An Elephantasy

by María Elena Walsh

  They immediately began to see to the patients and, using cough syrup and a screwdriver, managed to get their arms back down.

  Naturally, the doctors and dentists then started flying kites themselves, too.

  We kept on trying to fish the astronauts down, until my brother Roberto had a brilliant idea.

  He called me to one side with a mysterious look on his face and whispered:

  “I bet Dailan Kifki’s getting hungry.”

  “Of course he is, he’s starving!” I answered, “But I’m sure he doesn’t want to come down, for fear we’ll tell him off.”

  “I know what will make him land,” said my brother Roberto, still sounding mysterious.

  “So what should we be doing?” I asked, intrigued.

  “Making lovely oats soup,” he replied. “As soon as he smells it, he’ll be zooming back down to earth before you know it.”

  “And how are we going to make lovely oats soup here in the middle of the countryside?” I asked.

  “Let’s ask Granddad,” he replied. “He used to be a Boy Scout. He knows how to solve these problems.”

  And off we went to ask Granddad how we might be able to make lovely oats soup in the middle of the countryside.

  “The kind of oats soup made with water or with milk?” asked Granddad.

  “With milk, of course!” we replied.

  “Then it’s very simple,” replied Granddad. “You put six kilos of oats in a saucepan—”

  “But we haven’t got any oats,” I said.

  “Or a saucepan,” added Roberto.

  “Then you’ll have to plant some oats,” said Granddad, “and while they’re growing, you can ask if one of the Ambassadors will lend you his top hat and we’ll use that as a saucepan.”

  Granddad really is very clever.

  He immediately set about planting oats while my brother and I, on tiptoes and ever so quiet, went to try and get the top hat off the head of one of the Ambassadors without his noticing.

  Luckily one of them was half asleep, leaning up against the trunk of a tree, so we approached him from behind and started to take off his top hat.

  It wasn’t easy, because the top hat was too small for him and he was wearing it wedged down quite tightly. But at last we managed it.

  “Hooray, we’ve got our saucepan!” yelled my brother Roberto.

  “Just a moment,” I said. “When Mister Ambassador wakes up and feels the sun on the top of his bald head he’ll get angry, and he’s going to realise we’ve stolen his top hat.”

  So the two of us hurriedly wove a top hat out of eucalyptus leaves and pulled it down onto his head, nice and slow so as not to wake him.

  A beautiful, scented top hat—and good for a cough, too!

  Granddad was looking pleased at how well the oats were growing.

  “We’ve got our saucepan,” we said.

  As grumpy as ever, he glanced at it out the corner of his eye and muttered:

  “Well, it’s not great, but in the country you have to make do with whatever you’ve got.”

  He immediately sent my brother Roberto off to light the fire.

  “I haven’t got any matches,” said Roberto. “How should I do it?”

  “Like the natives, ignorant child!” answered my granddad, shooting him a thunderous look.

  And so we started rubbing two stones together to make sparks, while Granddad gathered twigs and dry leaves.

  It was pretty hard work, but finally—like two hours later—we managed to light a decent fire.

  Naturally, as soon as we’d lit it, Granddad discovered he had a box of matches in his pocket for lighting his pipe.

  In the meantime the oats had grown, so we threw them into the saucepan—that is, into the Ambassador’s top hat.

  I looked up at the sky. Nothing had changed: Dailan Kifki was fluttering about looking perfectly calm, the Fireman was still on Dailan Kifki’s head, and everyone was trying to fish them down with their kites.

  Our only remaining hope was that the yummy smell of lovely oats soup might tempt him and they’d fly a little lower to smell it better.

  But then…

  17

  We were just about to put the oat-filled top hat over the fire (some distance away, so it wouldn’t singe) when we realised we were still missing the main ingredient: milk.

  And there wasn’t a milkman anywhere to be seen in the crowd.

  “How are we going to make lovely oats soup without any milk?” I asked, desperate.

  “I think I saw a cow out there somewhere,” said Granddad.

  “Yes, I saw one too,” added my brother Roberto.

  “Where, where?” we all asked, scanning the horizon, shading our eyes with our hands.

  Finally waaaaaaay off in the distance I thought I could see some horns.

  “There’s one!” I shouted.

  “Get her!” ordered Granddad, grabbing hold of his butterfly net.

  “Milk her!” bellowed my brother Roberto, who hadn’t the slightest idea of how one milks a cow.

  And off the three of us ran.

  After, like, a mile of running, the three of us had to turn right around again because we realised we hadn’t brought the container for the milk.

  We came back for the top hat, then raced off again, fast as the devil.

  We approached the cow slowly, really slowly, the three of us hand in hand, absolutely terrified.

  I elbowed Granddad and said:

  “You talk to her, Granddad, you’re the biggest. She won’t pay any attention to me.”

  Granddad elbowed my brother Roberto and said:

  “You talk to her, you’re the youngest.”

  And my brother elbowed me and said:

  “You talk to her, you’re a woman.”

  So there we were, the three of us, hand in hand, looking at the cow, the cow looking at us (with great curiosity), and no one getting up the nerve to ask permission to milk her, so that we’d have a little bit of milk for preparing Dailan Kifki’s soup.

  No one!

  Finally I summoned up my courage, cleared my throat, straightened out my dress and, showing I was the bravest of the three, I said to the cow:

  “Good afternoon, Mrs Cow.”

  The cow looked at me, very alert, and replied:

  “Moo.”

  I tried to make a bit of small talk to distract her, because of course you can’t simply come along expecting to milk a cow just like that.

  And so I said:

  “What a lovely day, isn’t it, Mrs Cow?”

  And she—very alert—nodded and said again insistently:

  “Moo.”

  Granddad elbowed me and muttered:

  “Get on with it then, we’ve got to start the milking.”

  So I scratched the cow’s ear, just a bit, and asked sweetly:

  “I wonder whether you might permit us, oh noble Mrs Cow, to take a nice little bit of milk from you?”

  The cow, still very alert, nodded and said again:

  “Moo.”

  “I’ll handle this,” said Granddad.

  And he started to milk her, while my brother Roberto held the top hat and I went on stroking behind her ear, so she wouldn’t get scared.

  Once we had filled the top hat, we thanked her, bowing low, and the cow replied with a wave of her little tail.

  When we put the soup back on the fire, Granddad kept himself busy telling half the world that all on his own he’d tamed a ferocious wild cow in the forests of Ituzaingó.

  What do you say to that!

  18

  I was stirring the soup with a branch.

  My brother Roberto, from time to time, would put a finger into the top hat and taste it.

  The delicious scent of lovely oats soup with milk was starting to rise up towards the sky, with just a hint of toasted top hat…

  The smell was so delicious that a whole load of busybodies came over, my Auntie Clodomira among others. Everyone wanted to try it.

&nbs
p; Everyone was sniffing at it so hard, inhaling so deeply, that we had to get rid of them.

  “On you go, on you go, get out of here, at this rate you won’t leave the tiniest drop of soup smell left for Dailan Kifki,” we said.

  Since they didn’t go, I had to ask the Superintendent for help, and using his whistle, his truncheon and his white gloves he managed to move the busybodies away and get them to stand over by the wire fence.

  Every once in a while, still stirring the soup, I glanced up at the sky.

  Dailan Kifki and the Fireman were still fluttering about, but soon the aroma of soup got stronger and I noticed Dailan Kifki looking down and stretching out his trunk to smell it better.

  “Prepare the kites!” commanded Granddad.

  Everyone started flying their kites, and gathered them close to one another right by the voyagers.

  My brother Roberto was blowing on the fire and his face was getting covered in soot and smoke.

  I stirred more and more excitedly and blew the steam up towards the sky.

  It really was a great idea: Dailan Kifki just could not resist.

  He started to fly in circles around the paddock, at a very low altitude.

  Finally some people were able to tangle him in their kites.

  You wouldn’t believe how much we cheered and applauded.

  Nice and slowly, they began to lower the kites, and with them Dailan Kifki and the Fireman, who still had their eyes fixed on the soup.

  They came gliding down, down, down…

  Finally Dailan Kifki came to a gentle landing, sweetly, like marmalade, like a little feather, like a piece of fluff, like a dandelion abandoned by the breeze on a sandy beach…

  And yes—it just so happened that Dailan Kifki came down to earth right beside the lovely oats soup.

  The crowd fell into an incredible silence…

  Then, majestically, Dailan Kifki approached the top hat, plunged in his trunk and drank up all the soup without stopping to take a breath.

  I was so overwhelmed that I had to stifle a little cough in my collar.

  19

  But don’t think for a moment that our troubles were over once Dailan Kifki had landed.

  Nope.

  They were only just beginning.

  You have no idea how complicated it is to keep an elephant!

  I’d advise you never to try keeping such a big creature—to be satisfied with a pussycat, instead, or a doggywog, or a tweetybird. It’s simpler, and cheaper, and after all, any one of those can be a most affectionate pet.

  Well, as I was saying, Dailan Kifki landed, and drank up all his soup in one gulp, while the Fireman remained up on top, posing for the photographers and the news cameras.

  The Fireman was so dizzy with his success that he hadn’t noticed what was happening to the soup.

  But when he saw that Dailan Kifki had drunk it all for himself, what do you think he did? He started to cry!

  I didn’t know what was wrong with him, so I asked the Captain of the Firemen, who answered:

  “He’s feeling very sad-sad-sad that all the soup’s been had-had-had.”

  “Oh, the shame!” I said. “Such a big, strong Fireman crying over a bit of an elephant’s lovely oats soup. Mister Captain, tell him to dismount and help us with all the many things we’ve got to do, instead of crying like a baby.”

  So the Captain squared up in front of the Fireman, saluted and gave the order:

  “Mister Fireman, don’t delay, get off that creature right away!”

  But do you know what that ill-mannered Fireman replied?

  “I won’t get off here if you yell. ’Cos I want my oats soup as well.”

  “Can’t you see there’s none left?” I said.

  Then my mother came over and said:

  “Really, my girl, when you marry this Fireman, I think you’re going to have to make him lovely oats soup every blessed day.”

  “I have no intention of marrying a cry-baby Fireman!” I replied.

  The Fireman didn’t want to get down off Dailan Kifki’s head, so to prevent another escape I started removing the elephant’s wings.

  I untied the ribbons, unstuck the bits of paper, and cut the pieces of twine, because if he kept the wings on I was sure they’d fly away again.

  If only I hadn’t done that.

  When Dailan Kifki realised I was taking off his wings he began to cry like twenty elephants who had peeled twenty tons of onions.

  Naturally, before long the Manager of the Ituzaingó Post Office showed up, furiouser than ever, because the commotion had unstuck all the stamps again.

  This business with the stamps was beginning to get on my nerves.

  20

  I’d always thought that when Dailan Kifki and the Fireman landed safe and sound we’d have a party and there would be great happiness, a national holiday, a cannon-volley salute, a musical band and fireworks.

  There wasn’t.

  There was just a lot of terrible weeping. Everyone cried so much that the paddock began to flood and my Auntie Clodomira ran this way and that with her open umbrella.

  The Fireman was crying because there wasn’t even a drop of soup left for him.

  Dailan Kifki was crying because I’d taken off his wings and he wouldn’t be doing any more flying.

  The Captain of the Firemen was crying because the Fireman wouldn’t get down off the elephant.

  Granddad was crying because nobody would let him make a speech.

  My mum was crying because I didn’t want to marry the Fireman.

  But there was one person who was crying harder than anyone else: the Ambassador whose top hat we’d stolen!

  We had been intending to give it a good clean and return it once the soup was done.

  But we didn’t.

  We couldn’t.

  Because as it turned out, Dailan Kifki had been so hungry that after drinking all the soup he’d eaten the top hat too, biting through it cranch crinch crunch as though it were a wafer or an ice cream cone.

  By the time I noticed, all that was left of the top hat was the ribbon.

  The Ambassador wasn’t satisfied with that, of course, and even threatened to declare war and everything.

  I tried to keep perfectly calm, but I kept seeing so many other people crying that my own bottom lip was starting to quiver.

  By now it was already late, we’d completed our rescue mission and it was time to think about heading home.

  More and more busybodies kept arriving, and more photographers.

  There wasn’t one person, even with so many authorities around, who could keep everyone in order.

  Until my Auntie Clodomira gave the command to the Superintendent. And the Superintendent then straightened his cap, did his jacket up smartly, gave his buttons a good shine with his sleeve, put on his white gloves, which were pretty well black by this point, grabbed hold of his truncheon, blew on his whistle and with his arms spread wide ordered everybody to STOP CRYING.

  At once a great silence reigned, such a great silence that the paddock felt like a church.

  The altar boys brought their hands together and rolled their eyes heavenward.

  And in the middle of this amazing silence, we could hear—from far, far away—a very tuneful little melody.

  Everyone looked out towards the horizon.

  We saw a huge cloud of dust and heard the galloping of many horses.

  The music grew.

  All of a sudden, our jaws dropped.

  21

  We couldn’t close our mouths.

  You won’t believe me, but it’s true.

  A lovely carriage drawn by ten white horses!

  “Could it be the Queen of England?” I wondered. “But how could she have heard about the adventure of Dailan Kifki so fast and come all the way to Ituzaingó by carriage?”

  “Who could it be?” everyone started to ask.

  Granddad prepared for war.

  “Atten…shun!” he shouted. “Everyone
put on your overalls!”

  Everyone did as they were told. Of course, none of them actually had any overalls because they weren’t at school, but everyone smoothed down their clothes, combed their fingers through their hair, shook off a few bits of fluff, did up their buttons, straightened their top hats and lined up in rows with the most serious expressions they had, to receive the dazzling and mysterious visitors.

  Someone suggested that since we’d spent so many days coming and going and so many nights without so much as forty winks, maybe we were just seeing things, like those travellers in the desert.

  But it turns out we weren’t.

  The carriage was getting closer and closer. And it was real.

  It was a real carriage made entirely of gold, and little pearls, except for the mudguards, which were plastic.

  The horses were real, too: all of them made of one hundred per cent horse, twirling their very long curly manes, dyed green, pink and yellow.

  The carriage braked right in front of Dailan Kifki, and my brother Roberto said:

  “We’re toast.”

  The soldiers stood to attention and saluted, just in case.

  Granddad presented arms.

  My Auntie Clodomira was convinced that it was the President of the Republic inside that carriage, but that sounded a bit strange to me, as I know the President doesn’t travel by carriage, nor by skateboard, but by car or helicopter.

  The carriage just stood there, with its doors and windows closed.

  And the horses were calm and still, as though their clockwork had suddenly wound down.

  22

  Finally my Auntie Clodomira couldn’t take it any longer and raced purposefully over to the carriage to see who our famous visitors were.

  The moment she opened the door, out leapt a little dwarf.

  Yes, a dwarf just like a real one in a story: with a coloured hat, a white beard, and looking terrifically grouchy. But there was one other thing. He looked different from other famous dwarves because he was dressed like a footballer.