“Hello?” I answered.
“Hi, Angela, it’s Kirsten,” the voice on the other end of the line said. The connection was a little bit on the scratchy side, but I didn’t care; my heart leapt with joy at hearing her voice.
“Kirsten, hi! Thank you so much for returning my call.” Kirsten had gone to veterinary school with me, but after graduating, rather than becoming a run-of-the-mill vet she moved to Africa, where she worked at an elephant rescue sanctuary in Kenya. We weren’t especially close, but had kept in touch on Facebook, where she’d posted her phone number. I’d left her a voicemail a few hours earlier asking her to call me when she got a chance.
“No problem, it’s great to hear from you. What’s up?”
“Well, it’s kind of a weird problem. I have a juvenile giraffe here in Oregon that’s been smuggled from somewhere in your part of the world, and I’m hoping to be able to reunite her with her mother. I know, I know, the odds are pretty slim.”
Kirsten laughed on the other end of the line. “No kidding, right? Well I’ll do what I can. Do you know anything at all about where the giraffe came from?”
“The, uh, girl who dropped her off said that she came from a place whose name started with “Tara”,” I replied, obviously unable to tell Kirsten the true source of my information.
“Hmm,” Kirsten replied. “There’s always Tarangire National Park in Tanzania, I imagine that would be the most likely place your giraffe came from.”
“Ok, I might be able to find out for sure. If that’s the place, do you think it would be easy to find the mother?”
“Not really,” Kirsten replied slowly. “It’s a big park, about two thousand square miles if I remember right. It would be infinitely more helpful to know where the giraffe was taken from. If you could find the smugglers, that would make it a lot easier, but of course, I know that’s probably impossible.”
“That’s not what I wanted to hear, but I definitely get it,” I replied. “Is there nothing else that can be done to find the mother?”
“I’ll put some feelers out. I know a group that rescues elephants in Tanzania, and Tarangire is very elephant-heavy. They might know something. I’ll let you know.”
“Thanks so much, Kirsten.”
“No problem. I gotta run, but one day you’re going to have to tell me how you ended up with a smuggled giraffe in your care.”
I laughed. “Sure thing. Talk to you soon!”
As soon as I hung up the phone I entered Tarangire National Park into Google Maps. Sure enough, it was a national park in northern Tanzania. To my surprise, despite the fact that Kirsten said it was two thousand square miles large, it was actually nowhere near the largest national park in Tanzania. Thank goodness for small blessings.
I made my way outside and asked Lucy, who was happily munching on the leaves and twigs of one of the apple trees in my backyard, if the name was familiar.
“Yes! Tarangire! That is what my mom used to call where we lived. Tarangire! Does that mean I can go home now?”
“You could, but the thing is, Tarangire is really big. We don’t know exactly where in the park your mother came from. We can’t just leave you out there without her. You wouldn’t be safe. I have a friend who lives near there, she’s looking into whether or not one of her contacts can find out anything, and I’m going to look into it from this side. If I can find the people that brought you here, maybe I can convince them to tell me where in the park they took you from.”
To be totally honest, I had no idea how old Lucy was. I knew she was older than a newborn, and if I had to guess I’d say eight months or so, but telling a giraffe’s age based on size wasn’t exactly relevant to our studies in veterinary school, seeing as most of us weren’t going to be seeing anything more exotic than a hamster during our careers. And on top of that, having been taken from her mother, I didn’t know if she’d been artificially weaned and what an impact that may have had on her development. I only hoped that when we did find her mother–I was going to do everything I could to make sure that happened–that Lucy would be accepted by her once more. I really, really hoped so.
“Ok,” Lucy said. “Angela?”
“Yes?”
“Is it all right if I go back into the stable now? It feels safe in there.”
“Of course,” I told her. “Please, do. I’ll close the door for you tonight, so nothing will be able to get in until morning. How does that sound?”
“That would be nice.”
I put the poor, scared giraffe to bed, then gave her a quick pat before heading back into the house. I was going to have to figure out just how to find the smugglers.
As I made my way back into the house I found Sophie and Charlotte in the kitchen, Charlotte with a medical textbook that made War and Peace look like a children’s book open in front of her, and Sophie chopping up vegetables for enchiladas at the counter.
“So how’s our new roommate?” Sophie asked.
“You know, I’m pretty sure you’re supposed to report smuggled animals to some authority somewhere,” Charlotte scolded before I got the chance. I looked at Sophie, who shrugged.
“I was going to not tell her, so I could see the look on her face the next time she went out into the stable and saw a giraffe there, but then I realized I might not be around to see it. So I figured seeing the look on her face when I told her about our new arrival was the next best thing.”
Great. Charlotte was smart as hell, but also a huge stickler for rules.
“I want to try and find her mother, first. Don’t worry, I’m not going to keep her,” I said, rolling my eyes. “I already know she comes from Tarangire National Park in Tanzania. But I spoke to Kirsten and she said that’s a big park, and that it would be best if I narrowed down where she came from.”
Charlotte closed her book with a thud. “And let me guess, that means you’re going to try and find the smugglers who brought her here in the first place.” I didn’t even need to look at my sister to know she was giving me that look. The look that screamed, even though I’m the younger sister, I’m the responsible one and I think this is a bad idea.
“Well, what else am I supposed to do?” I replied with a casual shrug?
“Oh I don’t know,” Charlotte replied, “Maybe leave it to the professionals?”
“They’re just going to take her back to Africa and dump her anywhere. Lucy’s too young for that. She doesn’t know how to survive in the wild. She needs to be taken back to her mother, and if she’s rejected, to a sanctuary where she can be taught how to be wild, or live out her days in peace.”
Charlotte shook her head. “Fine, but I’m not bailing you out if you get put in jail for harboring an exotic animal.”
“That’s why Sophie’s my best friend and not you,” I replied, sticking my tongue out at her.
“Yes,” Sophie fist pumped. “Now, how are we going to find those smugglers?”
I shrugged. “I’m not sure yet. I wish that girl that dropped her off had given us more information.”
“She was obviously terrified,” Sophie nodded. “My bet is she didn’t want her dad to find out she was the one who took his giraffe.”
“Yeah, if he was willing to play fast and loose with animal smuggling, my bet is he’s the kind of guy who’s willing to play fast and loose with other kinds of laws, too,” I replied darkly. “That poor girl.”
“What do we know?”
“Well, we know she’s not from around here, but she must live a few hours away at most, since I don’t think she would have driven multiple days just to drop the giraffe off right here. So, let’s say she lives no more than four hours away from here.”