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hatred in Angel’s eyes as she mashed Lurk’s jacket into the ground.
    Out in the yard, the game warden’s jeep roared to life. Martine sprang up and rushed to the door. “Hey, Tendai,” she called. “Where did Angel come from? I know she’s a desert elephant, but how did she end up at Sawubona?”
    Tendai put the jeep into gear. He seemed surprised. “I thought you knew,” he said. “She was given to your grandfather by Reuben James.”

7
    “H ow ’bout offering an old woman a ride?” Martine nearly leaped out of her skin. As anyone would if an extravagantly large medicine woman with a mixed-up Afro-Caribbean accent suddenly loomed out of the darkness at three a.m.
    Martine had not intended to be in the game reserve at such an hour. Her plan had been to go to bed at nine p.m., sleep for two hours, and then go to the Secret Valley at the fairly civilized time of eleven. But she’d overslept. It had taken a considerable effort of will to haul herself out of bed when she did wake, and she’d felt a prick of conscience when she eventually let herself into the game reserve. Not about oversleeping, but about disobeying her grandmother. Under normal circumstances she was banned from riding Jemmy after nightfall. But these, Martine told herself, were not normal circumstances.
    “Grace!” she cried when she’d recovered from her fright. Jemmy had bolted out of range when the sangoma popped up from behind a bush, but he edged closer. The Zulu woman held out her arms and Martine ran into them for a hug.
    “I’m so happy to see you. How was Kwazulu-Natal? Has Tendai told you what’s been going on around here? It’s a total nightmare. Sawubona is going to be taken over by this businessman who claims my granddad never repaid his debt, and we all have to leave on Christmas Eve and Jemmy—”
    “Relax, chile, there’ll be time enough for all that later,” Grace interrupted. “Right now we mus’ be off to the Secret Valley.”
    She put a hand on one massive hip and gazed up at Jemmy’s sloping white back. “Now how is old Grace supposed to get up there?”
    Martine was rendered temporarily speechless. The idea of Grace, a woman who had eaten many of her own desserts, climbing aboard Jemmy, was alarming to say the least. It could do irreparable damage to the white giraffe’s back. And yet she could hardly wound her friend by saying so.
    Fortunately, or unfortunately, the decision was taken out of her hands. Jemmy, who was normally petrified of anyone other than Martine, made his musical fluttering sound and lay down on the ground. At which point, Grace stepped regally onto his back, settled herself as if she were relaxing into a comfortable armchair, and held a hand out to Martine. “Well, chile, are ya comin’?”
    Martine couldn’t refuse to join her without being rude about Grace’s size, so she slipped onto the giraffe’s withers, grabbed a handful of mane, and said a silent apology to Jemmy and the giraffe gods.
    Jemmy staggered to his feet. Grace clutched at Martine and started gabbling fervently in Zulu. She was either swearing or praying, Martine wasn’t quite sure which. At length, and going very slowly, they were on their way.

    Martine’s usual method of entering the Secret Valley was to grit her teeth, hold her breath, and cling as hard as she could to Jemmy’s mane and back as he ran full tilt at the twisted tree and veil of thorny creepers that hid the narrow slot between the rocks. With Grace weighing him down, that was not an option, so the humans crawled through the undergrowth in an undignified fashion while the white giraffe followed more gracefully.
    “The sooner ya grow up and get your driver’s license, honey, the better,” Grace said as she picked leaves, moss, and bits of thorn out of her headdress. “That giraffe-ridin’ business is for the birds. I’ll be walkin’ like a rodeo cowboy for days. As for comin’ into the valley through a thorn bush, it’s a wonder you