had no difficulty convincing Tendai that she was absolutely fine. “I’ll phone you in a second if I’m not,” she promised.

  Homework done, she went up to her room, shut the curtains on the afternoon sunshine, set the alarm, and hopped into bed. She had a long night ahead of her and she needed all the sleep she could get.

  It was one a.m. when Martine entered the game reserve, nerves tingling, and she knew within seconds that there was going to be trouble. She crouched down in the thick grass and scanned the bush carefully. Lights were flickering in the trees. At this hour, that meant one of two things. At best, it was Tendai or Alex patrolling the reserve, in which case if she was discovered and her grandmother heard about her escapade, her life would no longer be worth living. At worst, it was a gang of poachers—possibly even her grandfather’s killers. Either way, it was a monumental disaster. Unable to get back without being seen, she used the grass as cover to make it as far as the trees and then flung herself under a clump of bushes.

  Presently, she heard voices. The men were speaking softly, but it was a fine night and the sound traveled clearly over the water.

  “I’m telling you, man, this better not be another one of your wild-goose chases,” said one. “If we don’t deliver this thing very soon, M . . .”—the name was lost on the wind— “is going to get ugly. He’s not used to being kept waiting.”

  “When have I ever let you down?” a second voice demanded. “I’ll find that blasted animal if it’s the last thing I do.”

  The voices came nearer and one of the men stepped out of the trees. He walked to the water’s edge and squatted to examine the mud with his flashlight.

  “Bull’s-eye!” he crowed.

  Another man emerged from the shadows. Martine tried to get a good look at him, but despite the full moon, he was too far away to be anything other than an indistinct silhouette.

  “What’s up?”

  “Giraffe tracks,” the first man replied. He stood up. “Now all we have to do is find the giraffe.”

  There was a whisper of leaves and Martine whipped around in fright. It was Jemmy. Unheard, the giraffe had crept up almost beside her and now he loomed over her, outlined like a shimmering white giant against the blue-black sky. His eyes were locked on the two men.

  “Jemmy!” Martine whispered. “You’ve got to go. Run! Get lost!”

  He didn’t move.

  “Jemmy!” hissed Martine as loudly as she dared. “RUN!”

&nb
sp; The white giraffe seemed to notice her for the first time. His liquid black eyes swept from her to the men and back again. He was shaking. Every inch of his body was poised for flight, but something was stopping him.

  Abandoning all thought for her own safety, Martine jumped from her hiding place. “Go, Jemmy,” she pleaded, drumming her fists against his leg. “You’ve got to go.”

  The white giraffe shoved her purposefully with his nose. That’s when it hit Martine: He wanted her to come with him.

  “There it is!” cried one of the men, and Martine went cold with terror. Behind her, she could hear shouts and the high-pitched whine of an engine firing into life. There was no escape. In a matter of minutes, she and Jemmy would be caught. Unless . . .

  “Jemmy,” yelled Martine, and she ran to the nearest climbable tree. For several petrifying moments it seemed as if Jemmy was not going to follow her, but all of a sudden he did. Martine pulled herself up onto the highest branch she could reach. There was no time to think. In particular, there was no time to think about how she’d never ridden any animal, not even a Shetland pony, and that she wasn’t all that good at riding a bicycle. She simply swung onto Jemmy’s back and grabbed a handful of mane.

  The first panicked surge of the white giraffe nearly sent Martine flying. Self-preservation stopped her from falling off. Before she could adjust to the fact that she was ten feet off the ground—on the same level as a startled owl—they were bolting into the night. Martine leaned forward the way she’d seen horse riders do in England, gripped with her legs, and tried to avoid looking down.

  They swept through the dark trees at an incredible speed, the giraffe galloping with a rhythmic, rocking-horse stride. How he avoided colliding with the overhead branches or getting a hoof caught in a root was a mystery to Martine. Nevertheless, once she got used to his sloping back, she found it surprisingly easy to ride him. He was broad and comfortable and his fur was like satin. Soon it seemed like the most natural thing in the world to be racing through the moonlight on the back of a young giraffe.