The Elephant's Tale (23 page)

Gwyn Thomas had been getting nowhere fast in England until she learned that the solicitor who’d drawn up the will produced by Reuben James had been sacked from Cutter & Buck, and was facing fraud charges.

“He was on bail, pending trial, and was quite aggressive with me,” she explained, “but I soon had him remembering his manners.”

Martine smiled to herself at the thought of this hardened fraudster being reduced to quivering jelly by her grandmother.

“After a series of quite extraordinarily creative lies and excuses, he admitted that Henry had been to see him at Cutter and Buck the summer before he died and had paid back all the money he owed Reuben James. That very morning, however, this solicitor had overheard Mr. James saying that he would do anything to get his hands on Sawubona. He saw an opportunity to make a fast buck. Unknown to my dear husband, he placed a new copy of the will beneath the paper that acknowledged receipt of the money. Henry signed it without knowing that he was in fact signing away the game reserve.”

“What a devious, treacherous man this solicitor is,” said Tendai, appalled.

“That was my opinion. His plan was to extract money from Reuben James for helping him to get Sawubona. He claims that Reuben wanted nothing to do with it at first and even threatened to get him sacked, but that as his debts mounted and he became obsessed with some animal project he had planned for the game res erve, his business partner pressured him to go along with it.”

She smiled. “The good news I have to share with you is that Reuben James, in an apparent attack of remorse, contacted my solicitor yesterday and said he is withdrawing any claim to the game reserve. Our home is safe and so are our animals and the jobs of our staff.”

They all cheered and clinked mugs. It was the best Christmas present any of them could wish for.

“What about the key?” asked Martine. “Did you ever find out what it was for?”

“Quite by chance I did,” said Gwyn Thomas. “I went to visit your old Hampshire neighbors, the Morrisons, and Mrs. Morrison reminded me that she’d written to me not long after the fire to say that Veronica had given her a suitcase for safekeeping and did I want her to send it. I had so many other things to think about at the time that it went clean out of my mind.”

“What was in the suitcase?” Ben said curiously.

“Documents mainly. Research on global warming, elephants, and something called the Ark Project. I always believed that Veronica wrote about nothing but sponge cakes and sofa upholstery, but it turns out that Henry had told her the story about our elephant Angel, who came to us from some dreadful Namibian zoo, and she was looking into it before she died. I passed all her files over to a detective at Scotland Yard.”

She paused to spread gooseberry jam on her toast. “I didn’t think anything would come of it, but right before I boarded the plane for Cape Town, he called my cell phone. He said something about Mr. James being arrested in Namibia for abducting elephants and trying to start a water war. It was most peculiar. I think I must have misheard. I’m sure everything will be revealed in the coming weeks.”

She heaved a contented sigh. “It makes you realize how fortunate we are to be free of people like that now.”

It was after eleven when Ben and Martine stole downstairs and out into the darkness. Martine blew her silent whistle and the white giraffe came trotting over to the game park gate. She hadn’t wanted to upset her grandmother on her first day back by asking if she could go for a Christmas Eve night ride on Jemmy, but she’d thought of the perfect compromise: Jemmy could come into the garden.

It wouldn’t please Sampson, who tended the lawn and flowers, but it would keep her and Ben out of the jaws of any passing lions or snakes. After the week they’d just had, that had to be a positive thing.

Jemmy had no complaints about being led into Gwyn Thomas’s neatly tended yard, especially since Martine and Ben lay down on the grass beneath the delicious honeysuckle tree. He wrapped his long tongue around the bell-like flowers and savored their nectar and the company of his human friends.

Martine felt the same joy at being close to her beloved white giraffe, who’d now be hers for years to come and not at the mercy of people who wanted to experiment on him or sell him to the highest bidder. And she was glad, as always, to be with her best friend. A lot of the healing and happiness she’d experienced this year was directly due to Ben’s kindness, loyalty, and unwavering courage. It was comforting to know their destiny was interwoven.

“What are you thinking?” asked Ben, propping himself up on one elbow. His tousled black hair fell across his face. A year ago, when Martine met him, he’d been the runt of Caracal School, as thin and small as she was, but since then he’d shot up and his muscles had filled out. He was, thought Martine, quite handsome.

“I’m thinking about how far we’ve come. On New Year’s Eve I’ll be twelve years old, and soon after that we’ll be starting high school.”

“High school! That’s a scary thought,” said Ben. “But it’s exciting too. It’ll be a new chapter with new adventures. Martine, do you really believe our destiny is going to be the one you saw in the cave pictures? That we’ll be going around the world saving whales and polar bears and other endangered animals? That’s quite a responsibility.”

“It is,” agreed Martine, “but we can do anything if we face it together.”

Ben smiled at her. “I wouldn’t want it any other way.”

They lay there in silence for a while, listening to the sounds of Sawubona’s night creatures and breathing in the sweet fragrance of the frangipani and mango trees. Above them, the white giraffe was outlined like a silver statue against the night sky, his head quite literally in the stars.

Ben checked his watch. “Hey, Martine, it’s one minute past midnight. It’s Christmas morning! We made it. Against all the odds, we made it.”

Martine laughed. She jumped up and gave the white giraffe a Christmas kiss and he lowered his head to nuzzle her back. “Yes, we did, but Jemmy, we couldn’t have done it without you.” ❧

One of my clearest childhood memories is going to a farm close to ours in Africa to see fifty baby elephants. They’d been orphaned in a cull and were on their way to zoos across the world. I’m not a fan of zoos and wasn’t then, and I’m dead set against culling—the practice of killing elephants “for their own good” if there are too many in a particular area. But, though I feared for the future of the babies, I was entranced by them. I sat on the corral fence and watched them tussle and play and rush around their enclosure on ungainly legs, little trunks swinging, and thought they were beyond adorable.

Over the years I’ve been fortunate enough to have many opportunities to be around elephants. I’ve rubbed their rough, prickly hides, cooed over their long eyelashes, watched them wallow joyously in muddy water holes, ridden them, and been charged by them in safari vehicles. But like Martine in
The Elephant’s Tale,
I’d never really given much thought to the intelligence and astonishing natural gifts of elephants until I discovered how their acute hearing means they are able to pick up communications from other elephants from as far as six miles away. Or that their family bonds are so strong that youngsters orphaned by culls wake up screaming with nightmares. Then I remembered the babies I’d seen on that farm and felt devastated.

On a more positive note, while I was writing
The Elephant’s Tale
I was able to spend months researching elephant behavior. What I learned convinced me that we have to do everything in our power to save these magnificent creatures, with their intricate and loving communities. We can’t do that unless, like Martine, we learn to understand them.

Another part of my research was traveling to Namibia, the setting for this story
.
It is one of the most breathtakingly beautiful countries in Africa, but its existence depends on a limited source of rainfall, which is increasingly being affected by global warming. Other desert regions, such as the Australian Outback, are in the same position. My own father, a farmer in the Southern African country of Zimbabwe, often tells me of the catastrophic changes in climate that he has witnessed in his lifetime. We’re now using the resources of 1.4 earths. When those resources are gone, there’ll be none left.

The best part about writing the
Legend of the Animal Healer
series has been living with characters whose mission is not only to heal and save animals but to make their lives better. There are nearly 6.8 billion people on earth. Imagine if every one of us did one small thing to help wildlife or the environment, the earth would soon begin to recover and we’d all benefit by having a more beautiful planet to enjoy.

The wonderful thing about the world now is that it has become a much smaller place. We’re all connected. Don’t ever feel that you’re too far away to make a difference. The smallest action, whether it’s stopping to be kind to a dog or cat on your way to school, or not dropping litter, or perhaps doing a school project on the endangered species of Africa, makes a difference, although you might not realize it at the time.

In the meantime, follow your dreams, follow your heart, and consider conservation.

 

I’ve loved writing this series, but it would not have been possible without the faith and wisdom of my Orion editor, Fiona Kennedy; my agent, Catherine Clarke; and my Dial editor, Liz Waniewski. One of the best things about writing the books has been having Jon Foster, Antonio Javier Caparo, and David Dean bring them to life with their stunning illustrations. I’m immensely grateful to everyone else at Orion and Penguin for their support, hard work, and passionate commitment to children’s publishing, especially Alexandra Nicholas, Helen Speedy, Sally Wray, Kate Christer, Jessica, Killingley, Pandora White, Victoria Nicholl, and Lisa Milton.

A special thank you to Ruth Wilson for doing me the huge honor of reading the audio books of
The White Giraffe
and
Dolphin Song
. Andjoa Andoh also did a fantastic job on the unabridged audio books. Last but definitely not least, thanks to Kellie Santin, for the faith and support, to my mum for her elephant research, to my dad for the Matopos road trip, and my sister, Lisa, for the Namibian adventure. Can’t wait for the next one!