The White Giraffe

by Lauren St. John

  It was a Friday afternoon and the school was almost empty when Martine finally returned to her locker. She tried again to find the little watercolor, but with no success. She opened the door and stood staring in, frowning slightly. Again she had the feeling that someone had been tampering with her things. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Gwyn Thomas’s car pull into the parking lot. Martine removed her backpack and empty lunch box from the top shelf and hung her wet towel around her neck. She knew that she was keeping her grandmother waiting, but she continued to stare into her locker. The longer she stood there, the more feverish and worried she felt. Something else was missing; she was sure of it.

  It wasn’t until she was halfway back to Sawubona that it hit her.

  The whistle was gone.

  20

  Martine tossed and turned all night and woke bleary-eyed at dawn. She felt sick. Not only had the whistle been stolen, but someone had changed the combination on the game park gate so she couldn’t get in to find Jemmy. And that was not all. At some point in that awful night, she’d opened her window and leaned out into the wild she’d opened her window and leaned out into the wild wind, hoping to catch a glimpse of the white giraffe, and had seen instead a swoop of white light. Seconds later, darkness blanketed the game reserve again, but by then she was sure that the poachers were back and that they wouldn’t be leaving without the white giraffe.

  As scared as she was, Martine had forced herself to dress quickly and tiptoe down the stairs and out the front door. Outside, the wind buffeted her and stung her skin, and the trees tossed like ocean waves. Martine ran barefoot down the sandy track that led to Tendai’s house. Apart from Grace, there was nobody else she trusted to help her. The animals in the orphanage skittered in their cages as she passed, and she wished she could stop and soothe them. But every minute wasted would give the poachers more time to get away, so she ran on, thankful when the lights of Tendai’s front porch shone through the swaying trees. Panting, she rang the bell. Nobody answered. That’s when she noticed that the door was partially ajar. She pushed it with a finger and it opened.

  “Tendai,” Martine called. “Tendai, are you awake?”

  But the house was silent. The bed hadn’t been slept in and the remnants of a half-eaten meal lay on the table, as though the tracker had left in a hurry. When she checked around the back, his jeep was gone.

  Martine sank onto a garden bench, defeated. So perhaps Tendai was involved after all. She walked on wooden legs back to the house, undressed, and climbed weakly under the covers. She wished she were brave enough to wake her grandmother and admit everything, but she couldn’t face it. She’d been through too much. She just hid under the covers, feeling like a coward, and hoped that it would all go away. When sleep finally came, she was haunted by nightmares in which Tendai and the Five Star Gang were in cahoots and they were chasing her through a forest. The branches were catching fire as she ran, and she knew that they’d only rescue her if she told them where to find the white giraffe. So she confessed, and they just laughed and left her to face the fire anyway.

  In the harsh light of morning, the nightmare seemed more real than ever. Martine imagined Jemmy hearing the silent whistle and trustingly following the sound to his doom, and felt like the worst, most evil person on earth. She wanted to die. The most horrific images kept going through her mind. She saw Jemmy being skinned and used as a rug in some rich man’s home, or being whipped and made to perform tricks in a circus, or even freezing to death in some Siberian zoo.

  Worst of all, it was her fault. The secret of the white giraffe had been hers to keep, and it was her carelessness that had given it away. There was no reason for her to take the whistle to school, let alone the little watercolor of Jemmy. How could she have been so stupid? It was almost as if she’d wanted to be found out; wanted everyone to know that she was the girl in the legend, the one who could ride the white giraffe. After years of being an outsider, it was her chance to be special.

  Now special was the very last thing she felt.

  Martine decided that she had to leave Sawubona immediately. She didn’t deserve to be there. She would go back to England on the first flight available—she would stow away if she had to—and Mr. Grice could find her a bed in an orphanage.

  There was a knock at the door. “Martine?”

  “Go away!” shouted Martine, burying her face in her pillow. “I’m not going to school.”

  The door opened and her grandmother came in. She sat down on the edge of the bed. “I know,” she said quietly.

  Martine took the pillow off her face. “You know?”

  “Yes, I do. I know about the white giraffe. And if I’d told you that sooner, none of this would have happened.”

  Martine’s heart skipped a beat. “Has something happened? ”

  Gwyn Thomas gave a heavy sigh and handed Martine a strand of silver tail hair. “Tendai found this tangled in the game park gate. Last night he received a hoax call from a man claiming to be a passerby, who said he had seen some buffaloes breaking through a hole in the game fence and that they were loose on the road. When Tendai got there, there was no hole and no buffalo. It was a trick to get him out of the way. He spent an hour searching for them before racing back to the reserve, but by then it was already too late. I’m sorry to have to tell you, Martine, the white giraffe is gone.”

  She stood up and walked around the bed to the window. “You see, Martine, you were right to be angry with me that night you wanted to know about your mother. There are too many secrets at Sawubona. But I thought I was protecting you. I thought I was protecting the white giraffe too. But now it seems I’ve done everything wrong.” She turned to Martine. “I’m so sorry I’ve hurt you,” she said.

  Martine didn’t know what was going on, but she was so relieved someone was still speaking to her that she jumped out of bed and took her grandmother’s hand.

  “It’s okay,” she said. “It’s okay. But I don’t understand what you mean about the giraffe. This is all my fault.”

  Her grandmother was silent for a long time. When she finally looked up, her face was etched with sorrow. “Sit down,” she said. “There’s something I need to tell you.”

  After Martine had made herself comfortable, her grandmother went out of the room and returned with tea and hot buttered English muffins and a large package, which she tucked between the bed and the table. Only when she was sure Martine had eaten her fill would Gwyn Thomas go on. She started by taking a present from the package and handing it to Martine.

  “I’ve been meaning to give this to you since the day you came to Sawubona,” she said, “but somehow there never was the right moment.”

  Martine took it from her with a puzzled frown and unwrapped it carefully. Inside was a heavy rectangular scrapbook crafted from handmade paper and pressed with wildflowers of the Cape. “It’s beautiful,” she told her grandmother.

  She opened it. On the first page was a series of photos of a little girl with wavy brown hair and sparkling green eyes, playing with a lion cub.

  “My mum,” breathed Martine. On the next page was a poem Veronica had written, followed by pictures of her riding horses through the reserve at Sawubona, taking a curtain call in the school play, and splashing in the waves. There were wedding photos and holiday photos of Veronica and David, arms around each other, laughing, in the early days of their marriage. And on the final page, there was a picture of her mum and dad standing in front of the house at Sawubona, cradling a tiny baby.

  “That’s you,” Gwyn Thomas said.

  Martine’s whole world shifted on its axis. “I was born in Africa?”

  “You were born at Sawubona.”

  “Then why . . . ?”

  “That’s where your story begins,” her grandmother said. “You see, Martine, the night after you came into the world Grace came to tell us that she’d had a vision that you were the child in the African legend, the one who has power over all the animals. She said that in years to come a
white giraffe would be born on Sawubona and that fate would ensure you were brought together. That you were twin souls.”

  A faint smile tugged at her grandmother’s lips. “Well, you can probably imagine our reaction. Grace has always had the gift of second sight, but we’d never actually heard her predict the future before, and somehow this just sounded so far-fetched. So initially, we were skeptical and then we were just amused. Veronica giggled and said she couldn’t wait to see the faces of the other mothers at the Pony Club when her daughter turned up on a white giraffe.

  “But Grace became angry and told her that it was not a joke. She led us to the window and there we saw a spectacle I will never forget as long as I live. Lions and zebras, leopards and springboks and other animals that usually prey on each other or fight with each other were lined up against the fence in perfect harmony, and they were looking toward the house. It was as if they knew something. After that, we took Grace very seriously. She said that along with the power—what she called the gift— would come enormous responsibility, and that although it would bring much beauty and happiness into your life, you would also experience great hardship and danger.

  “Well, your mother was furious. She was afraid to believe what Grace was saying, but she was more afraid to ignore it. What made it even harder for her was that Grace insisted that sooner or later you would have to follow your destiny, whether you wanted to or not. Well, Veronica refused to accept that.”

  Martine was spellbound. “So what happened next?”

  “After talking it over with your father, your mother decided that she could stop the course of destiny by taking you away from Africa, keeping you away from animals and severing all ties with Sawubona.

  “Your grandfather and I were devastated, but we understood her reasons—she was convinced it was the only way to keep you from danger—and we also felt that there was a chance the plan might work. So that’s what we did. Within two or three days of your birth, as soon as you were able to travel, you went to England.”

  “It must have been very hard for you,” Martine pressed. “Saying good-bye to my mum and dad and knowing you might never see them again.”

  “It was the hardest thing I’ve ever done,” her grandmother said with feeling. “But for a long time it was worth it because Veronica was so happy. She believed—we all believed—that it had worked. Then four months ago, shortly before Christmas, I went to Grace’s house for dinner. When I got there she was reading the bones—Africans with second sight throw bones the way Western fortune-tellers use crystal balls and tarot cards—and she answered the door in such a state, perspiring and talking gibberish, that I thought she had a fever. She said the bones had told her that a tragedy would bring you back to Sawubona. She wanted me to phone Veronica right then and say anything, even lie and say I was ill if I had to, just to bring you all back to Sawubona. She said that if you came of your own accord, the gods might be appeased and the tragedy would be averted.

  “Of course, I was very alarmed. It was hard not to be. But I tried to reason with her. I said that perhaps the bones were mistaken and that, apart from the fact that I had no intention of lying to my own daughter, she could hardly expect a whole family to move continents for a second time on the basis of her visions. After all, we’d seen no evidence at all that the first one might come true. We ended up having a terrible fight over it. She was my friend, but we haven’t spoken since. She was always adamant that you shouldn’t be taken away from here. She kept saying that the forefathers had predicted your coming. I just told her she was mad. To be truthful, I really hoped she was mad.”

  Gwyn Thomas took a ragged breath and for the first time since coming to Sawubona, Martine understood the extent of her grandmother’s loss. She squeezed her hand and was rewarded with a grateful smile.

  “So I told your mother what she’d said,” Gwyn Thomas went on. “For Veronica, it was the last straw. She said that for years she’d had to suffer the heartache of being away from me, her dad, and her beloved Africa. Finally, she’d found happiness. David had a good job, you were growing up wonderfully, and you all had lots of plans for the future. She was not about to uproot you a second time for what would probably, in the end, turn out to be nothing more than superstitious babbling.

  “It was the last time we spoke. Days later, I received a call to say that your mum and dad had lost their lives in a house fire. I blamed myself. I felt that if only I’d worked harder to convince them to leave, it would never have happened. Then the will was read and I was told I was your sole relative. We had always agreed that I wouldn’t be your guardian if your parents died, because that would mean you would have to return to Africa. But the will had recently been changed. Why Veronica changed her mind, we’ll never know. It seemed the cruelest of ironies. After everything we’d done to keep you away from Sawubona, you were destined to return after all.”

  Martine suddenly realized she had been holding her breath. “Phew! Now I understand why you didn’t want me to come here.”

  “Yes,” said her grandmother. “And I feel very ashamed about the way I’ve treated you. At first, I must admit I resented you. Every time I looked at you, it reminded me that it was because of you that your mother had gone away and I hadn’t seen her for eleven years. Later, I was afraid to get close to you. I thought that if I loved you and you were taken away from me, it would be like losing Veronica all over again.”

  “You’re not the only one who lost my mum,” Martine said pointedly.

  “I realize that now. But by the time I came to my senses, I had already driven you away.”

  “I haven’t been driven away,” Martine assured her. “Maybe we could start again.”

  Her grandmother touched her hand. “You’re very wise. No wonder the forefathers chose you.”

  At those words, Martine suddenly recalled the ghastly events of the night.

  “But what about Jemmy?” she fretted. “What did you mean about protecting Jemmy?”

  Her grandmother looked confused.

  “Jeremiah. The giraffe!”

  “Of course! Well, a few days after the poachers attacked your grandfather, the local Zulu chief came to see me. He told me that in the hours before the hunters arrived at Sawubona our female giraffe had given birth to a snow-white calf. She and her mate later died trying to protect him, but somehow—it might even have been because Henry arrived to distract the men—the baby giraffe managed to get away in the struggle. According to the chief, it was rescued by an elephant whose own calf had been stillborn and she had taken it to a secret place. The chief said that the giraffe had special powers and that it was the rarest animal on earth. On no account should anyone ever find out about it. He said that if anyone ever asked me about it, I had to deny it existed. I couldn’t even tell Tendai or your mother. And when you came I tried everything in my power to keep the two of you apart so that the prophecy would not be fulfilled.”

  “Grandmother, Jemmy is my best friend,” Martine confessed.

  “I won’t ask how the two of you became so close,” her grandmother remarked dryly. “I suppose that explains why your clothes are always covered in mud and strange grasses these days, and why you’re always yawning on the way in to school.”

  “I’m sorry,” Martine said. “I didn’t think you’d understand. And now it’s because of me that Jemmy has been stolen. Somehow I have to try to find him. Grandmother, do you think you might be able to help me?”

  “No,” said Gwyn Thomas. “But I know someone who can.”

  21

  The pale green house looked exactly the way Martine remembered it. The rusting Coca-Cola sign was propped against one wall, the lawn was even more threadbare, and the chickens were still scratching hopefully on the porch in the sunshine. It was mid-April and Martine found it hard to believe that barely three months had passed since she had climbed off the plane at Cape Town airport. It felt like forever. She remembered Grace’s words on the first day: “The gift can be a blessing or a curse. Mak
e your decisions wisely.” The sick feeling returned to Martine’s stomach. Her decisions might have cost Jemmy his life.

  A small boy materialized at the front door. “I’d like a word with that crazy old woman,” said Gwyn Thomas. “Is she home?”

  “Who you be callin’ crazy?” purred Grace, looming up behind the boy. “There’s only one crazy old woman round these parts and that’d be Gwyn Thomas.” She reached out a massive hand and stroked Martine’s hair, giving no indication that she’d seen her only recently. “Chile looks like she could use summa Grace’s good food. What you been feeding her?”

  “We haven’t come here to be insulted,” Martine’s grandmother said primly. “We need your help.”

  “Uh-huh,” said Grace, putting her hands on her hips. “I be listenin’.”

  “Grace, I know we’ve had our differences,” Gwyn Thomas said. “I don’t blame you if you never want to speak to me again. But if you ever cared for me at all, you’ll help Martine. She’s lost something she loves and you may be the only person in the world who can help her to get it back.”

  Grace smiled, revealing a lot of pink gum and very few teeth. “Old woman,” she said, “why didn’t you just say so?”

  Without ceremony, she turned and walked back into the house. Martine and her grandmother followed the swish of Grace’s dress, a riotous blend of indigo, sunshine yellow, and burnt honey, patterned with African prints. She led them to the living room, which smelled familiarly of chopped wood, mealie-meal, and a million cooking fires. The out-of-date island calendar was still on the wall and the same grass mat was on the floor. A vase full of peacock feathers had been added to a teak table.

  Grace went into the kitchen and reappeared with two steaming plates of mealie-meal porridge drenched with buttermilk, cinnamon, and cane sugar. Martine was queasy and not at all keen on eating, but Grace stifled her protests with a flat, “You’re arl bones.”