The Elephant's Tale

Table of Contents

 

 

 

DIAL BOOKS FOR YOUNG READERS

A division of Penguin Young Readers Group Published by The Penguin Group

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First published in the United States 2010 by Dial Books for Young Readers

Published in Great Britain 2009 by Orion Children’s Books

Copyright © 2009 by Lauren St. John

 

All rights reserved

The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

 

S.A.

 

 

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data St. John, Lauren, date.

The elephant’s tale / Lauren St. John.

p. cm.—(Legend of the Animal Healer)

Summary: A fourth prophecy, this time involving elephants, comes true for eleven-year-old Martine, an orphaned South African girl with mystical healing powers over animals, when she and her grandmother are faced with losing the Sawubona Game Reserve forever.

eISBN : 978-1-101-42748-4

[1. Elephants—Fiction. 2. Wildlife conservation—Fiction.
3. Human-animal relationships—Fiction. 4. Prophecies—Fiction.
5. Orphans—Fiction. 6. Namibia—Fiction. 7. South Africa—Fiction.] I. Title.
PZ7.S77435El 2010 [Fic]—dc22 2009009285

T
he first time Martine saw the car, she was high up on the escarpment at Sawubona Wildlife Reserve tucking into a campfire breakfast. She didn’t take much notice of it then because Tendai, the Zulu game warden, distracted her by saying something to make her laugh, and because she was too busy savoring the smoky-sweet taste of her bacon and fried banana roll, and also because the car—a black limousine with blacked-out windows—turned around before it reached the distant house and went away, so she just thought it was someone lost.

It wasn’t until the following day, when the black car came again while she was tending to the sanctuary animals, that she remembered the strange, slow circuit it had made, as if it were in a funeral procession. This time she had no choice but to pay attention to it, because it glided up to the runs housing Sawubona’s injured and orphaned animals as if it had a right to be there. The rear door opened and a tall bald man wearing an expensive navy suit and a watch that could have been hand-crafted from a gold ingot stepped out. He looked around as if he owned the place.

“Can I help you?” she asked, trying not to show how annoyed she was that he and his big car had frightened the sick animals. She was prepared to bet that he wouldn’t dream of driving into a human hospital and disturbing the patients, but a lot of people didn’t feel that animals deserved the same consideration.

“Oh, I think I’ve seen all I need to see,” he said. But he continued to stand there, a pleased smile playing around his lips. He reached into his pocket for a lighter and a fat cigar, and began puffing away as if he had all the time in the world.

“We’re not open for safaris on Sunday,” Martine told him. “You’ll have to make an appointment and come back during the week.”

“I’m not here for a safari,” said the man. “I’m here to see Gwyn Thomas. And who might you be?”

Martine smothered a sigh. She had three very hungry caracals to feed and an antelope wound to dress, and she wasn’t in the mood for small talk. Added to which, her grandmother had given her all the usual speeches about not speaking to strangers, although she hadn’t said anything about what to do if a stranger who’d come to Sawubona on official business started plying her with questions. “I’m Martine Allen,” she said reluctantly. “If you want to see my grandmother, she’s at the house.”

“Allen?” he repeated. “How long have you lived here, young Martine? You don’t sound South African. Where are you from?”

Martine was getting desperate. She wished Tendai or Ben, her best friend in the world apart from Jemmy, her white giraffe, would show up and rescue her, but Tendai had gone into Storm Crossing to buy supplies for the reserve, and Ben was at the Waterfront in Cape Town seeing off his mum and dad. They were leaving on a Mediterranean cruise. She wanted to tell the bald man that her name and where she came from were none of his business, but she was afraid to be rude to him in case he was an important customer.

“A year,” she replied. “I’ve been at Sawubona for nearly a year.” She could have added,
Ever since my mum and dad died in a fire at our home in Hampshire, England, last New Year’s Eve,
but she didn’t because she was not in the habit of sharing her private information with nosy strangers. Instead she asked, “Is my grandmother expecting you? I can show you to the house.”

“A year is a good long time,” remarked the man. “Long enough to become attached to the place.”

Then he said something that sent chills through Martine. He said: “Shame.”

Just like that. Just one word: “Shame.”

He said it in a way that made Martine want to rush home and take a shower, she was so creeped out, even though he had in fact been perfectly polite and kept his distance throughout. His only crime had been polluting Sawubona’s wildlife hospital with his cigar.

Before Martine could come up with a response, he continued briskly: “Right, then, I think it’s time I had a word with your grandmother. Don’t trouble yourself, I know the way.”

He climbed back into his shiny black car and was chauffeured away, leaving the sickly smell of cigar smoke and that one weighted word hanging in the air.

“Shame.”

A
fter he’d gone, Martine considered taking the shortcut to the house to warn her grandmother that a sinister man was on his way, but she hadn’t thought to ask his name and Gwyn Thomas sometimes got impatient with what she called Martine’s “gut” feelings. And anyway what reason would she give for her suspicions? He was a well-dressed man in a fancy car, and he hadn’t done anything worse than ask who she was and remark that she didn’t seem to be from around here. Martine decided to give him the benefit of the doubt. It wouldn’t be the first time her instincts had been wrong.

The caracals were practically chewing the wire of their run, they were so hungry, and they crouched down, ready to pounce on their food, as Martine went into their enclosure. They had arrived at Sawubona as spitting kittens with long, fur-tipped ears, so weak and small that they’d slept on Martine’s bed for the first few weeks of their existence. Now they were as muscular as young mountain lions. When she tossed their meat into the air, they leaped as if they were jet-propelled, springing eight or ten feet to claw at it and then swallowing it whole with fearsome growls. Soon they would be ready to return to the wild. Martine knew she’d miss them terribly.

She tended to the rest of the animals with Ferris, the baby monkey, clinging to her shoulder. They all had to be fed and watered, and the dik dik, a dainty, miniature antelope with short pointy horns, needed his wound dressed. He stared up at Martine with big trusting eyes as she applied a special potion given to her by Grace, Tendai’s aunt. Grace was a
sangoma,
a traditional healer of part Zulu, part Caribbean extraction. She was also the only person who knew the truth about Martine’s secret gift—a gift to do with healing animals not even Martine fully understood. For that reason and many others, they had a special relationship. Now that it was school vacation, Martine was looking forward to seeing more of her.

Martine returned a protesting Ferris to his cage and headed off down the track to say good morning to Jemmy, her white giraffe. The game reserve gate was close to the house. As she let herself into the garden through a side entrance, she saw the black car still sitting in the driveway like a hearse. The chauffeur was leaning against the hood, smoking. He lifted a hand when he saw Martine crossing the yard. She waved back without enthusiasm.

Jemmy was waiting for her at the gate, just as he did every morning. He stood outlined against a kingfisher-blue sky, his white, silver, and cinnamon-etched coat shimmering in the sunshine. Martine’s spirits always soared when she saw him. It was ten months since she’d tamed him and learned to ride him, but neither had lost their thrill for her. He greeted her with a low, musical fluttering sound and lowered his head. When she scratched him behind his ears and planted a kiss on his silky silver nose, his long curling eyelashes drooped in blissful contentment.

“Three more weeks of vacation, Jemmy,” she said. “Can you believe that? Three brilliant weeks of no homework, no math, no history, no Mrs. Volkner ranting at me for staring out of the window, no detention; no school, period. And the best part about it is that Ben’s coming to stay. It’s going to be heaven on a stick. We’re going to explore every inch of Sawubona in blazing sunshine and paddle in the lake and maybe even go camping.”