The Elephant's Tale (22 page)

The
sangoma
gave her a squeeze. “Why don’t ya go there and find out.”

“Really? Can I go tonight? Grace, do you think it would it be okay if I showed Ben the Secret Valley? We’ve shared so much together.”

“Of course. Like I tol’ you: He’s part of your story.”

T
he thing Ben couldn’t get over was how smooth and rhythmic Jemmy’s stride was. “It’s like riding a flying carpet!” he told Martine as they galloped across the moonlit savannah, past a pride of watchful lions and a herd of skittish springbok.

Martine was in her element because she’d never had the chance to share the experience of racing the white giraffe with anyone (she and Grace had proceeded across the game reserve at a sloth-like pace), and never thought she would. Her grandmother wouldn’t have approved, but the way Martine saw it, riding Jemmy across Sawubona by the light of a full moon, with Ben accompanying her for added protection, was a lot safer than stowing away on planes, or being stranded in foreign deserts with megalomaniacs and marauding elephants.

When they reached the barren clearing and the twisted tree that guarded the Secret Valley, Ben was incredulous. “I’ve passed this place a hundred times with Tendai, and would never have guessed there was anything here. It’s always seemed so desolate.”

“Shut your eyes and hold on tight,” ordered Martine. She gripped hard with her calves and grabbed a fistful of silver mane. Jemmy’s quarters bunched and then they were crashing through the thorny creeper and the invisible space between the shelves of rock behind.

“It would be great if my mum and dad don’t return from their cruise to find me in full traction in a hospital bed,” Ben said, clinging white-knuckled to Martine as the white giraffe came to a snorting, shuddering halt. “Am I allowed to open my eyes yet? What is this place anyway? It has a wonderful perfume.”

“That’s from the orchids. Ben, do you trust me?”

“I’d trust you with my life.”

“Then keep your eyes closed a while longer. Down, Jemmy, there’s a good boy.”

The white giraffe’s knees buckled and he sank to the ground. Martine helped Ben to dismount. She took his hand and led him along the twisting tunnel, keeping hopeful watch for Khan, up the mossy steps, through the bat antechamber, and into the Memory Room.

“All right,” she said. “You can look now.”

Ben opened his eyes and stared, dazzled by the paintings. Their ancient hues were so fiery and vivid they seemed to dance across the rock walls.

Martine giggled at her friend’s incredulous expression.

“Martine, this is the most magical place I’ve ever been to. It’s like your own private art gallery.”

Martine sat down on the cool stone bench. “That’s how I always feel. It’s my favorite place on earth and I can’t believe we’re here. There were so many times in the desert when I didn’t think we’d make it.”

Ben sat down beside her. “Same here. But this place makes everything worth it. Hey, what’s that? It looks a bit like an elephant footprint.”

Martine stared. He was pointing at the patch that she had asked Grace about, the splotch she’d considered a mistake. Looking at it from a distance, she saw that it was indeed an elephant footprint. She noticed something else too. It occupied a single, hexagonal cell in a faintly drawn honeycomb structure. All of the other cells were empty, apart from one, which contained a series of miniature symbols. Martine couldn’t begin to think how to interpret them.

Out in the antechamber, the bats started squeaking wildly. Through the cave entrance, they could see a black whirlwind of them. Ben leaped to his feet. “Could someone be coming?”

“Only Khan,” said Martine, but when the leopard didn’t appear, unease began to gnaw at her. “Nobody else knows about this place except Grace and me.”

Ben settled down again, but she could tell that he was jumpy. To get his attention she said, “I’ve got an idea.”

Ben groaned. “Whenever you have an idea, it seems to involve illegal activities and saber-toothed wild animals.”

“No, this is easy. All we have to do is lie on our backs in different parts of the cave and look at the ceiling.”

“What’s the catch?”

Martine gave him a playful shove. “There is none, silly. It’s an experiment, that’s all.”

They lay on their backs on the cold stone, gazing up at the roof of the cave.

“Well, this is fun,” said Ben. “Can we do it again sometime?”

Martine couldn’t help giggling. “Tell me what you see.”

“I see a lot of rock.” He wriggled to another section of the cave. “Oh, and there’s more rock. Hold on, I think I can see . . . yes, it’s definitely rock!”

He was moving once again when Martine let out a yelp of excitement. “Ben, come over here. The roof of the cave. Can you see? It’s shaped like a hexagon.”

Two minutes later, they were in the labyrinth of tunnels Grace had led Martine through on the night they’d found the elephant tusks. As they walked, Ben left a trail of crumbs from the rusks they’d brought to snack on, so they could find their way out again. “Like Hansel and Gretel in the fairy tale,” he said with a laugh.

They soon found that Martine’s theory was correct. Through some quirk of geology, every cave was hexagon-shaped. Some were more lopsided than others, but basically the Secret Valley was a giant honeycomb. If the Memory Room was, as Martine suspected, the cave indicated by the elephant’s footprint, then the cave with the symbols would be the one farthest from the valley entrance.

Deeper and deeper they went under the mountain, their flashlight beams piercing the darkness. The structure of the walls around them deteriorated as they went. Soon the slightest brush of the wall produced a trickle of granite powder, and the evidence of rock falls became more frequent. Each new cave was dustier and more cobweb-strewn than the last.

Once, Martine thought she heard footsteps. The hairs stood up on the back of her neck. “Do you think there are ghosts in here?”

“Probably,” Ben said, “but it’s more likely we’re hearing bats or
dassies.
I reckon we should turn back. If the tunnel collapses, we’ll be buried alive.”

“Please, Ben, we only have one cave to go.”

Knowing how much it meant to her, he relented. “One more cave and then we’re going back even if I have to carry you.”

The air was stale and musty and laden with dust. It was like breathing in old cobwebs. The roof of the tunnel was not much higher than their heads. Part of Martine wanted to run away screaming, but something stronger than herself seemed to be pulling her forward, almost dragging her.

At last the cave was before them. It was the smallest so far and the most damaged. Pyramids of broken rock were heaped about the floor. Spiders scuttled from webs as thick as net curtains.

“There’s nothing here,” Martine said in disappointment. “If there were symbols or paintings here once, they’ve long since faded. Let’s go.”

“Hold on a second.” Ben shone the flashlight at the cave roof. “Do you notice something? It’s not hexagonal.”

Martine was more concerned with the trickle of dirt falling from a hole above her. Was it her imagination or was it getting faster? “Ben, I think we should get out of here. The roof looks as if it’s about to come down on our heads.”

“All right, but give me one second. I want to look at something.” He moved toward the far wall. There was a blood-curdling roar and Khan sprang from the shadows. His massive paws thudded into Ben’s chest, throwing the boy to the ground.

“Khan!” screamed Martine. “No!”

There was a crack like a rifle shot and a slab of rock fell from the ceiling, landing where Ben had been standing a moment before. Rocks rained down as the roof of the cave began to crumble.

Martine ran to Ben’s side and they crouched on the floor with Khan, covering their heads with their arms as shale showered down on them. There was nowhere to run. One side of the cave was breaking away. It seemed certain that they’d be entombed with the spiders and bats. All Martine could think about was Jemmy and how much she wished she’d had a chance to say good-bye to him.

Gradually, the rockslide slowed. The dust it left behind clogged their lungs and coated their mouths. Coughing, Martine picked up the flashlight and climbed shakily to her feet. Dirt cascaded from her clothes and hair. She rubbed her eyes, trying to clear the grit from them.

Behind the fallen wall was another cave. Khan walked forward and Martine followed. Ben hung back, watching as Martine and the leopard stopped and gazed about them. He could see that the walls of the cave were covered in faded paintings, strewn with spiderwebs, but something told him that Martine could see far more. He turned away, not wanting to intrude.

Only time and experience will give you the eyes to understand them,
Grace had always told Martine about the cave paintings. And now, finally, she did. Her life’s journey unfolded before her, just as Grace had always predicted it would.

She squatted down with her arm around the leopard, and saw her destiny unfold in the faded sketches as clearly as if she was watching a movie. Every image involved animals—jungle gorillas fleeing poachers, tigers caught in snares, polar bears on melting ice caps, or whales escaping the ships of hunters. And in every scene a boy and girl were helping them.

There was a low rumble. Khan snarled. He nipped at Martine’s ankle. A thunderous roar blasted her eardrums and then the rest of the roof gave way.

“Run!” yelled Ben. He grabbed Martine’s hand and the two of them flew into the tunnel. The leopard raced past them. Martine and Ben tore after him, trusting he knew the way. The crumbs were no use to them now.

The noise was deafening. The tunnel collapsed behind them as they ran, throwing forward stinging shards of rock and a steam-train plume of dust. Martine was starting to despair of ever getting out alive, when the starry sky that lit the mountainside exit came into view. Coughing and choking, she stumbled into the open air. She sank to the ground and gulped in oxygen. The leopard came over to her and licked her face with a tongue like sandpaper.

“Thanks, Khan,” Martine said, half laughing, half sobbing. “You saved our lives.”

Ben put a cautious hand out to stroke the leopard. “He saved mine twice.”

Dawn was breaking when they reached the bottom of the mountain, where Jemmy was waiting, pacing up and down in a state of agitation. He’d heard the terrifying roar of the collapsing catacomb and had been almost out of his mind with fear because he couldn’t get to Martine. They were amused to see that a friend had come to comfort him.

“Looks like you have a ride home, Ben,” Martine said, her tongue firmly in her cheek.

“Oh, no,” protested Ben. “You’re not getting me up there. The last time I saw that elephant, she was hurtling after Lurk and trying to trample him to death.”

“That was out of character,” said Martine with a grin. “You’ll be fine. Angel by name, Angel by nature.”

G
wyn Thomas arrived home on the morning of Christmas Eve. By then, Ben and Martine were showered, scrubbed, and in their best jeans and shirts, which wasn’t saying much, but it impressed the returning traveler. She was so thrilled to see them that she forgot, for once, to be reserved. She threw her arms around them and was quite overcome.

“I’m so thankful to be back at Sawubona, a herd of stampeding elephants couldn’t drag me away,” she said. Martine had to restrain herself from adding: “You’d be surprised what a herd of stampeding elephants can do.”

They led her into the kitchen, where the table was spread with one of Grace’s finest brunches—a meal of sliced paw paw and mango, jungle oats, farm eggs, wild mushrooms, roasted tomatoes, and great slabs of homemade seed bread. Martine marveled that Grace had managed to find the time get to the local farm store with everything else that had been going on.

“What a welcome,” said Gwyn Thomas, visibly moved. “And what a picture of domestic bliss. When I couldn’t get through on the phone, I was imagining all kinds of mayhem going on at Sawubona. I was worried sick that the two of you”—she nodded toward Ben and Martine—“were getting into all sorts of trouble in an attempt to save our home and animals. Obviously my sleepless nights were for nothing. You’ve looked after the game reserve and each other beautifully.”

Martine realized she was holding her breath. “The deadline for us to move out of Sawubona is midnight tonight, but you told Grace when you called that you had some good news. Please tell me that I’m not going to be taken away from Jemmy. Please tell me that everything is going to be okay.”

Her grandmother smiled. “Everything
is
going to be okay, but it’s taken some doing. You wouldn’t believe what I’ve been through. At times I’ve felt like a character in a thriller.”

Grace handed her a glass of fresh orange juice and took her place at the table. She winked at Ben and Martine. “Why don’t ya tell us all about it, honey?” she said.