Read Secret Safari for Free Online

at the airport crammed in a crate with hardly any air holes. They were being sold for use in illegal experiments. CC12 saw the crates were marked SWR but it certainly wasn’t us. That’s when we first suspected SHADOW was involved.’
    Â 
    BEEEP
    Â 
    It was Rafiki’s phone. She took the call and EJ and SJ watched her smile turn to an angry frown.
    â€˜We need to go,’ she said. ‘There’s been an attack on a black rhino not too far from here. One of our animal carers has found it and needs help.’
    They jumped into the jeep, drove out of the compound, down the track and back on to the main dirt road. The jeep rattled and lurched along as they drove past impalas and water buffalo grazing and more giraffes making their slow, elegant way across the grass. But this was no time for sightseeing. EJ looked out, scanning the plains, and saw a jeep like the one they were in parked by a small waterhole.
    â€˜Over there!’ she cried.
    As their jeep drove up, a flock of birds that had been feeding on the water’s edge flew up, creating a flash of white in the sky. Next to the jeep stood a young girl about EJ’s age. She was wearing the same sort of SWR safari clothes as EJ but had brightly coloured scarves and bracelets around her wrists and ankles. Her jet-black hair was braided with colourful beads. EJ thought she was beautiful. She was leaning over a huge black thing. Was it a rock? EJ couldn’t quite see what it was but as they got closer she realised with horror what she was looking at.
    â€˜Oh, EJ,’ said her mum. ‘This might be upsetting.’
    And it was.
    EJ could now see the girl was standing next to a baby black rhino and that the big black thing in the grass was not a giant rock but its mother, alive but clearly in pain. At first EJ couldn’t see why but as she walked around the other side of the rhino she could. The rhino had no horn. It had been hacked off and there was now a bleeding wound. It was the worse thing EJ had ever seen in her life. And, next to the rhino was a knife with the letters SWR burnt into the handle.
    Now EJ was angry. Adriana could not get away with this.

    They had brought the rhinos back to the compound. SJ45 was working with the SWR vets on the mother. She was using the new spray cream.
    EJ and the girl were waiting nervously outside.
    â€˜My name is Hasi,’ she said. ‘It’s short for Hasina which means …’
    â€˜â€œGood” in Swahili,’ said EJ, ‘and also in Egyptian.’
    â€˜How did you know that?’ asked Hasi.
    â€˜Oh, I knew someone with that name,’ said EJ. ‘Someone else who looked after things. She was from Egypt. What do you do, Hasi?’
    â€˜I help here at SWR. Our tribe has been on these lands for centuries. We hunt for food but this kind of hunting is cruel.’
    â€˜It’s terrible,’ agreed EJ, still shaken from seeing the poor rhino. ‘Why would someone take the horn and just leave her there with her baby?’
    â€˜The black rhino’s horn is very valuable,’ said Hasi. ‘In some countries, it is believed to have special healing powers. People pay a lot of money for it. It doesn’t have any powers but that doesn’t stop people wanting it. And it’s been getting a lot worse lately.’
    SJ45 came out of the surgery. EJ and Hasi jumped up, looking hopefully at her.
    â€˜She’s going to be fine, girls, but she will take some time to heal, even with our new cream. We will have to look after her baby for her.’
    â€˜I can do that,’ said Hasi.
    â€˜And I am going to stop who did this,’ said EJ.
    â€˜You are?’ said Hasi looking impressed. ‘You know who did it?’
    â€˜I think so,’ said EJ. ‘It is Adriana X, a SHADOW agent. She sent a message to say she was “hunting black” for her own SWR and now we have found a hornless black rhino near a knife with the