The Elephant's Girl

by Celesta Rimington

  “Pictures of what?”

  “Of her life at the circus before she came here. Of other elephants. She wants me to find them. Thomas, you were here when Nyah and Tendai came to the zoo, right?”

  Thomas nods. His forehead is wrinkled up from thinking so hard. “Yes, I was here. I’m the one who assimilated them into this herd.”

  “Do you know where the other circus elephants went?”

  “I don’t. I’m sorry. But I can certainly look into it. I have contacts with other elephant managers, and I can ask around. But we aren’t set up to bring in more elephants to our herd, Lex. More elephants in the herd would require more space than we have.”

  “We still need to look for them,” I say, even though I have no idea what we can do if we find Nyah’s herd. “I feel like I’ve made her a promise somehow.”

  Thomas rubs his hand over his rough, unshaven face. I think he knows about elephant promises. What he does every day for the elephants at this zoo is like fulfilling a promise to them. They count on him.

  He checks his watch. “I have about ten minutes. I can take you to the back fences to see her, and I’ll start looking into the other Fenn Circus elephants tonight, okay?”

  “Thanks, Thomas,” I say, following him to a locked gate in one of the perimeter fences. It leads into the Grasslands, but we are still on one side of a wooden fence and the elephants are on the other. This is the same wood fence style the zoo uses around many other habitats. Mr. Leigh says it is eucalyptus wood—a strong and fast-growing wood. The zoo uses it to support eucalyptus plantations that can be replenished, instead of cutting down other forests to make fences.

  Thomas and I stand at the wooden fence for only a moment before Nyah notices us. She tosses dirt over her back and fans herself with her ears. I can feel her rumbling even stronger out here, as though it moves through open earth and sky better than it does inside the barn.

  “I’m feeling that,” says Thomas. “It thumps at the sides of your head.”

  “Yes, it does,” I answer, not wanting to tell him that I feel it inside as well. Considering how much Thomas has dedicated his life to elephants, I feel a little guilty that he can’t feel and see what I do. It doesn’t seem fair.

  Nyah takes slow, even steps toward me. The sunlight is bright without the shade of a pavilion, and my eyes are watering, but I blink away the blurriness and stare into Nyah’s eyes, waiting. When she is close enough for me to follow the individual wrinkles circling her eyes, I see an image.

  A young woman is standing beside an elephant with a long-handled brush and a hose. She’s giving the elephant a bath, and she has a baby strapped to her back while she does it. This is certainly not at the zoo. I think the elephant is Tendai.

  I’m seeing this as though I’m Nyah, and a trunk, Nyah’s trunk, reaches out toward the young woman, sniffing at her hair and face and tickling the baby’s cheek. The baby laughs, and I’m filled with Nyah’s happy feelings about this memory. The young woman wraps her hand around the outstretched trunk, allowing it to curl over her hand and playfully lift it up and down. The trunk then reaches out for Tendai, feeling her mouth like Zaire did with Asha. I’m watching Nyah’s trunk reach for her mother, and now this memory is sweet and sour—as though the happiness is never without a helping of grief. And although I don’t remember my family, I understand the longing. It’s possible to miss people you can’t remember.

  I don’t want to feel this anymore. I shut my eyes tight and try to squeeze out the sadness like wringing out a drippy towel. I can’t do anything for Nyah and her heartbreak. And although Thomas says he’ll look for leads to the other Fenn Circus elephants, even if we find them, there’s no room to bring them here. Feeling Nyah’s rumblings and seeing her thoughts haven’t fixed anything, and it’s caused me nothing but trouble.

  “Everything okay, Lex?” asks Thomas.

  I open my eyes and squint at the sunlight, focusing on Thomas, the crowd beyond the Grasslands, and what is real in front of me. Nyah’s rumblings have stopped. Her trunk bobs up and down, touching the earth and feeling the fence.

  “We need to find out about those other elephants,” I answer Thomas.

  “I’ll do my best,” he says.

  “She misses her mom. She’s so sad, Thomas.”

  He nods and rubs his chin like he’s uncomfortable, and I suddenly remember that he was here when Tendai died. He would’ve seen Nyah’s grief up close and personal. All this sadness is like a cold virus, and everyone is catching it.

  “Thank you for letting me come in here.” I turn and run from the wooden fence and out the gate.

  I have to dodge and weave to avoid the crowd forming at the Wild Kingdom Education Center doors. It must be time for one of Mrs. Leigh’s many summer education programs. The thought makes me think of past summers with Fisher, and how this summer is turning out to be the worst. How can someone be surrounded by crowds and feel so alone? I head toward Bear Country, the quickest route from here to the main station. Right now, the sound of the engine and the smell of steam and coal are exactly what I want. Something real and something in the present. Something that isn’t going to ask me to fix something I can’t. I’m going to give the zoo train speech.

  With each step I take away from the Grasslands, the sun beats hotter, the bug swarms are peskier, and my curly hair gets thicker on my neck. Nyah’s images have made everything feel so mixed-up, and I’m angry—not at Nyah, but at something. I’m angry about being called “Elephant Girl” and that I let it get to me so much that now Fisher is angry with me. Well, maybe he isn’t exactly angry, but he isn’t happy. And he doesn’t want to hang out with me.

  “I’m here,” says the wind, as though it’s more important than all of that.

  “Shut up,” I say.

  I take the path behind Bear Country and cut through the Giraffe Encounter. I nearly run into a peacock on the grass just before the turnoff to the Old County Bank when it occurs to me: I need to find out if Angus Fenn donated anything else to the zoo. If Miss Amanda didn’t bring Angus Fenn’s money to the zoo with her, maybe Angus Fenn brought it here without knowing it. If he was quitting the circus life, he probably got rid of lots of things. This new idea brushes away some of my grumpiness. As I near the station, the sound of the steam bursting from the engine’s pop-off valves goes a long way toward blowing away the rest of my bad mood. A train ride is always a good idea.

  I walk along the tracks toward Roger, who is doing his last inspection before the run. I notice how he smooths a clean cloth over the brass detail on the antique passenger car. He began restoring the car before I came to the zoo. He’s very proud of it. He even has pictures in the Old County Bank of the restoration process. It was originally a passenger car, but before the zoo got it, it had been gutted and used for something else. All the seats were gone, and it was just an empty space inside—like a boxcar, except with windows.

  A tingle of realization creeps up my neck, and my insides suddenly feel hollow like the pictures of that gutted train car. I know what else Angus Fenn gave to the zoo. I feel it as surely as the wind blowing my hair around my face.

  “Roger!” I call, perhaps a bit too loudly.

  He turns and smiles, making up the rest of the distance between us with only a few strides of his long legs.

  “Nice to see you,” he says. He doesn’t ask about Fisher, or where he is, and I’m grateful. He pulls a folded sheet of paper from his pocket. “Want to come on the run and give the speech?”

  “Yes. Roger, do you—”

  “I’ve added a few new facts to this revised version. Take a look at it before we start, so you’re familiar with it.”

  “Okay, I will.” I take the paper from him. “Roger, how did this train car end up at the zoo?” I point at the passenger car on the tracks beside us.

  Roger’s forehead wrinkles up. “It came fro
m the Fenn Circus. I wrote a bit about that in the revised zoo script. Why the sudden interest in where the train car came from?”

  My brain is on rewind and fast forward all at once. I’m thinking of the pictures in Miss Amanda’s album, and at the same time, I’m thinking I must read this revised script and ask Roger a lot of questions right now. But there’s a station full of zoo patrons, and J.P. seems to have finished his inspections, because he’s opening the gates and taking tickets.

  “So…this passenger car belonged to the circus…but it didn’t look like a passenger car when you got it?”

  Roger smiles, but he looks past me down the tracks with a distracted expression that says he wants me to hurry. “Yes. Look, can we talk about this some more when we finish the round trip?”

  My thoughts are spinning so fast. “Okay,” I hear myself say.

  “Great,” Roger says. He takes a few steps toward the engine and stops. “Lexington, have you got this?” He motions toward the caboose, indicating I should hurry over there and get on the intercom.

  I pull myself together enough to say, “Yep. Good.” And I turn and run to the caboose.

  I scramble up the steps, plop down on the red painted bench, and grab the intercom microphone off the hook. I hold the mic in one hand with a finger over the talk button while I spread Roger’s script open in my lap with my other hand.

  I scan the script, skimming over the details Roger has added about the gaur (a species of bison from Southeast Asia), the bird species housed in the Swift Aviary, and the zoo summer programs and shows. I scan for just the right words.

  And I find them.

  After the information about the sea lions at Harbor Reef.

  Nyah and her mother, Tendai, were brought to the Lexington Zoo in 2011 by Angus Fenn of the Fenn Circus. Both elephants exhibited mild stereotypies when they first arrived, and they would rock repetitively. This was abnormal behavior they developed from not having enough room to move. However, the behavior improved as they settled into their spacious new habitat here at our African Grasslands. Tendai passed away from symptoms of old age in 2013, but you can still see Nyah on the Grasslands along with Asha, the herd matriarch; her daughter, Zaire; and Jazz.

  Also in 2011, the Lexington Zoo received our antique passenger train car as a gift from the Fenn Circus. The car you are riding in was built in 1880 and used as a passenger car on the Union Pacific Railroad until it was retired in 1935. The Fenn Circus gutted the passenger car and used it as a gift shop until Angus Fenn donated it to the zoo. The passenger car has been restored to its original 1880s beauty with authentic seats, interior lighting, and décor.

  Two quick, shrill whistles startle me so badly that I drop the intercom mic on the caboose’s slotted wood floor. I scramble to pick it up, dropping the script.

  “The train’s about to leave, Lexington,” says a familiar, blustery voice. “Better pull it together.”

  I’m kneeling on the floor, snatching up the script, and my head snaps up to see Frank Bixly in his striped button-up shirt and suspenders. As usual, his gray-streaked hair, what’s left of it, is combed with a perfectly straight part on the side. It’s easy to tell he combs it that way to hide some of the thin spots on top. It doesn’t work, though. You can still see them.

  I stand up, holding the script and mic. “I’ve got this, Mr. Bixly.”

  “Well now, I’ve learned I can’t entirely trust what you’re up to around the zoo lately, so I think I’ll just ride along back here and make sure you’ve ‘got this.’ ”

  He climbs up the steps with considerable effort. I stay where I am as he sits on the bench on the train’s left side. He brings with him the smell of soap and coffee, not an entirely unpleasant smell, but on Frank Bixly, it smells like control.

  “I hear Roger has a new speech all ready to go. Are you familiar with it? You need to read it with a clear, strong voice so the guests can understand you.”

  I’m still standing, and my hand is sweaty around the intercom mic. I don’t need Mr. Bixly to tell me how to give the train speech. He’s acting like I don’t know how to read or something. I’ve done this dozens of times.

  “I’m familiar with it,” I say flatly.

  “Well, let’s have a look,” Mr. Bixly says, indicating he wants me to sit and let him see the script.

  This train is Roger’s domain, so I feel it’s mine, too. I know more about the train and the sights along the tracks than Frank Bixly does, and when I give the zoo speech, the caboose is my space. The little hairs on the back of my neck stand up like I’m a wolf defending my territory. Then I notice J.P. waving at me to get started. He closes the gate, hurries to the first open-air car, and slides his hand up the curved railing, pulling himself onto the train.

  I plop down hard on the bench, as far from Mr. Bixly as possible, press down the mic’s talk button, and say, “Ladies and gentlemen, welcome aboard the Lexington Zoo Train.” My voice always sounds younger than I think it should when it comes out of the speakers.

  My face is stiff and stony, but I proceed with the introduction as Mr. Bixly glances over at the script.

  “You’re about to tour the second-largest zoo in North America, and you’re riding behind one of only two genuine Union Pacific steam engines in any zoo.”

  “Skip this part,” Mr. Bixly says, pointing at the jokes that usually come next. Roger uses the jokes to liven up the tour, and the guests always seem to like them.

  I narrow my eyes, swallow down a boiling remark that would surely get me in trouble, and wait in silence as the train chuffs forward. If I skip the jokes, I’ll jump right into the new facts about the gaur, the tallest of the wild cattle species, before we even reach their habitat. Mr. Bixly is so stupid. Roger had this planned out so the script would fit the timing of the tour.

  The couplings between the cars clang as the metal collides and catches. The cars move forward, and I listen to the sound of the wheels clacking over the track joints beneath us.

  I’m staring at the back of the antique passenger car that was once the Fenn Circus gift shop. I’ve wrinkled the script in my sweaty hand without noticing. My heart pounds with irritation at Mr. Bixly. But even stronger than that is the unbearable need to ask Roger if he found something hidden behind a loose board when he restored that old train car. This could be the answer to the lost money box and Miss Amanda’s mystery. She didn’t take the money when she left the Fenn Circus, but the money is here. And she did hide Fenn’s money box in the gift shop. The circus gift shop.

  The train rounds the first curve, sending us into the sun and the warm smell of bison. I direct everyone to look to their right and begin reading the portion about the gaur. Mr. Bixly keeps an eye on the script for a few more minutes, and then, as I go on to the part about the aviary coming up on the right, he settles back on the bench and watches the scenery with a smug expression—like he’s king of it all.

  We pass the lake covered by the tall aviary netting. The wind sails through the open sides of the caboose, bringing with it the smell of fish and mossy water and stirring up Mr. Bixly’s lingering soap and coffee smell. I prefer the fish and moss, but the wind has mixed them up now.

  The wind tugs at my hair and laughs in my ear. “Can’t do anything with him here, can you?”

  Sometimes, I wish I could rattle the wind the way it does me. Just a little.

  “Why don’t you help me out, for once?” I snap at the wind in my head. “Why don’t you blow at Mr. Bixly so he’ll decide to get off at the café stop?”

  The wind slices the air. “More fun to watch what you’ll do.”

  And with that, the breeze swirling through the caboose subsides, reminding me how quickly the wind can change. Teasing isn’t always harmless, and quiet isn’t always good.

  I guess I’ll have to deal with Mr. Bixly’s presence for this one round trip, and then I�
��ll ask Roger about the passenger car and the loose board. If he didn’t find a load of money when he restored the train car, then maybe it’s still there. If he did find something, then he must know where it is.

  As I suspected he would, Mr. Bixly takes the train’s entire round trip. With only brief stops at Wild Eats Café and the Wild Kingdom Education Center to pick up and drop off passengers, I have no time to talk to Roger during the run.

  “Thank you for riding the Lexington Zoo Railroad. We hope your visit to the zoo today is a wild one,” I say into the intercom, finishing the script as the train slowly pulls into the main station.

  I release the talk button and hang the mic over the hook, standing to do so.

  “Never stand up while the train is moving, Lexington,” says Frank Bixly.

  “The conductor stands,” I snap at him. Mr. Bixly knows nothing about the train or railroading.

  “Well,” he says in a smug voice that makes me want to scream, “you’re not the con—”

  The train hisses to a stop, and I jump from the caboose’s top step to the ground before Mr. Bixly can finish. Roger is emerging from the engine cab, wiping his forehead with his handkerchief. The cab can get up to 130 degrees in the middle of the summer, and he and J.P. sweat more than they can drink sometimes.

  “Nicely done,” Roger says to me, referring to the train script. “You always make a great announcer.” Then his gaze shifts to somewhere behind me. I turn to see for myself, and Mr. Bixly is stepping off the caboose steps. “Was Frank in the caboose with you for the entire run?”

  I roll my eyes to tell Roger he was. “He told me to skip the jokes.”

  Roger waves his hand like skipping the jokes doesn’t concern him. He motions for me to follow him to the main station food stand. He needs to rehydrate. “You okay?” he asks.

  “Oh yeah,” I say. “Mr. Bixly just thinks he can run everything.”

  “Lexington, he’s the General Manager. He does run everything. The sooner you get that through your head, the sooner you will stop getting into a tangle with him over every little thing. You know, sometimes I think you think that you run the zoo.” Roger pulls a jumbo bottle of a citrus-flavored sports drink from the minifridge and offers me one. “But I think there’s something else on your mind. What did you want to ask me about before?”