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"GABBRA is a beautiful story – more
than a treat. I absolutely loved it!"
Milly
Bird
Penticton
,
BC
"This book was great – thrilling
to the last. Young adults will read GABBRA’S SONG and
enjoy it tremendously. My compliments to Jane Volden – she
really made it work!"
Kirsten
Lisa Schmid
Grade
8,
Shuswap
Middle School
, Salmon Arm, BC
"Teenagers from completely
diverse backgrounds meet, with narrowing eyes, to look at each
other’s lifestyles; their emotions; only to learn they
are not so different after all. GABBRA’S SONG is a poignant
story of intrigue that ends in tender young love under an African
sun; a story that is important to young people growing up in
a new world where, hopefully, the poison of old racial issues
will be swept away in a new understanding and respect of whom
we really are."
Rima
Publications, BC
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excerpt
from
Gabbra's Song |
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GABBRA
LED ME TO A HEAP of dead branches near the first camel-skin
hut. "Riley, my friend, this is the secret safety
tunnel where we will hide if the Shifta attack us," she
whispered.
"You
mean the Somali bandits your father talked about?" I
asked, hardly daring to breathe.She looked into the distance.
"Yes.
They raided our village several years ago."Gabbra
was silent for a moment. Then she continued. "A deep
cave has been dug at the end of the tunnel—big enough
to hold the children and our elderly people. One person
pulls a thorny canopy over the top and we sit and wait
quietly till the bandits have gone."
"That makes
me feel nervous," I said, staring at her. "I
wish you hadn't told me."
Gabbra said that in this
time of extreme drought, the Shifta were probably
desperate for water and camels.
"We have to be prepared
for an attack at any moment," she cautioned, "They
will never have the chance to abduct our women again."
I
heard a pack of jackals yipping excitedly over their freshly
killed prey just outside the protective thorn fence, and
I shivered.
"How will you know if
they sneak in?"
Probably sensing my fear, Gabbra hugged
me. "If it happens, I will run with you and the others
to the tunnel.
Our warriors watch for anyone suspicious
travelling across the Plain of Darkness. My brother Nagya
taught them a special warning signal that we’re all
familiar with."
Instantly my cheeks felt warm with
thoughts of the handsome warrior for whom I had strong
feelings."What signal?" I asked.
Instinctively,
Gabbra pulled a shawl over her head and shoulders. "The
song of a mourning dove."
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Chapter
1
Land
of Skeletons
I
PEERED THROUGH THE TINY WINDOW of the Cessna-172 piloted
by my father. We were approaching Kenya's Northern Frontier
District—a desert-like place in East Africa where years
of drought had taken its toll.
Scorched earth lay cracked
and rippled. It looked like it hadn’t rained in years.
The
plane's low drone made me sleepy. I leaned back in my seat,
listening to some new music on my MP3 player, and glanced
over at Gabbra.
My best friend was startlingly beautiful,
with high cheekbones, intelligent dark eyes and generous
lips. It was almost as though an artist had painted her a
shiny milk-chocolate brown.
"Drought means death, doesn't
it, Gabbra?" I said loudly over the roar of engines,
but she didn’t answer.
Instead, tears slid slowly down
her cheeks. I pulled the headphones from my ears, eased myself
out of the seat and crouched down beside her. I’d never
seen her cry before.
"Gabbra, what's wrong?" I asked,
astonished. "Are you upset about those dead animals
down there? Do you think your family has enough water? Are
you crying because you…"
"Riley Jane Forbes," she
said, smiling at me through her tears. "Will you please
be quiet for once!"
I wondered if she was emotional
about seeing her father again.
Gabbra wiped away tears with
her slender brown fingers and smoothed out the creases in
her long khaki skirt. "I told you before; only the fittest
will survive because that has been our tradition for hundreds
of years."
With a trembling finger, she pointed to the
burnt earth below, "Look through my window. Isn’t
it wonderful?"
Leaning past Gabbra, I saw frightened
gazelles scattering in every direction as the shadow of our
plane darkened their eroded territory. Camels, looking like
extra-terrestrial creatures, seemed to sway slowly across
a land of craters and rocks. A dust-devil spiraled in the
distance, reminding me of a galactic spacecraft, leaving
moon dust in its wake.
She
laid her hand on my arm. "I'm crying with happiness
and pride because my brother Nagya has reached the important
stage of manhood. I can’t quite believe I’m coming
home to see him after three amazing years with you in Canada."
I
had no idea that my life was about to turn upside-down in
this strange African desert. |
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