The Elephant's Tale Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Author’s Note

  Acknowledgments

  DIAL BOOKS FOR YOUNG READERS

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

  Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, NY 10014, U.S.A.

  Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4P 2Y3 (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.) • Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England • Penguin Ireland, 25 St. Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd) • Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty Ltd) • Penguin Books India Pvt Ltd, 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi - 110 017, India • Penguin Group (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive, Rosedale, North Shore 0632, New Zealand (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd) • Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd, 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa • Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  This book is published in partnership with Walden Media, LLC. Walden Media and the Walden Media skipping stone logo are trademarks and registered trademarks of Walden Media, LLC, 17 New England Executive Park, Building 17, Suite 305, Burlington MA 01803

  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

  http://us.penguingroup.com

  For my niece, Alexandra Summer,

  who, being my sister’s daughter, is guaranteed to

  grow up wanting to save elephants!

  1

  The 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.”

 
2

  After 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.”

  Jemmy gave her an affectionate shove with his nose. Martine was tempted to go for a quick ride on him, but she resisted because Ben would soon be back from Cape Town and she wanted to hear about his morning. She also wanted to help him get settled into the guest room, where he’d be staying during the Christmas break while his Indian mum and African dad were away on their cruise. They’d wanted him to go with them, but Ben was studying under Tendai to be an apprentice tracker and had asked if he could stay behind to brush up on his bushcraft skills.

  He and Martine were determined to have a peaceful, fun vacation at Sawubona after spending their last one trying to save a leopard from some evil hunters and a desperate gang of treasure seekers in the wilds of Zimbabwe.

  Martine was locking the game park gate when the long black car suddenly vroomed into life. It reversed down the driveway at speed, almost knocking over a flowerpot. To Martine’s surprise, her grandmother, who considered politeness to be the number one virtue and insisted in accompanying visitors out to their cars and waving until they’d gone, was nowhere to be seen. An uneasy feeling stirred in her.

  She was hurrying through the mango trees toward the house when Tendai’s jeep came flying into the yard. Ben was in the passenger seat. He grinned when he saw Martine, his teeth very white against the burnt-honey color of his face.

  “I hitched a ride from the main road with Tendai,” he explained when the jeep bounced to a halt. He hoisted his backpack over one shoulder and jumped down from the battered vehicle. He was wearing a khaki vest, baggy camouflage trousers, and hiking boots. “The people who gave me a lift seemed reluctant to come all the way to the house in case they were eaten by a lion.”

  Normally Martine would have cracked a joke, but she was still taking in that the house was oddly silent. At eight o’clock Gwyn Thomas was usually drinking tea and eating gooseberry jam toast at the kitchen table while listening to the news and weather on the radio. She’d also been planning to bake some scones to welcome Ben.

  “Where is your grandmother, little one?” the game warden asked. “I’ve been calling her on both the landline and her cell phone to check with her about a delivery. There’s no answer.”

  Martine stared at him. “Tendai, something’s wrong. This creepy man came to see her and now something’s wrong, I just know it is.”

  “What creepy man?” asked Ben, dropping his backpack on the lawn.

  Tendai frowned. “Are you talking of the man in the black car? He almost ran us off the road.”

  He started toward the house, with Martine and Ben following. Martine was kicking herself for not insisting that she go with the man to the house. If anything had happened to her grandmother . . .

  Warrior, Gwyn Thomas’s black and white cat, was sitting on the front step in the sunshine, his tail swishing furiously. His fur was standing on end. Tendai stepped around him and into the living room. “Mrs. Thomas?” he called. “Mrs. Thomas, are you all right?”

  “Grandmother!” yelled Martine.

  “No need to shout.” Gwyn Thomas’s subdued voice echoed faintly along the passage. “I’m in my study.”

  Martine flew along the corridor and knocked at the study door out of habit. Her grandmother was sitting hunched at her desk, her face the same color as the sheaf of papers she was holding. When she looked up, Martine was shocked to see that her blue eyes were rimmed with red, as if she’d been crying.

  “Come in, Martine, Tendai,” she said. “You too, Ben. You’re part of the family.”

  “That weird, creepy man has done something to upset you, hasn’t he? I knew he was bad news as soon as I saw him.”

  “Martine, how many times have I got to tell you not to judge people on the basis of your gut feelings?” Gwyn Thomas scolded. Her hands tightened on the documents. “However, in this case I fear you may be right.”

  She paused and gazed lingeringly out of the window, as if trying to imprint the view of springbok and zebra grazing around the water hole on her mind. “I wish I didn’t have to say what I’m about to say to you all.”

  “Whatever it is, I’m sure it will be okay, Mrs. Thomas,” Tendai reassured her.

  Martine wasn’t in the least bit sure things were going to be okay. “Grandmother, you’re frightening us. What happened? Who was he?”

  “His name is Reuben James,” Gwyn Thomas answered at last, turning to face them. “He was a business associate of my late husband. I have a vague recollection of meeting him once and finding him a bit too flashy for my liking, although from what I remember the deal he and Henry did together went quite smoothly. Mr. James spends most of his time in Namibia and overseas and claims to have discovered only recently that Henry was killed by poachers two and a half years ago. He has just arrived with this.”

  She held up one of the documents. Across the mi
ddle of it was written: Last Will and Testament of Henry Paul Thomas. In the top right-hand corner was a wax stamp, wobbly at the corners, like a splash of blood. Peering closer, Martine made out the logo of Cutter and Bow Solicitors, Hampshire, England.

  Tendai was confused. “But what is he doing with such a private document?”

  “Good question. And the first one I asked him. It turns out that, three years ago, when Sawubona was in financial difficulty, Henry borrowed a large amount of money from Mr. James. He apparently agreed to change his will to say that if the money was not paid back by December twelfth of this year—today, in other words—the game reserve and everything on it would automatically belong to Reuben James.”

  “My God,” said Tendai. He sank into the spare chair.

  Martine stood frozen, the words searing a path from her brain to her heart. The game reserve and everything on it . . . The game reserve and everything on it.

  Ben said, “Does that mean that the original will, making you the owner of Sawubona if Mr. Thomas passed away, is now worthless?”

  Gwyn Thomas nodded. “Yes, because that will was written a decade or more before the one produced by Mr. James. But that’s not the worst part . . .”

  Martine gasped. “There’s worse?”

  “I’m afraid so. We’ve been served with an eviction order. We have thirteen days to leave Sawubona, give notice to all the staff, and say good-bye to all the animals. In thirteen days Sawubona will no longer be ours.”

  3

  Whenever Martine thought about the fire that killed her parents—which wasn’t very often because it was a no-go place in her head—one moment stood out for her. It wasn’t the moment when she’d woken in a fogged-up terror on the night of her eleventh birthday to realize her home was ablaze and her mum and dad were on the other side of a burning door. It wasn’t even when her room had turned into a furnace and her pajamas began melting off her back, and she’d had to improvise a rope from her bedsheets and shimmy down two stories before crashing into the snow far below.