The White Giraffe

by Lauren St. John

  Martine snapped into the present to find they’d reached the barren clearing. The twisted tree glared at them, guarding its secret like a living beast. Martine tried not to look at it. Knotting her fingers through Jemmy’s mane, she urged him forward. Vines and branches tore at her skin as he jumped. It was like being ripped from his back by an octopus. Then, just as suddenly as before, it was still and dark. She was in the Secret Valley. All she could hear was the tinkling of the stream and the giraffe’s rapid breathing. The scent of orchids wafted up to her. Above her head, the gap in the valley roof showed a rectangle of blue-black sky sprinkled with stars.

  She slid down Jemmy’s neck and switched on her flashlight. The tunnel entrance was in front of her, as spookily inviting as before. A prickle of fear brushed her skin. What if something went wrong? Nobody knew where she was. Nobody even knew about the Secret Valley. In the unlikely event anyone ever found her, all they’d stumble across would be her bones, just like the slave at Skeleton Stream. But she banished these thoughts from her head. She had an hour at most to look for the truth. She needed to start down the tunnel.

  Martine stood in the center of the cave, bathed in the radiant glow of the paintings. She filled her lungs with its dense, cathedral air. The time-travel sensation she’d felt before, the vivid sense of generations past, was stronger than ever. There was something humbling about it. It made her feel as tiny as an ant or a fleck of dust in a gale— at the mercy of some immense, unseen power. She went over to the painting of the white giraffe and its child rider and traced its shining outline with her fingertips.

  “I see you found the message from the forefathers, chile.”

  Martine tried to yelp, but her throat sealed up with shock and she just gulped like a haddock out of water.

  Grace stepped out of the shadows. She was draped from head to foot in Zulu tribal dress. Beaded jewelry in all the colors of the rainbow adorned her arms and throat.

  “Grace!” croaked Martine. “What are you doing here? How did you get here? Who else knows about this place? Does Tendai?”

  “So many questions,” said Grace. She smiled, but even in the wavering light Martine could see that the smile didn’t reach her eyes. She seemed burdened somehow, weighted down with worry. “Come,” she said. “Come sit with old Grace.”

  Martine followed her to the corner of the cave, where the water-hewn rocks made a natural bench. They sat side by side, gazing at the gallery of copper and ochre paintings. Martine was still reeling from the bombshell of finding the woman she’d wanted so much to see, here, in this sacred place.

  “What you got to understand, chile, is that this arl started a long time ago, before my grandmamma was born and her grandmamma before her, when Bushmen lived on the land you now call Sawubona. Everything that will come is already written. Even the white giraffe. You see for yourself your story on this here wall.”

  She raised her arm and Martine saw for the first time that there was an order to the pictures; their tales of beauty and tragedy unfolded like the plot of a novel.

  “Grace,” Martine asked in a hushed tone, “what happened to the people who stayed in this cave?”

  “They perished, chile, arl but one—a girl. The elders of our tribe say that it was a disease brought by the white man—chicken pox or some’at, but nobody know for sure. As the end drew near for each of ’em, they painted their stories and the legends of the forefathers on these walls. Then there was just one. She was found by one of my grannies from long, long ago—she was a sangoma, a traditional healer, like me—in the place outside the valley. My mama say that on that day the sangoma call down so many favors from the gods that fire rained from the heavens and scorched the earth so bad that nothin’ could ever grow there no more.”

  Martine thought about the barren clearing and the glowering tree, misshapen and parasitic, and had no trouble believing the tale.

  “After the Bushman girl was well,” Grace went on, “she brought the sangoma here, to the Memory Room. She made har promise that only har firstborn daughter and har firstborn daughter after har—all sangomas—should know the secrets of the caves. And you, chile, the chile who rides the white giraffe.”

  Martine stared around the cave with new eyes. “But why me? What does it have to do with me?”

  “The answers are right here on the walls,” Grace said again, “but only time and experience will give you eyes to see them.”

  Martine looked harder than ever at the paintings, hoping that, in spite of Grace’s words, she’d find the answers now, when she felt she most needed them. But their fiery colors just blurred before her vision and only one image stayed clear: the child on the white giraffe.

  “Grace,” she said, “does Tendai know about the white giraffe?”

  “He ain’t sure,” replied Grace. “Tendai, he still a young man and young people are always suspicious of the old ways. They call it mumbo jumbo. Supastishun.” She studied Martine with strange glittering eyes. “But not you, huh?”

  “No,” said Martine, “not me.”

  It was on the tip of Martine’s tongue to ask Grace how she’d known she would find her in the cave on this particular night and at this particular time, but she decided against it. Some things were better left unsaid.

  Instead she asked, “Grace, why did you come here tonight?”

  Again Martine thought she saw a shadow pass over the African woman’s face. “I come with a warnin’,” Grace said heavily. “Your time is almost here. Dark forces be comin’ and they will stop at nothin’ to get to the white giraffe. Be very careful. Trust in your gift and it will keep you safe.”

  Martine had a sudden premonition of danger. She’d convinced herself that, with the poachers caught, no one would bother Jemmy ever again. But even as Grace spoke, she knew the woman’s words were true. The hunters would be back.

  “I don’t care what happens to me, but how can I save the white giraffe?” she pleaded.

  In answer, Grace opened the beaded pouch that hung from her neck. She took out a handful of small corked bottles that sparkled in the light. Their contents were orange, brown, mustard yellow, and a peculiarly vile green. She smiled, and this time her eyes did light up and crinkle at the corners.

  “Grace is gonna teach you,” she said.

  For the next hour, Martine—who knew that she should be getting back but was too entranced to care—had a crash course in Zulu traditional medicine. She learned about plants like mother-in-law’s tongue, which is a remedy for pain and earaches, rooibos tea, which can cure stomach cramps and allergies, and many other healing herbs besides. Afterward, Grace handed the pouch full of bottles to Martine.

  “Thank you, Grace,” she said. “I’ll keep them in a special place.”

  Grace looked pleased. “You’re mos’ welcome. You have your healing gift, but sometimes you will need a little extra help.”

  There were so many questions and no more time to ask them, but there was one thing Martine had to know before they parted.

  “Grace,” she said, “why doesn’t my grandmother want me here?”

  “She do want you here, chile. She do. Your granny loves you soooo much. But she has her story just like you have yours.”

  Martine was about to tell Grace that her grandmother had no feelings for her whatsoever when Grace cut in. “Now I want to ax you somethin’. I got a cousin of mine who works down at your school and he tells me that you’re arl the time arl by yourself. Why you don’t find yourself some friends to play with? It ain’t good to be alone.”

  Martine dropped her eyes, embarrassed. “But I have got a friend. The white giraffe is my friend.”

  “That’s right, the giraffe is your friend. But every chile needs someone their own age, a human bei’, to talk with. To share with.”

  “Well, maybe there’s no one I want to be friends with,” Martine said defensively. “Who would understand about Jemmy? Who would understand about this?”

  For a long time Grace made no comment. Finally
she laid a hand on Martine’s shoulder. “You will find the friend you seek in the last place you look.”

  19

  Three days later Martine was walking across the playing fields after a soccer game, her head still full of her encounter with Grace, when she heard raised voices coming from Black Horse Ravine. Her first thought was that some-from Black Horse Ravine. Her first thought was that someone was in trouble. Black Horse Ravine was a deep gorge with a fast-flowing river, which lay beyond the boundary fence of the school. It was so treacherous that the punishment for even entering the dark pines that fronted it was ten detentions. But Martine didn’t hesitate. She climbed over the fence and ran into the trees. When she was out of sight of any passing teacher, she squatted down and listened.

  Right away, she recognized the voices of the Five Star Gang. They seemed to be taunting somebody. “You think you’re pretty clever, don’t you? Did you really think you could make fools of us and get away with it?”

  “Tell us the truth or you’re going for a swim. It was your twisted little brain that came up with the plan to humiliate us at the Botanical Gardens, wasn’t it? Answer us. And don’t pretend you can’t speak. The teachers might be taken in by your act, but we are not.”

  There was no response from their captive.

  “He’s such a waste of space, isn’t he?” Scott said. “I mean, look at him. You’re a runt, Buddha, you know that. I’ve seen chickens with more meat on their bones.”

  “You’re a loony, has anyone ever told you that? You’re a freak.”

  “You’re like one of those sad-looking dogs you find down at the shelter,” jeered Luke. “Say: ‘I’m a mongrel, Luke.’ What are you? Say: ‘I’m a mongrel . . .’ ”

  Martine had until then been crouching behind a boulder, too scared to intervene. But at those words, the memory of Tendai’s story came burning through her like liquid fire. With a yell of fury, she burst out of the trees. Luke and Scott had hold of Ben and were forcing him to stand on the edge of the ravine. Lucy was laughing her high-pitched laugh and Pieter was sitting on the ground nearby looking slightly green.

  “What are you?” Luke was saying to Ben.

  He didn’t see Martine until she was right in front of him and then he just stammered, “M-Martine! What the . . . ?”

  “I’ll tell you who Ben is,” Martine heard herself saying. “He’s my friend, that’s who he is. He’s also the boy who beat you by about fifty meters in the hundred meters at the school championships, Luke. And he’s the boy whose homework you keep borrowing, Lucy, because you’re too thick to do your own. As for his parents, well, at least he’s got a father, Scott. When was the last time you saw yours?”

  A shocked silence followed her outburst. The Black Horse River roared far below them.

  “My f-father . . .” stammered Scott. “Oh, forget it. This is no fun. Come on, Luke, Lucy, Pieter. Let’s leave these losers to their pathetic little friendship.”

  He dropped Ben’s arm so abruptly that the boy teetered for a moment on the edge of the ravine before finding his balance and stepping away.

  They left noisily, kicking at pine cones, cursing as they went. Martine and Ben were alone.

  Martine suddenly felt shy. “Are you okay?” she asked hesitantly.

  It struck her for the first time that Ben was very handsome. He had topaz eyes like a lion, shiny black hair, and white, even teeth. When he spoke, his voice was soft and he pronounced each word clearly and separately, like a newscaster.

  “I appreciate your help,” he said, “but I prefer to fight my own battles.”

  For several days after the incident at Black Horse Ravine, Martine went back to feeling nervous again at school. She was convinced that the Five Star Gang would want to get back at her somehow. Instead, something completely different happened. By standing up to them, she seemed to have earned their respect. Lucy van Heerden presented her with a box of homemade condensed-milk cookies to apologize and all five of them went out of their way to be nice to her.

  Martine was cool with them at first—she was still angry about the way they’d treated Ben at the ravine and the wild goose at the Botanical Gardens. But they kept telling her that both were just games that had gone too far and that they felt really bad about them, and gradually she came to believe they’d changed. That didn’t mean that Martine wanted to be bosom buddies with them, but it did mean that when their close friend Sherilyn offered her a slice of carrot cake and wanted to sit with her, she accepted, and when Xhosa asked her about life on Sawubona, she was happy to go along with that too. She kept remembering Grace’s words: You will find the friend you seek in the last place you look. Maybe Grace had been right about that too.

  Of course, Ben was still Ben and he still spent all his free time by himself. Ever since Martine had intervened at Black Horse Ravine he seemed to have gone out of his way to avoid her. Lucy had given him a box of apology cookies too, but he’d later been seen handing them out to some homeless children. At recess, he once again sat cross-legged under the distant trees with his palms resting on his knees and turned upward. Some days Martine was convinced that he was meditating.

  Now that she knew he wasn’t mute—that he actually had a beautiful speaking voice and was, as she’d thought all along, very smart—she spent a lot of time puzzling over why he never talked to anyone at school. Finally she’d come to the conclusion that he just couldn’t be bothered. Maybe school and the people in it didn’t interest him. Maybe he was only here because he had to be. Maybe he was happiest when he was in nature, like Tendai. But just when Martine had made up her mind to get to the bottom of the riddle that was Ben once and for all, two things came along to preoccupy her. She began to get the distinct impression someone was going through her locker. Nothing was ever taken and the changes, if there were any, were subtle ones—workbooks curled up at the corners as if they’d been flicked through, items shifted or replaced in a different order—but it was still creepy. Then a tiny watercolor she’d done of Jemmy went missing. She spent so long searching for it that she was late for her next lesson.

  “Ah, Martine,” said Miss Volkner when Martine burst in. “Good of you to join us.”

  Martine was mumbling an apology when the teacher interrupted, “We were just discussing African folklore. Lucy asked a question about giraffes.”

  “Giraffes!” cried Martine.

  “Yes, those creatures with the funny long necks,” said Miss Volkner, who was irritated with Martine for being late. “Do you have a problem with that? I’d have thought you’d be the class expert, living on a game reserve.”

  Martine was about to deny that she knew anything at all about giraffes when something stopped her. It wasn’t often that she got a chance to talk about her favorite subject. Besides, she thought mischievously, she could have a bit of fun with it.

  “No,” she said. “I mean, no, I don’t have a problem with it.”

  “Good, then perhaps you can tell us what you know.”

  So Martine, flushing a little with shyness, told the class how the ancients had regarded giraffes as the most innocent, delicate, and timid of all the wild animals, but also brave enough to fight dragons. How the Venda people called them thutlwa, “rising above the trees,” and how other tribes saw a giraffe in the stars: the Southern Cross. She also told them some facts. That giraffes can reach speeds of thirty-five miles per hour and that it takes them ten years to reach their full height of seventeen feet for females and nineteen feet for males.

  Miss Volkner was clearly taken aback. “If you applied yourself to your school subjects with even half the diligence with which you appear to study wildlife, your grades would improve dramatically,” she said somewhat sarcastically.

  “Miss Volkner,” asked Sherilyn, “has anyone ever ridden a giraffe?”

  “No, they haven’t, Sherilyn. I don’t know why that is. Maybe they’re not as intelligent as horses. Certainly they wouldn’t be as comfortable.”

  Martine stayed quiet, thinkin
g to herself: If only they knew! If only they could see me and Jemmy racing across Sawubona’s plains in the moonlight!

  “Maybe it’s because they’re too stupid,” said Lucy, with a sly glance at Martine. “I mean, it’s not as if they do anything. They don’t hunt or build nests or webs or have any purpose that I can see. All they do is stroll around and look pretty.”

  Instantly Martine’s temper flared. “They do have a purpose,” she snapped, turning on Lucy. “They act as lookouts for the other animals. They’re very intelligent and have incredible eyesight and hearing, and they warn other animals if a predator is approaching. Their ears are so amazing they can even hear whistles that only dogs can usually hear.”

  As soon as it was out of her mouth, she regretted saying it, but it was too late to take it back.

  “How do you know?” challenged Luke. “About the whistle, I mean.”

  “I just know, okay?” answered Martine, anxious to change the subject. “I read it in a book or something.”

  In the last row of the class, Xhosa stopped playing computer games and sat up straight.

  “Miss Volkner,” he said, “if Martine knows so much about giraffes, how come she hasn’t told us about the white one that’s supposed to live at Sawubona?”

  “The one in the legend?” asked Miss Volkner. “Is this true, Martine? I didn’t know there was anything in it. You mean there actually is a white giraffe?”

  Martine went red. “The white giraffe doesn’t exist,” she said. “Everyone knows that.”

  Heading off for a swimming lesson afterward, Martine felt shaken and guilty. The bad feeling that had come over her when she let slip the remark about the whistle returned with a vengeance. She tried to console herself with the thought that the only people who’d heard her say it were a bunch of hair gel and pop music obsessed kids—and Miss Volkner, who was a vegetarian—and they were hardly likely to go out hunting for the white giraffe. She was also relieved that she had already taken off the whistle in preparation for going swimming. And yet the butterflies continued to boil away in her stomach.