The Elephant's Girl

by Celesta Rimington

  I look under the kitchen table and find the photo albums, lying facedown on the floor with the pages spread open.

  “Lexington!” Mrs. Leigh calls from the ramp. “Please calm down and let’s talk about this.”

  Then she lowers her voice. “Let me handle this.” She seems to be speaking to the tow truck man and is nearing the trailer door.

  Mrs. Leigh has made up her mind against befriending ghosts, or helping them, so there’s nothing to talk about. Miss Amanda’s photo albums are too important—too full of who she was and what mattered to her. They’re too full of what happened at the circus with Angus Fenn and Elle and the elephants. I can’t let these things leave on a tow truck to the dump or wherever they’re taking it. Miss Amanda’s life can’t be forgotten like that.

  I leap over the broken dishes, slam the trailer door shut, and turn the lock.

  Mrs. Leigh calls to me. The tow truck men complain about how this is throwing off their schedule. I go to the kitchen window. It has a sliding pane. I slide it open silently, climb onto the table, and escape out my second window for the day. With Miss Amanda’s photo albums in one arm, I hang from the window by my other hand for a second. When I let go, my fingers rake over the window runner, scraping off some skin. It stings like a hundred bee stings, but I grab the albums I dropped in my fall and run straight into the trees with the trucks behind me for cover.

  Don’t worry, Miss Amanda. I’ve got your memories.

  The wind in my face is hot and stifling. It dries the tears that have fallen down my cheeks, leaving tight salt streaks behind. Miss Amanda was already dead when I met her, but it didn’t really feel that way until I saw her trailer hitched to that tow truck.

  Mrs. Leigh and the tow truck men talk over each other as their voices grow faint behind me. I keep running—deeper and deeper into the wild, untended woods. My arms are wrapped around the photo albums at my chest, slowing me down. I push faster. My leg muscles burn from the effort. My fingers sting where the skin was scraped off on the windowsill.

  The trees are thick here and the branches hide the sun—like Miss Amanda’s pink awning, but green. Shadows loom like ghostly walls in my way, but I run through them. Each one swallows me up for a moment and then spits me out for the next one.

  My foot lands on a large branch partially buried beneath the leaves. The other end of the branch sails toward me, its sharp twigs gouging my bare legs like long nails on a giant witch’s hand. I drop to my knees with the photo albums at my chest and roll to my side.

  Blood drips from the scratches on my legs. I gasp for air in heaving breaths and sit in the weeds and leaves, gathering Miss Amanda’s albums into my lap. The wind blows a tree branch, and for a moment I think I see Miss Amanda’s flowing scarf out of the corner of my eye. But it’s only another shadow.

  I examine my injured fingers. The skin is scraped off pretty deep on two of them, but the blood has thickened and is drying. My hand is shaking. I dab my fingers gently on my sock and open the first photo album.

  I turn the pages slowly, noticing the photos Miss Amanda already showed me and taking in the ones I haven’t seen yet. There are photos of circus performers dressed in feathers, in tiny costumes, in long elegant dresses, in top hats, in suits, and in muscle shirts. Other photos show animal trainers and everything from monkeys and dogs to lions and elephants. I wonder what Nyah would have said about her circus life if someone could’ve seen her thoughts back then.

  I find a picture of the African elephants in a show inside the big circus tent. Their rear legs are on the ground, and they balance on them with their front legs in the air and their trunks reaching high. I’ve seen Nyah do this when she reaches for hay in the baskets hanging from tall poles. I always figured this was natural. Maybe it’s what she would do in the wild to get branches from the trees. Or maybe it’s a learned trick from the circus. But I’ve definitely seen Jazz do it, and Jazz wasn’t ever in a circus.

  I turn the pages and find more pictures of Angus Fenn and more pictures of the acrobat Elle. I find pictures of them together. She looks at him with big, liquid eyes. In one photo, she has her arm linked through his, and he’s placed a hand on hers, like he wants to keep her close.

  I keep the page open to that picture of Angus and Elle. Then I open the second album and find more photos of Miss Amanda. She was very beautiful when she was young. In every picture, she is wearing an elegant hat or a scarf, but she didn’t always wear skirts and dresses. It stands out to me as strong somehow—like she didn’t have to look like the fancy circus performers. She also seemed to know her work and how to do it well. And then I turn the page and find a picture that proves the gift shop was a train car.

  It’s a picture of Miss Amanda standing inside a passenger car gutted of its original seats. I can tell it used to be a passenger car from the 1800s, like the ones in Roger’s books, because of the side windows and the raised section down the center of the wooden roof. But this car now has tables lining one side and shelves at the back. An old cash register sits on one of the tables. The tables and shelves are full of funny hats and toys and pictures of circus performers. Miss Amanda is holding up long candy twists on sticks. She’s smiling and has her head tilted slightly to the side in an elegant pose. I tilt my head and try smiling just like that. Then everything goes blurry, and I have to wipe my eyes. I wonder if I’ll ever see Miss Amanda’s ghost again.

  The photo on the opposite page shows the inside of the office train car. Miss Amanda’s desk is on the left, with a pile of papers and envelopes and pens. It isn’t the desk that catches my eye, though. It’s what’s sitting on the seat of the desk chair.

  It looks like a metal box with a lock on it, and it has two letters etched on top. I raise the album closer to my nose to get a better look. The letters are A.F.

  Angus Fenn.

  I think this is the box Miss Amanda hid for Angus. This is the box with his fortune in it.

  I wish Fisher were here, discovering all this with me. The zoo is sort of an island for him, too. Except Fisher chooses to leave.

  I stand up and brush myself off. The zoo doesn’t feel like my island anymore. It feels like a cage, and I’m one of the exhibits under Mr. Bixly’s rules. It’s Mr. Bixly’s island now. He’s the one who had Miss Amanda’s things taken away so I couldn’t visit her anymore. Why would he do that? Why would he care where I go outside the zoo? I don’t think it has to do with radio chatter clogging up the zoo-wide channel to find me.

  I think Mr. Bixly has talked to Miss Amanda’s ghost. She did say she had business to discuss with Frank Bixly. She must’ve told him the missing box had a fortune in it. Maybe Mr. Bixly broke into Roger’s shed to get it, and he doesn’t want to risk anyone else talking to Miss Amanda and finding out the money belongs to Eden Fenn. And the best way to keep the fortune’s secret is to get rid of Miss Amanda’s ghost.

  The only reason someone would do that is if they planned to keep the money for themselves.

  I tuck the photo albums under my arm. I need to find Frank Bixly. If he took that box from the train shed, I’m going to find it.

  I survey the surrounding trees, trying to get some sense of where I am, but the tall zoo structures are hidden by the thick canopy of branches. Maybe I’ve run away from the perimeter fences instead of parallel to them. I take a few steps, listening to the constant vibrating buzz of the cicadas in the trees. After a moment, the wind shifts and carries with it the distant whirring of tires on pavement. If I follow the sounds, I’ll eventually reach the road.

  Leaves and sticks crunch beneath my tennis shoes, and the cicada buzz feels electric. The most logical place to look for Mr. Bixly, or someplace he would hide the box, is his office above the gift shop. If I head back through the woods, though, I might run into Mrs. Leigh. If I follow the road, I might actually see the tow truck and the pickup with the flatbed trailer driving off with Miss Amanda�
��s things. I’m not sure which is worse, but walking along the road is definitely easier than slogging through the grass that stings the scrapes on my leg. So I trudge in the direction of the whirring tire sounds.

  The humidity presses down on me until it seems I will shrink under it. The gnat swarms are difficult to see in the shade, and they appear without warning. I swat at them, but some get in my mouth and nose anyway. I finally reach a clearing, yet even without the tree branches overhead, I’m still under a large shadow. A great blanket of gray clouds has rolled across the sky and covered the sun. With a wide-open space now in front of me, I can see the road clearly in the distance.

  My sweaty palms stick to the photo albums. I rearrange my hold on them to keep my bleeding fingers off the leather, and as I hold them against my chest, I think I can feel warmth spread through me from the memories inside. I imagine the people and animals in the pictures, including Miss Amanda, all hoping for me to succeed.

  Find the Fenn fortune.

  Find it.

  The faces in the pictures fill my head and are more real to me than any words the wind has ever whispered.

  I reach the end of the clearing and step onto the sidewalk. A bus is coming up the road on the other side of the street. It growls its way up the hill toward the turnaround point at River Road. Then, it’ll come back the other way, stopping at the corner of the zoo parking lot, where Fisher always catches it. Maybe Fisher is on that bus, coming home from his baseball friend’s party. I wonder what it would be like to go to a birthday party. I wonder what it would be like to be invited.

  A bright blue car speeds down the road toward me. Feeling a little exposed outside the zoo and alone, but not too much like I will blow away, I step back from the sidewalk. The car takes the curves too fast, and I step back even more, concealing myself in the trees. I recognize the car from the zoo, even though the car and the driver are a blur as they pass. The rear license plate is personalized.

  ZOOMNGR

  Zoo Monger.

  Zoo Manager.

  Frank Bixly.

  The only way to follow a car when you are too young to drive is if someone else will drive you. My only option at this moment is the bus. I’m too far from the zoo parking lot to make it to the stop in time, so I run away from the zoo, farther down the street toward the intersection. I remember seeing another bus stop there when I rode with Fisher to the ball field.

  I’m almost to the intersection, but not close enough to reach the bus stop in time, when the squeal and sigh of the bus brakes announce its approach behind me. I shift the albums to one arm and wave my other arm at the driver. It doesn’t look like he’s slowing down at all.

  I wave my arm as hard as I can and yell, “Stop!” But the wind gusts and snatches my voice. I can’t even hear it coming out of my mouth.

  The bus is my ship off the island. I have to catch it. I wave and yell again. The bus driver sees me this time. He turns on his flashers and pulls over to the curb.

  The door squeaks open, and the driver calls out to me, “Getting on?”

  “Yes,” I pant. “Thank you for stopping.”

  I clamber up the steps like I’ve forgotten how to walk and dig into my pocket for money to pay the fare. “Is this bus going that way?” I point to the right, the direction Mr. Bixly’s bright blue car turned at the intersection.

  The bus driver nods very big, like he’s holding back an eye roll and is tired of explaining the bus route to kids like me. But then he looks me up and down and says, “Hey.”

  “Yeah?” I still have a handful of change from the first bus I took today—which feels like years ago. I shove $1.25 into the fare box. “Please hurry,” I say to the driver. I’ve lost sight of Mr. Bixly’s car, and I can only hope that he’s been stopped at a few red lights, or by a police car for speeding.

  “Are you okay?” the bus driver asks.

  I nod, closing a fist around my bloody fingers and holding my head high. “I’m fine.”

  I walk down the aisle toward an empty row, nearly choking on the heavy tire smell and musty air-conditioning. The passengers on the bus stare at me with those looks that people save for unusual things. I run my hand through my hair and try to smooth the wild curls. It feels like I have some leaves and dirt in there, probably from when I tripped on the branch. I slide into the empty row and sit next to the window so I can watch for Mr. Bixly’s car. I can feel all the eyes on me, watching me from every angle.

  The bus starts forward and turns right at the light.

  “Excuse me?” I say to the bus driver. Some girls in front of me turn around and stare when I speak.

  “Yes?” He keeps his eyes straight forward on the enormous windshield and the road. The bus steering wheel is bigger around than the tires on the keepers’ work jeeps.

  “Do you have to stop at that bus stop there? It looks like there’s no one waiting.”

  “No, I don’t have to stop if there’s no one waiting,” he says. “It’s not a main stop.” He says it nicely enough, but with a little edge of tired.

  “Okay. Thank you,” I say. “I’m in a bit of a hurry.”

  “Oh, really?” the driver asks. I can see part of his face in the mirror above his head, and this time he does roll his eyes.

  Chills take over my arms and legs. The bus’s air-conditioning is too cold down my neck, and my injured hand is shaking like the helicopter seed pods that fall from the maple trees. I hold my shaking hand in my lap with my other hand, trying to calm the injured trembling as I watch out the giant windshield, looking for the ZOOMNGR car. Each time we pass a side street, I look down the street both ways, in case Mr. Bixly turned a corner.

  The bus picks up speed, its engine revving like a hungry beast. My heartbeat revs up with it. I have to find Mr. Bixly.

  Find the Fenn fortune.

  Find it.

  Cars are everywhere, but none of them are bright blue or have license plates that say ZOOMNGR. All the cars look unusually small from way up here inside a bus. They’re like minnows compared to one of those fat koi in the zoo pond. And that makes me think of the zoo. And that makes me think of Roger. And I realize that I’ve left the zoo without calling him on the radio.

  My radio is lost. I haven’t noticed its weight hanging from my waistband for a long time. I remember how my shorts snagged on the gutter when I climbed out of the Old County Bank window. Roger’s going to hear his own voice coming out of the rain gutter when he tries to call me on the radio—when no one knows where I am or that I’ve left my island on a city bus.

  And suddenly, I see the bright blue car. It’s stopped at the traffic light up ahead, but it is inching forward slowly in the very right lane—a turn lane. Mr. Bixly is going to turn right.

  “Hey, mister?” I ask the bus driver, leaning forward so he can hear me better.

  “Yeah?”

  “I really need to follow that blue car right up there.” I point at Mr. Bixly’s car. “It’s about to turn right.”

  The bus driver laughs and then stops himself. “This isn’t a police stakeout. I can’t just follow a car because you say so.”

  “Okay, well…can you drop me off wherever he goes, then?”

  “This isn’t a taxi either. It’s a bus with a route and a schedule, so I have to take you where this bus stops. Nowhere else.”

  “Oh.” I keep an eye on the ZOOMNGR license plate. “Are you turning right at the light?”

  “No. I’m going straight.”

  “Well, where’s the nearest scheduled stop?” I gather up the photo albums and lean forward on the seat.

  “In two more blocks.”

  I keep watching Mr. Bixly’s car as it turns right at the red light. The bus is stopped. “Well, you’re stopped, now. Can’t I just get off here?”

  “No, you have to wait for the next stop.”

&
nbsp; Mr. Bixly’s car has passed a business building, and I can no longer see it. I stand up and walk forward in the aisle until I’m almost next to the bus driver.

  “You have to get behind the yellow line before I can start driving,” he says, sounding annoyed.

  “I’m not sitting down,” I say. “This is where I need to get off.”

  “I told you—”

  “I’m not sitting down.” I shift the photo albums to get a better grip. “So you might as well open the door and let me off.”

  The light turns green, but the bus driver doesn’t push on the gas.

  “Let her get off,” yells a guy from the back of the bus. “We all have places to be!”

  The bus driver looks at me. Not just one of those annoyed, up-and-down glances that grown-ups sometimes do. He looks at my face and right in my eyes.

  “Are you sure you’re okay, kid?”

  Cars are honking behind the bus, and more passengers are grumbling at the driver and at me. For the first time, I don’t care what some rude stranger says, even outside the zoo. This is more important than what they say. This is for Miss Amanda. And something I felt when I was looking at Miss Amanda’s pictures tells me it might be for Nyah, too.

  “I’m okay,” I say. “I just need to follow that car.”

  He shrugs his shoulders and shakes his head, but I notice a hint of a smile starting at the corners of his mouth. He flips a switch that turns on flashing hazard lights on both sides of the bus. He turns the enormous steering wheel to the right, edges the bus closer to the curb, and pulls the large, hinged lever to open the doors.

  “Thanks.” I grab the railing to steady my wobbly legs and grip Miss Amanda’s photo albums tightly before jumping to the curb.

  More cars honk at me and the bus. The driver smiles a little and waves as he closes the door and the bus pulls away.