The Elephant's Trump

by Jonny Moon

  Zana managed to compose her features into an expression of concern. “Sad? Why is it making you sad, honey?” she asked.

  Jack explained that it was so hard seeing their local zoo on the TV when they couldn’t afford to go for real. Jack made a big thing about having a single mum and not a lot of money. Both of which were basically true, actually.

  Zana was touched by his story. Well, at least that’s what she told Jack. In reality she was thinking that the children would make a great item for the show. Her producer was always yelling at her to make more of a creative contribution. Well, now she had one. Some local kids, unable to visit the zoo because of personal circumstances, would get a chance to see all their favourite animals courtesy of Zoo Watch Live Update. Brilliant TV. She’d probably get her own chat show out of this.

  Thirty minutes later she had pitched the idea to her producer and been given the green light. There’d been a bit of a hiccup with the zoo authorities about Jack’s dog, but Jack had put on a great performance of a child about to burst into tears and the men in suits had decided to allow Snivel to stay with Jack – as long as he remained on a lead.

  “Where did you learn to act like that?” asked Ruby as they were allowed through the zoo turnstiles. “That was brilliant bottom-lip quivering.”

  “Watching those stupid soaps my mum likes,” explained Jack, with a grin.

  Zana took them through to the gorilla house where the TV crew were setting up to do some recording. “Although it’s called Live Update we do pre-record a lot of segments,” Zana explained. She told them that she needed to do some pick-ups for some material they shot yesterday and that they would be ready to start shooting with the three kids in a couple of hours’ time.

  “Why don’t we have a look around?” suggested Jack helpfully. “Maybe we can spot some of our favourite animals that we can talk about when you interview us.”

  “Brilliant idea,” said Zana. “Meet me back here.”

  Jack, Ruby, Oscar and Snivel hurried off, grateful to get away from the overbearing TV host.

  “What’s your mum going to say when she sees you on TV tonight?” wondered Oscar.

  “Never mind about that,” said Jack. “We need to find the alien first, remember? Now – where’s the elephant house?”

  “I know a short cut,” said Oscar. “Follow me.”

  “Are you sure about this?”

  Jack watched nervously as Oscar fiddled with the lock on a metal door.

  “Yeah, of course I am,” said Oscar. “There’s a whole maze of backstage alleys that the keepers use to get around the different enclosures and if we go through here we’ll get to them.” Oscar’s lock-picking worked and the door sprung open. “Come on…”

  Jack, Ruby and Snivel followed Oscar through the door, which swung shut behind them. They found themselves in the shade of some trees.

  “Where’s the path?” wondered Ruby.

  “Must be over this way,” said Oscar, moving towards some light.

  “I can see a path,” said Jack, pointing. “Over there.”

  Ruby looked in the direction Jack was pointing.

  “But that’s the other side of the fence…”

  Suddenly they heard a chilling howl. Oscar stopped dead in his tracks and the others careered into him.

  “What’s that?” he whispered.

  The howl came again, and was joined by another. And they both sounded very close.

  “I’ve got a bad feeling about this…” muttered Jack.

  Something was moving in the bushes near to them.

  “I’ve got a plan,” said Oscar, smartly.

  “I’m all ears,” replied Jack.

  “RUN!” suggested Oscar.

  They ran. And the creatures whose enclosure they had stumbled into ran too. Yelping, howling and barking at the intruders, a half-dozen animals chased the three children and the robot dog.

  “Wolves!” screamed Oscar, as one snapped at his heels and nearly took a bite out of his bum. Jack felt his heart pounding in his chest as he ran away from the furious predators. But then Snivel turned around and activated his third eye, which flashed yellow and emitted a blast of high-pitched sound.

  The wolves stopped, whining. They lowered their heads as if in pain.

  “Just in time,” gasped Ruby. Jack saw that they had reached a dead end – in front of them was a rugged cliff face that formed the end of the wolf enclosure. Behind them the six wolves spread out in a semi-circle around them, waiting. Jack could tell that whatever Snivel had done to them was wearing off. They didn’t look pained now. Just angry.

  “My sonic blast worked once,” said Snivel. “But without some more snot I won’t have enough power for another dose.” Snivel had been constructed out of bits of alien technology, so he ran on alien fuel: snot!

  “Well, don’t look at me,” said Ruby. “I blow my nose.”

  Oscar used his finger to rummage experimentally in his nostrils. “Sorry,” he said.

  “We have to get out of here,” Jack said.

  Ruby was shrugging out of her backpack and unzipping it. She quickly pulled out her special climbing shoes and put them on.

  “Only one way to go,” she told them, “and that’s up.”

  Jack and Oscar craned their necks and looked up at the cliff face. It was very steep.

  “Cool!” said Oscar, who was never happier than when facing an insanely dangerous challenge.

  “No way!” said Jack, who preferred to live a pain-free existence.

  But Ruby was already on the wall. Finding foot and hand holds with apparent ease she was quickly halfway up the cliff.

  “I’ve got rope,” she called down to them. “When I’m at the top I’ll throw it down and you can use it to help you climb.”

  Moments later she disappeared from sight. Jack and Oscar waited nervously. Behind them the wolves stirred and shuffled a little bit closer.

  “What’s keeping her?” wondered Oscar.

  The end of a thin rope dropped at their feet from above.

  Jack passed it to Oscar. “You go first. Then you and Ruby can haul me up.”

  Oscar shook his head. “I can’t leave you down here alone.”

  One of the wolves chose that moment to growl in a low threatening manner.

  “Then again,” continued Oscar, “maybe you’re right.” He grabbed the rope and quickly used it to help him climb to the top.

  “Just you and me then,” said Jack to Snivel.

  “Don’t worry about me,” said Snivel, and promptly ran up the wall as if it was horizontal rather than vertical.

  “Oh, great,” muttered Jack to himself.

  Behind him the wolves stirred again. Suddenly there was a crashing sound from above.

  “Oscar, you clumsy oaf!” shouted Ruby, furiously.

  Something was falling towards him. Jack took a step back and the rope fell at his feet – all of it! Now how was he going to get up the wall?

  Jack looked at the cliff face again. He could see the first hand– and footholds that Ruby had used but after that it wasn’t so clear. This was SO not his area of expertise. Jack just couldn’t do it. He was an inventor not an action hero. There must be something he had that might help. He checked his pockets quickly and came across…his new improved dog whistle. Wolves were a kind of dogs, weren’t they? Maybe…

  Jack put the instrument to his lips, covered the hole marked ‘Roll over’ with a finger and blew.

  Nothing happened. The sound was too high-pitched to be heard by human ears anyway but he had hoped to see some effect on the wolves. Unfortunately they were still slowly closing in on him. He tried again.

  Same result. But this time there was something else. A sort of “ooh” sound like the noise a crowd makes when watching fireworks or a man juggling. It was coming from somewhere far away on the other side of the wall.

  Jack tried another command. This time he went for ‘Sit’. Again the dog whistle had no effect on the wolves but the crowd – wherev
er they were – made another ‘ooh’ sound and followed it with a smattering of applause. Something was impressing them at least. If only something would impress the wolves.

  Suddenly a new rope dropped down beside him.

  “Grab hold!” shouted Oscar.

  Jack wrapped the rope around his waist and held on. Ruby and Oscar pulled and he began to rise into the air. And not a moment too soon – the wolves were almost upon him. They snapped angrily at his heels as he disappeared into the air. A few moments later his friends hauled him over the lip of the cliff and he was able to clamber over a low wall back into the human-populated area of the zoo.

  “The elephants are just over here,” said Ruby. She began to lead the way. As the trio walked they passed a young girl in a pushchair being wheeled along by her mother.

  “Mummy, how did they make the elephant roll over and sit like that?” asked the little girl.

  Jack looked at the dog whistle. Was it possible? Could his invention have worked on the elephant?

  CHAPTER SIX

  The elephant enclosure was one of the largest in the zoo. It was fronted by a large courtyard in which the elephants could be seen playing in a massive mud bath. At the back of the courtyard were several connected buildings which the elephants could sleep in. In front of the main arena was a deep moat-like trough separating the elephants from their visitors. Jack thought initially that this was a safety feature but then one of the elephants farted and Jack realised that the distance between humans and elephants was essential. The smell was absolutely disgusting. Much worse than anything they’d encountered while searching for the Burrapong so far.

  “That’s even worse than my dad’s farts,” said Oscar with feeling – and he was right.

  But while Jack and his friends were forced to hold their noses at the rancid stench there was one person who seemed to be actually enjoying it. There was a single zoo keeper on duty in the elephant house; a hairy, bearded and slightly overweight man in his twenties, squeezed into the regulation zoo employee green overalls. There was something just a little bit wrong about the man. Jack wasn’t sure what it was but there was definitely something. Maybe the hair was just a little bit lifeless, the skin just a touch too rubbery.

  Or maybe it was the way the keeper was bending into the path of the elephant’s fart and taking an enormous deep breath.

  “That’s him, isn’t it?” said Ruby excitedly. Although she had been a major part of catching their first alien she hadn’t been with them when they’d first identified it. This was all new to her.

  Jack nodded. He felt a little more at home with this alien-spotting now. As they watched, another elephant let rip and the keeper/alien ran across the enclosure to suck up the odour into his nostrils.

  “That’s just disgusting,” commented Ruby, pulling a face.

  “Well, he won’t be around long now,” said Oscar confidently. “We’ll just send Snivel in, Jack can shout the magic words and wham! Snivel will turn into his trap form and suck the sucker in. Job done.”

  Ruby shook her head. “Don’t you ever pay attention?” she asked him.

  Oscar shrugged. “What? What did I forget?”

  “The communications thing, the whatch-macallit in four bits…we have to find the Burrapong’s bit of the wotsit,” Ruby reminded him.

  “The whatch-macallit wotsit?” repeated Oscar, not following at all.

  “The Blower!” explained Jack patiently. “We have get hold of this guy’s segment of the Blower before we can trap him.”

  The three of them took a closer look at the keeper and the enclosure.

  “Well, he’s not wearing it round his neck like the last one,” said Jack.

  “So where is it?” asked Ruby. “More to the point – what does it look like?”

  Snivel spoke up. “It could look like anything,” he explained.

  “Well, that’s a lot of help,” muttered Ruby, not at all impressed.

  “Sorry,” said Snivel, “but that’s the best I can do.”

  Oscar scratched his head. “The last one was disguised as a necklace, wasn’t it?”

  Jack nodded. “It sort of glowed,” he recalled.

  Oscar nodded. “Yeah, it did, didn’t it? A bit like that elephant’s earring.”

  Ruby nudged Oscar with her elbow.

  “Stop mucking about – who ever heard of an elephant with an earring?”

  Oscar pulled a face. “I dunno but that one over there has got one – look.”

  They looked at the elephant Oscar was pointing at. It was the largest elephant in the enclosure – a massive giant that must have been nearly three metres tall. It also seemed to be the moodiest. It was banging its head against a tyre hanging from a tree branch and making angry grunting noises. In one of its massive flapping ears it had a sort of stud earring – an earring that glowed with a strangely familiar blue light.

  “That’s it,” said Jack. “That has to be the blower segment.”

  He checked his watch. It was feeding time at the penguins in thirty minutes’ time. Almost everyone at the zoo would converge on the penguins’ enclosure for that, making it the best time to make their attempt at the elephant. He explained his thinking to the others.

  “But what about trapping the alien?” asked Snivel after Jack had explained his plan.

  “We’ll deal with that part when we get to it,” said Jack, “but the first thing is to secure that part of the Blower.”

  Oscar sneaked into the keeper’s office and ‘borrowed’ a bag labelled ‘Elephants’ Treats’. He returned to the others and gave them a thumbs-up sign.

  Jack smiled. Everything was coming together.

  Jack was so excited he didn’t notice Ruby powdering her hands. She had her own plan – and it was far more exciting and dangerous than his.

  “I wonder why the blower part is on the elephant,” said Jack as they returned to the front of the enclosure. “You’d think the alien would keep it somewhere safe.”

  “It’s on top of the elephant creature,” said Snivel. “How much safer can you get?”

  Ruby grinned. “A lot, at least when I’m around.”

  “What are you talking about?” asked Jack. “Your plan is too complicated,” she told him. “I’ll just climb up him and take the wotsit.”

  “Blower part,” Jack corrected her automatically.

  “Whatever.”

  Oscar looked at the elephant and then back at Ruby. “It’s not like a wall, you know. It moves. What if it chucks you off?”

  Ruby shrugged. “It’s not going to chuck me off. I went on a bucking bronco ride at the fair last year and they had to pay me to get off I was on it for so long.”

  Oscar looked at Ruby and pulled a face. He was half annoyed and half impressed. Jack had to stop himself from laughing. Sometimes Ruby seemed to out-Oscar Oscar.

  “Look I can easily climb the elephant and get the…” Ruby paused and then, after making a real effort of memory, said, “Blower bit.”

  Oscar and Jack still looked doubtful.

  “You wouldn’t have got hold of the first bit without my surfing skills,” she reminded them.

  Oscar and Jack sighed. Ruby was the kind of girl you just couldn’t argue with. “OK,” said Jack, “You’re on.”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  The first part of the plan was the easiest. Getting into the actual elephant enclosure wasn’t too difficult. Oscar’s lock-picking soon had them through a gate which gave them access. As Jack had predicted, the crowds had hurried off to see feeding time with the penguins and, with no one around to watch them, most of the elephants had trudged inside.

  The giant elephant that was of most interest to Jack and his friends was standing in one of the hay-filled bays, relaxing – exactly how they wanted him. Jack smiled at Ruby.

  Oscar opened the bag of elephant treats and approached the giant pachyderm. “Here you are, Jumbo, just for you…” he said, holding the bag out. The elephant reached out with his trunk and took something
from the bag. It was an apple. The elephant bent his trunk back and popped the apple into his mouth.

  “Plenty more where that came from,” offered Oscar, stroking the elephant’s trunk with his other hand.

  “Are you sure you’re up for this?” Jack asked Ruby.

  “Absolutely,” she said with a grin. While Oscar kept the elephant occupied she quickly used her climbing skills to shimmy up the trunk and onto his head. From there she got herself into position on the elephant’s shoulders. Now she could begin to reach down towards the ear where the mysterious earring was glowing.

  Suddenly there was a horrified cry.

  “Oy!” It was the elephant keeper, and he was standing in the doorway. With the terrifying sound of a plum splitting, but amplified about a thousand times, the alien abandoned its disguise, shedding and shredding his ‘human’ skin to reveal his true form. It was even worse in the flesh than it had been in Snivel’s hologram projection. It was like looking at a giant insect, a bit like a cross between a house fly and a mosquito. Despite losing its human disguise it was still capable of speech.

  “Get away from there, human half-grown!” it screeched in a high-pitched tone. “Or I will suck your friend dry.”

  Without warning it pounced on Oscar, pulling him to the ground.

  Petrified, Oscar broke wind. The alien roared with delight. “Let the harvest begin!” it cried and thrust its head directly towards poor Oscar’s bum.

  While Jack looked on in horror, the alien took a deep breath and began to expand. Before his very eyes the Burrapong was getting bigger.

  Oscar’s cheeks were sucked in and his eyes bulged. A horrible squeal came from his mouth.

  “It’s vacuuming up his farts!” said Snivel. “All of them. We have to stop him before he pulls Oscar inside out!”

  Jack looked around in panic. There had to be something round here that might help. What would they do if one of the elephants went on a rampage? Then he saw it, a tranquiliser gun set in a glass case marked ‘Break in case of emergency’.

  Jack was fairly certain that imminent danger of a child being sucked inside out by an alien was not the kind of emergency anyone at the zoo had in mind when they had installed the gun – but it had to count.