The Elephant's Tale by Lauren St. John Page B

square miles of desert out here and you have to ruin my shot.”

    For much of the year she’d spent in Africa, Martine had been preoccupied with the San Bushmen. Accounts differed as to whether it was a Bushman legend or a Zulu legend or even just an African one that said that the child who rides a white giraffe will have power over all the animals. Regardless, it was the Bushmen, she felt sure, who held the key to her destiny.
    Time and time again, their paintings had forecast the challenges she would have to face and overcome.
    And yet in all these months it had never entered Martine’s head that she might meet a San Bushman in the flesh. Certainly not one taking photographs with a long-lens camera. She’d always imagined them to be living in some remote region of the Kalahari Desert in Botswana or in the far north of Namibia, too nomadic and wedded to the traditions of their ancestors to be touched by the modern world.
    But this boy, who looked to be about fifteen, was not enigmatic or far removed from the modern world. He was right here and quite angry.
    “Do you know how long I’ve been lying here, waiting for that shot? I’ve had to put up with cold, with cramps, with ants nibbling my toes, and a scorpion crawling over my leg. At one point a horned adder even came to inspect me. I survive all that, only to have two idiot tourist kids come by and start shrieking at the Oryx as if they’re pet donkeys.”
    “Look, I’m really, really sorry,” said Martine. “How was I supposed to know I was interfering with your picture? I was only trying to stop the Oryx from goring each other. Anyway, you were camouflaged behind a blade of grass.”
    To her astonishment, the boy let out a shriek of delighted laughter. He clutched at his stomach and laughed some more.
    Martine began to get annoyed. “What’s so funny?”
    “Camouflaged behind a blade of grass! I wish the elders of our tribe could hear you say that. They think I’m about the most useless hunter and tracker in San history. Which I probably am. Not that I care. All I ever wanted to be was a photographer, so I never bothered to learn any of that stuff. But then after my father . . . well, anyway now I wish I had, but it’s too late.”
    “It’s never too late,” Ben assured him. “I’m an apprentice tracker. I could show you some stuff if you like.”
    This brought on another fit of laughter. “ You? What do you track—the Yeti when it makes midnight visits to your school playing fields?”
    He looked them up and down and Martine was conscious of what a sight they must be. “You’re quite funny for tourist kids. And quite scruffy. Don’t they have showers at your hotel? Where are all the other people on your tour anyway? I didn’t hear an engine.”
    “We have a slight problem,” confided Ben.
    “A tiny one,” Martine added supportively.
    “Yesterday morning, we flew in on a private plane from the Western Cape in South Africa. We were with some . . . friends. They stopped at an airfield a few miles from here and Martine and I went to climb the dunes. They didn’t realize we weren’t on board and flew away without us.”
    The boy raised his eyebrows. “Your ‘friends’ didn’t notice you were missing, even though there were only a handful of you on this plane?”
    “That’s right,” Martine said brightly. “They probably got carried away taking pictures of the scenery. Like you!”
    “Let me get this straight. You fly all the way from South Africa, stop at an airfield in the middle of the Namib Desert and decide to go off exploring on your own. Despite the dangers, nobody objects. While you’re gone, your ‘friends’ abandon you in one-hundred-degree heat, with no food or water, and continue with their holiday as if nothing has happened?”
    “It sounds worse than it is,” said Martine.
    “Oh, I think it’s already pretty bad. With friends like that, who needs enemies?”
    The boy looked at his watch. “All right, I’ll take