Erica promised, and wrote down all the ingredients Oliver listed for a special medicine for animal joints. He was so kind and calm that when he finally had to go, and she heard the click of his phone hanging up, she felt even lonelier than before. Part of her wanted to give in there and then. But she had to make the medicine, and some of the ingredients weren’t in the house, so she put on her sandals to go in to town and Get On With Things. If you are in a difficult situation, Getting On With Things is always a good choice.
Buying the ingredients took her a while, as some were very unusual, and she had to trail around town trying to find them (guava juice certainly wasn’t in the supermarket – and she didn’t even know what star anise was). When she had them all, she had to boil the mixture and then let it simmer for an hour. It all seemed unbearably slow. While it simmered she went to sit with the Elephant, who curled his trunk around her, and they told each other about how it would be all right. Neither of them sounded very sure.
When the medicine was finally ready, she fed it to the Elephant, and found an old tartan scarf of Uncle Jeff’s to bandage up his knee in the vague hope that this would help too.
It seemed to her that an hour later he looked a bit less pale, although he still couldn’t stand. After two hours he tried to insist that he could, but he couldn’t hide how much it hurt, and she made him sit down again. She could just imagine Amy Avis tutting and writing in her notebook that she had hurt the Elephant.
Nobody else ever seemed to realize that the Elephant did things for himself.
It was clear that the Elephant wasn’t going to be ready to leave that day. After lunch he insisted he was feeling better, and trod gingerly down the stairs, leaning against the banister and cracking it in places as he went. But by the time he got to the bottom he was worn out. It was no good. The medicine wasn’t working fast enough.
Erica kept looking nervously out of the window for the van. Every car made her jump. She didn’t see the van, but what she did see, at about half past three, was Miss Pritchett coming back from town. Erica knew that shouting at Miss Pritchett wasn’t going to help, but she was very upset, and even very practical people have tantrums every now and then. So she ran outside and began shouting as loudly as her small human lungs could manage.
“Erica,” said Miss Pritchett, and when that didn’t stop the shouting, she said, “Erica!” and then, “ERICA!”
This last one was so forceful for such a tiny lady that Erica stopped in sheer surprise. “Are you trying to tell me,” said Miss Pritchett, “that someone has reported that Elephant of yours?”
Erica carried on feeling very cross, but just a little less certain. “You mean that you have reported him.” She paused. “Haven’t you?”
“No,” said Miss Pritchett. “Although I can’t say I’m surprised that someone has, with you showing him off for all the world to see. Have you sent him away somewhere sensible?”
Erica didn’t know what to think, so she just said, “I can’t. He’s hurt his knee.”
“Oh dear,” said Miss Pritchett, and she folded her face up in a slightly different way, which looked a little less cross and a little more worried. “That is a problem. What a pair of idiots. Well, I suppose you’d better hide him in my house then. Can he get that far?”
Erica looked hard at Miss Pritchett, and tried to guess what she was up to. Why would she want to get the Elephant into her house? Hadn’t she already won? What difference did it make now? Unless, of course, she was telling the truth. The old lady was grumpy and sharp-tongued and nosy, but she didn’t seem like a liar.
Miss Pritchett must have guessed her thoughts. “Come on, Erica” she said. “Look at it this way: if I’m lying and I turn him in, you’re no worse off than you were before. And if I’m not lying, then I might be able to help.” And no matter which way Erica thought about this, it still seemed to be true.
So, three minutes later, Erica and the Elephant were going into Miss Pritchett’s by the back door (to avoid being seen), not knowing what to think but just about daring to hope.
Erica had never tried to imagine the inside of Miss Pritchett’s house. If she had, she would not have come up with this.
The whole place was full of ants.
Wherever Erica looked, there were glass containers full of soil: on shelves lining the walls, on every flat surface, even hanging like wind chimes from the ceiling. Each one was laced all over with tunnels, and up and down the tunnels scurried the ants. There were black ants and red ants; some as big as your thumb and some almost too small to see; quick ants and slow ants; ants in lines and clumps and on lone missions. Erica couldn’t take her eyes off them. Everywhere you looked, a tiny six-legged someone was doing something with an air of Great Importance.
Miss Pritchett smiled a tiny smile. “You and your uncle aren’t the only ones keen on exotic animals. I have more species of ant here than any other collector in England,” she said proudly. “Nobody needs a Licence for ants, Erica, and I highly recommend them. Wonderful fellows. Tiny, but stronger than your elephant relative to their size – they can lift things that weigh five thousand times more than their own body.”
The Elephant, kneeling slightly to rest his bad leg, considered the nearest box. His trunk was firmly curled inwards. He looked like he wouldn’t want to keep ants even if they could juggle and dance the Macarena. “Tea?” said Miss Pritchett.
Erica was still hunting for the catch, but she couldn’t see a catch to tea, so she just said yes. And then, because sometimes it is best to tackle things head on, she said, “Miss Pritchett, why are you helping us when you hate the Elephant so much?”
Miss Pritchett’s face unfolded into a stretched-out sheet of surprise. “What on earth makes you think I hate him?”
Erica was so pleased that she had said “him” and not “it” that she suddenly felt wrong-footed. “Um,” she said. “Well, because,” she added. “Because of the – er, um,” she explained. And Miss Pritchett just kept looking at her, frowning, because she wasn’t making a lot of sense. So at last she said, “Because you were always so cross with us.”
“I was cross with you for parading him around. Someone was bound to report you. If I wanted to report you, I would have called the police the day he arrived.” She poured boiling water into the teapot. “It’s no problem to me if you want to keep an Elephant. I’ve heard they’re very good company. Lord knows, he must be better than that uncle of yours. I’ll be giving him a piece of my mind when he gets back – he promised me this would just be a short trip.”
Erica began to feel very foolish. It was true that Miss Pritchett was prickly and a little rude. But it was clear that Erica hadn’t been listening to her properly – and not just about the Elephant. It dawned on her that all that nosy muttering over the fence at Uncle Jeff had probably been Miss Pritchett’s way of looking out for her. “Oh,” she said. “I misunderstood.”
“Don’t look so much like a slapped fish,” said Miss Pritchett. “Lord knows, I don’t speak poetry. You wouldn’t be the first person to think I’m a nasty old fool.” Erica felt like she should say sorry, but Miss Pritchett seemed perfectly cheerful about it. She brought the teapot over and sat down across the table from Erica, looking at her without smiling, but not unkindly. “It’s one of the hazards of being human, Erica. Take ants. They’re deaf, and some species are blind. They tell each other what’s going on with chemical signals – one for danger, one for food, and what have you. Simple. Meanwhile we tie ourselves in knots trying to understand each other, and half the time we get it wrong.” She poured the tea and Erica sipped hers, suddenly feeling very tired. The Elephant was staying very still, concentrating on not smashing any glass boxes, and eyeing the ants suspiciously.
“Now,” said Miss Pritchett – and it was the sort of “now” that made Erica put down her tea and the Elephant straighten his trunk importantly – “when are these meddlers coming?”
“Any time this afternoon.”
“Right, then we
’ve no time to lose. You,” she said to the Elephant, “need to leave prints through your garden and smash up the back fence, then get inside my bathroom. That’s the only room where they can’t spot you through a window. You” – she turned back to Erica – “need to go next door and tell them he’s run away.”
“Will they believe me?” asked Erica.
“Oh, I doubt it,” she replied. “But as long as they can’t find the Elephant, there won’t be very much they can do about it. You might have to stay here a few days, you know,” she warned the Elephant, “and then we will come up with something else.”
Soon two humans and one elephant were scuttling about as busily as the worker ants. The Elephant, slowly and a little painfully, smashed his way out of the garden. Erica was delighted to see that he could already walk for longer before taking a rest, and she thanked heaven for Oliver and his medicine. Miss Pritchett tidied up the signs that an elephant had been in the kitchen while Erica ran to the shops for cabbage supplies.
The Elephant made himself as small as he could in Miss Pritchett’s bathroom.
“You mustn’t move at all,” Miss Pritchett warned him. “These houses are terraced. I could always hear every move you made through that wall.”
So he curled up tightly and waited. Miss Pritchett went back downstairs, and waited. Next door, Erica waited.
At last, a black van approached. On the side were a logo and the words:
Department of Exotic
Animals and Hats
This was odd, but Erica didn’t have time to wonder what it might mean, because Amy Avis and two balding men were already walking to her door and TAT-TAT-TATing. LET-ME-IN.
She did her best to look sorry when she opened the door. Amy Avis sailed inside with a breezy “Hello, dear”, and was followed silently by the two men, who wore shirts with the same logo that was stamped on the van. She took a deep breath. “I’m very sorry, Mrs Avis. It’s – I – the Elephant has run away.” And it seemed like such a mad, obvious lie that Erica almost did feel sorry as she said it, so it came out of her mouth in the right sort of quivering way.
Amy Avis looked at Erica. Both of the men looked at Erica. Erica tried very hard to look like someone who didn’t know where their Elephant was. She almost wished that Amy Avis would tut, to break the silence. Instead, she said, “Erica. You shouldn’t tell lies. We will still take it away, and you will be in trouble too.”
“Really, he has!” said Erica. “Search the house!”
So they did. It didn’t take them long, because the house was not large, but they were at a loss for what else to do so they searched it three times. Amy Avis trotted in front and the two men mooched behind, opening things here and there as if they half expected the Elephant to be in a drawer. They put their ears to the floorboards and tapped the walls to find hollow bits, and looked under beds.
At last, with the air of one having made a great discovery, Amy Avis announced, “It appears that the Elephant is not in the house.” No one disagreed. “We will have to search the town. Erica, this was very careless of you.”
The three then began a furious muttering among themselves to decide on their next move. When they had muttered their way to a decision, Amy Avis nodded to Erica. “Some questions in the living room, please.”
The questions were endless. When did you last see it? Where does it like to go? Has it any friends among the local wildlife? Does it fit on a bus? On and on. Erica made up answers at random, while inside, her heart applauded with a pounding clap-clap-clap. It looked like this was going to work.
“Has the animal, to your knowledge, ever learned to ride a bicycle,” asked Man Number One, “or any other form of—” And then he was interrupted by something that is hard to write down, but went a bit like this: AaaahTROSHnshk.
All four humans froze. Erica’s heart stopped applauding.
AaaahTRRRROSHnshk. There it was again. And again. Three unexplained aahTROSHnshks. There was a nasty silence in the living room.
“My next-door neighbour plays the trombone,” Erica heard herself saying. AaahTROSHnshk went the Noise, and she added, “Very badly.”
“That,” said Man Number Two, “is not a trombone.”
Without a word, the three all rose and made their way to the front door, and Erica followed. Her mouth carried on trying to fix things, but without any help from her brain, which seemed to be taking a break. “Oh, please, you mustn’t disturb her. She has to play a fanfare for the Queen tomorrow.” A most un-royal aahTROSHnshk cut her off.
Amy Avis adjusted her polka-dot hat and gave her smart TAT-TAT-TAT on Miss Pritchett’s door. After a short pause the old lady opened it. She did an excellent job of looking elephantless and cross.
“Yes?” she snapped.
“Madam,” said Amy Avis. “We believe you have an Elephant in your house.”
“Well, I never heard the like!” said Miss Pritchett, blocking the doorway.
Again the awful Noise blasted out. AaahTROSHnshk.
“I am in the middle of an important chemistry experiment,” said Miss Pritchett. “Please excuse the explosions.”
Amy Avis was not fooled. “How nice,” she replied, “that you find time for science, when you have a royal fanfare to prepare for.” Miss Pritchett’s eyes flickered very briefly to Erica. “May we come in?”
Miss Pritchett began to close the door, saying that the experiment needed Important Stirring. But Man Number One had already put his foot in the way, and Man Number Two gave the door a shove, and before anyone could stop her, Amy Avis was trotting inside.
And up the stairs, towards the bathroom…
It is widely believed that elephants are afraid of mice. This is nonsense. Ants, however, are a different matter.
Some types of ant live in trees, and they have to battle with elephants who try to eat their houses. Battling an elephant is easier said than done when you are smaller than a raisin. So the ants are cunning: they send soldier ants to crawl up the elephants’ trunks and tickle them from the inside. This is not pleasant. The result is a lot of startled sneezing from the elephant in question, which sounds – as you have no doubt guessed – a bit like this: aahTROSHnshk.
Miss Pritchett said it was her fault for leaving the lid off one of the boxes. But the Elephant could not be persuaded to blame anyone but himself. For the whole journey in the van, he stayed firmly hidden behind his ears, which had blushed a greyish sort of pink. Miss Pritchett prattled away, raining curses on Amy Avis and the Department of Exotic Animals and Hats and the government and even the Queen, while Erica sat in tense silence. No one had told them where they were going.
They were going, it turned out, to the police station. Amy Avis was hopping mad that Erica had made her trot around the house so foolishly, and was now on the war path. She wanted the two humans charged with housing an elephant, and the Elephant charged with improper use of a bathroom.
The Officer on duty at the police station tugged nervously at his moustache. “I am not sure we can charge an elephant, ma’am,” he said.
Amy Avis tutted wildly. “Of course you can! I demand to see your superior! I demand a lawyer! I demand action!”
This was too many demands for the Officer to cope with. He went to ask a more important Officer, and she made some phone calls and reported that no one else had any clue what to do about an elephant either, but told him he had to do something. So he returned to them and did his best to sound firm. “Ladies,” he said, “there has certainly been a breach of the law here, insomuch as there is, as it were, an Elephant, and the Elephant in question is, so to speak, without a Licence. However, we are – ahem – unclear as to the legal process in such a case. We shall therefore accommodate the suspected – er, well, the Elephant and its friends – in temporary custody until we have the information to proceed.”
“By which you mean,” said Miss Pritchett, “that you are just going to lock us up until you get your act together?”
The Officer said a loud “Ahem
”, and quickly carried on, addressing Amy Avis. “Your contact at the zoo has been called. He will stop by this evening to deal with the paperwork and remove the animal in the morning.”
Amy Avis looked like she was still hoping for a more immediate and terrible punishment, but as she had more or less won, she settled for some mild tutting. Miss Pritchett grumbled all the way to their cell, but no one was listening any more. With a relieved BANG, the Officer shut the door on the sorry trio, and marched quickly away. There was a short silence.
“Elephant?” said Erica. Silence. “I’m sorry I got us in to this mess.” A drop more silence, and then the Elephant TRONKed very slightly. Erica couldn’t make out what he meant, but it seemed to be a comforting sort of TRONK. So she left it there. Although none of them spoke, their thoughts seemed to fill the cell. There was a single wooden bench, so Erica and Miss Pritchett curled up there, while the Elephant took up most of the rest of the remaining space. A clock on the wall tutted, like a tightly wound Amy Avis.
After an hour or so, they heard the tap-tap of feet coming down the corridor, and with a rattle and click, the Officer let a visitor into their cell. A visitor with curling hair that stuck out in all directions at once, and a long and spindly body. Erica leaped off the bench. “Oliver!” she cried.
Oliver didn’t smile. “Erica,” he said, “I told you not to try and run away.”
She deflated very slightly. “We didn’t, Oliver. We hid him. He hardly had to do any walking at all. I’ve been giving him the medicine, just like you said.”
“You’re in a lot of trouble now, Erica. That was stupid.” All the warmth had gone out of Oliver’s voice. He spoke at Erica rather than to her, as if she was a bad TV programme or a shrill and unwelcome alarm clock. He folded up his spidery limbs to crouch down next to the Elephant and peered at his bad leg. “His walk is getting better, I assume?”
Erica's Elephant Page 3