Echoes of the White Giraffe (14 page)

As the engine started to rumble, tears filled my eyes. The plane taxied away and I watched all of them wave their handkerchiefs until they looked like dancing snowflakes. I was suddenly filled with fear and remorse. Would I ever see them again? I was going so far away, to a place none of them had ever been before. I cried in silence for a while, with my nose pressed against the small pane of glass. I was lonely and afraid. Would anyone love me in the States? Would I have any friends there? I was going all alone to a vast country where I would be surrounded by total strangers. What had I done? Why had I never thought of it this way before?

Below, I saw the tip of a brown mountain peeking through the cloud cover. I thought I saw the shouting poet standing there with his hands cupped around his mouth. “Good morning, little girl. Good morning!” his strong energetic voice rang out.

Fluffy, steel-gray clouds passed before me. I looked out at the sky, and I thought of the rainbow I had seen in the garden of the seminary. I imagined sitting by the gurgling fountain with that rainbow dancing before me. I imagined Junho's tranquil and gentle smile. The bright sun appeared through the traveling clouds and sparkled against my window. I leaned back and closed my eyes.

Born in Pyongyang, North Korea, Sook Nyul Choi spent two and a half years as a refugee in Pusan during the Korean War. She later immigrated to the United States to pursue her college education at Manhattanville College. She taught school in New York City for twenty years while she and her husband raised two daughters. She now resides in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and is a full-time writer.

Echoes of the White Giraffe
is a sequel to Sook Nyul Choi's first novel,
Year of Impossible Goodbyes,
which won the Judy Lopez Children's Book Award. She is currently at work on her first children's picture book.