I STILL HEAR HER CALLING

"WE don't have any mercy", announced the muffled voice on the phone. "We did not have mercy on your wife and we won't have mercy on your parents in law and on your daughter, and even on you, Andrew Sneddon" 
"My...my...wife?" stammered Andrew. He had just finished eating with Andy, his daughter, and the two were watching a video , a Walt Disney fantasia which had the child totally engrossed. 
He felt his hand becoming wet and sticky on the phone. "my..my wife.." he repeated. 
"Your late wife" the voice whispered. There was a click as the phone went dead. 

We are then taken to a hospital ,into the thinking process of this young woman who has had a near fatal accident.  
In the Hospital, while still in a coma, she has an experience where she seems to go into a misty tunnel with a bright light at the end of it. A child's voice calls her back, "Mummy ! Mummy?" 
Believing that if she does live she will be a 'vegetable' , her husband divorces her and takes Andy, their daughter to an unknown destination. Attempts continue to be made on her life. 
However she recovers completely and the story which unfolds is chilling, powerful and deeply moving. 
At one stage of the book we become involved in the journeys of three penguins who are leading thousands of others for hundreds of miles along the South African coast in a miraculous trip back to their home islands. 
There is warmth, romance, hope , terror , tears and laughter as the book draws to a breathtaking conclusion .

Part of the book takes place in Cape Town during this Treasure Oil Spill of 2000. The details given are intensive and factual.

I had found the story of the Treasure Oil Spill; something we all lived through, as one of most amazing occurrences in South African Sea Bird History and perhaps something very significant in our own history as well.

The Treasure, an iron ore ship that had been in trouble off the Western Cape Coast for several days, sank, leaving a twenty square mile oil slick.

.  Thousands of penguins from Dassen Island and  Robben Island were oiled and endangered and had to be individually cleaned by volunteers at the rehabilitation Centre run by SANNCOB, the South African National Foundation for the Conservation of Coastal Birds.

At this time, also, thousands of penguins were transported to a place  hundreds of miles along the South African coast; and swam back to their homes.  The world followed their progress with a great deal of inspiration and excitement. France had tagged three of the birds with extremely lightweight transmitters and news stations world wide would report their progress.

The writer consulted with Nicole Heiman , organizer of Community Environmental Education Project (CEEP)  in South Africa who had been a volunteer at the Treasure Oil Spill who shared her detailed personal account of the work in SANCCOB.

 Tracy felt a little strange in the large white gum boots, thick gloves and oilskins she was given, but comforted herself with the fact that everyone around her was dressed in a similar way. She and Johanna looked like each other with slightly embarrassed smiles.

They stood somewhat hesitantly surveying their surroundings until a young woman, identifying herself as Pam, gave over her three-day-long expertise, which seemed vast compared with Tracy’s.

“You first have to learn to catch them, and then to keep them,” she said, showing her some rather nasty peck marks on her left wrist and thumb. “If you don’t learn fast, you can get bitten to pieces.”

Tracy examined a particularly nasty bite, which was angry and red around it. “That is getting infected,” she pronounced, thankful to withdraw into her nursing profession in which she felt comfortable.

Pam was looking at her strangely.                                                   

“I am a nurse,” explained Tracy.

Pam immediately responded by asking her what she could do about the bite, as it was becoming more painful by the minute.

“There is some kind of first aid station here, isn’t there?” asked Tracy. “Go to them and ask them to put something on it.”

“You know, these birds just go for you in the same spot over and over. That is the result of at least eight bites.“

“And you are still here?” asked Tracy.

“Well, I love birds,” said Pam, “and these are so vulnerable and frightened. I have learnt now to more or less handle them. You have to for pure survival; otherwise, they bite hard. I think I will give you some hints first as to how to catch and hold on to them. Then I will go and get this fixed up. You don’t want to work here as a nurse instead, and help them over there, do you?“

“I have been nursing all the time,” said Tracy. “Now I will work with these wriggly little chaps over here.”

“You have no idea how wriggly,” Pam said under her breath

And much later on in the book we find Sky…a lonely child living in the far north…Sky was in danger…

She was vaguely aware of a car stopping behind the bus and then moving slowly towards where she was standing. A man and a woman were in the car and the woman, who she vaguely recognised, leant across the driver’s seat and asked what the problem was.

Sky told them about the burst tyre reassuring them that the driver was fixing it.

“But to have you all in the rain!” she said in a concerned way. “And can the driver do it all by himself? Perhaps you should come with us and we can call for help for him.”

That did sound like a good idea and the people were vaguely familiar and after reassuring her that they would drop her back to the bus, she climbed into the car. As she did so she remembered all the warnings she had heard about taking lifts from strangers. But this was different. They were in trouble on the road.

“Would you like some warm coffee?” the woman asked. “You are looking very chilled.”

Sky had been worried that she might get quite sick from this and she accepted the mug gratefully.

“Sorry, it is not really hot, but it is the thermos flask that we drive with, and we have been out for a couple of hours already and the weather has been cold.”

Shy looked outside at the rain and the mist, and gulped down her coffee. In less than ten minutes, she was lying in the back seat of the car in a drugged sleep.

It was several hours later that she awoke, her body aching and tense with the awareness of danger. A movement inside her jacket made her aware that the pigeon was still there, and this somehow comforted her.

The man and the woman, unaware that she was awake, were talking.

“I doubt if anyone has missed her yet. There was so much chaos with the bus. I am sure that some other children would also have been given rides and they won’t realise Sky is not with them.”

Sky gave a shudder when she realised that they knew her name. She had been thinking before her coffee that she had actually not introduced herself. The coffee... That must have been drugged. But why? However, she had known before that she could be in danger. Why had she accepted this ride? Oh why? Oh why? She had been warned she was in danger. Why had she done this?

This book was originally published by Raider Publishing International (December 10, 2010) At that stage I uses a pen- name, Ruth Soroson.

It was also published and available on Completelynovel.com

One can obtain it on any Amazon site, both as a paperback and as an ebook.

In South Africa one can find it on Kalahari Books.

CreateSpace eStore: https://www.createspace.com/4153721 (342 pages)