Erica's Elephant

by Sylvia Bishop

  “Yes, I think so,” said Erica, and she meant to say “Thanks to you”, but something about the way Oliver was looking at the Elephant stopped her. Instead, a very uncomfortable silence crept in and filled the space where her sentence should have been. Oliver had untied the scarf around the Elephant’s knee, and was now feeling the knee carefully, testing the damage with expert hands. At length he unfolded upwards, his shadow snaking out and falling over the Elephant as he stood.

  “Not too much damage. He’s still a very fine elephant indeed. I don’t suppose that uncle of yours had any idea what a beauty he’d found.” He was smiling, but only with his mouth. “I owe him a thank you.”

  Erica opened her mouth and shut it again, which was one of her less useful decisions. Happily, Miss Pritchett had plenty to say. Her face was folded up more tightly than Erica had ever seen it. “Who,” she barked, “are you, young man?” Oliver said he was Oliver Drew, and Miss Pritchett clicked her tongue. “Your name is beside the point. I’m not writing a phone book. I mean, what is your business here?”

  He seemed to find her amusing. “Yes, ma’am. I am the manager of Seabreeze Zoo, and I am here to check that my newest elephant is in good health before I collect him tomorrow. ”

  So that was why Oliver knew all about animals. But Erica still couldn’t understand why he was helping Amy Avis. There had to be some mistake. “Why are you agreeing to take him?” she said. “You know he’s happy with me!”

  Oliver looked bored again. “Do keep up, Erica. It was me who reported you. The whole point was to take the Elephant. With the tricks this creature can do, the zoo will have people coming from miles around.” Erica gaped at him. The Elephant did too, but it was hard to tell under his trunk. “Come ON. You show me a wonderful elephant, and then tell me there’s no adult at home. And then you tell me where you live, and the next day there’s a knock on your door. Did you really not add it all up?”

  “Did the medicine – did it make him worse?”

  “Of course not. I want him in good health. It doesn’t do anything at all. The ‘ingredients’ were my shopping list.” He said all this as if it was terribly dull. Erica tried very hard not to cry. “A word of advice, Erica. Make some friends your own size. Elephants are complicated. It takes expertise to look after one.” And without waiting for her to respond Oliver ducked out of the cell, letting the door clang shut behind him.

  “Well, he was a horrid man,” said Miss Pritchett, in case anybody wasn’t sure.

  “He’s wrong,” said Erica. “Elephants aren’t complicated at all. It’s people I can’t seem to get the hang of.” And now she did cry, just a bit. Neither Miss Pritchett nor the Elephant spoke, but they sat on either side of her on the floor, one arm and one trunk around her shoulders. In the end it was Erica who broke the silence. She was thinking how glad she was to have her friends there with her, and this made her wonder… “Elephant,” she said, “do you miss your herd?”

  TRONK. Yes.

  “I’m sorry I never thought to ask about them.” The Elephant sighed, ruffling Erica’s hair. “Do you know about elephant herds, Miss Pritchett? They look out for each other. They can hear each other from up to six miles away on a still day.” And this almost started Erica crying again, remembering how she had called on Oliver for help.

  “Six miles?” said Miss Pritchett.

  “I know, it’s amazing. The noise is too low for humans to hear. A sort of rumbling.”

  “ERICA!” yelled Miss Pritchett, leaping up. “Don’t you know what you’ve said? Don’t you see what this means? Don’t just sit there moping, girl! This is brilliant!”

  “What is brilliant?”

  “The zoo,” said Miss Pritchett, scrunching her face into an enormous smile, “is about five miles away.”

  “Oh!” said Erica. Then, after thinking about it some more, she added, “So?”

  Miss Pritchett’s wrinkles had rearranged themselves into a wicked grin. “I think,” she said, “we should call for a little help. Elephant, can you pass on a message to an elephant five miles away?” The Elephant nodded, ears flapping. “Then how about this. . .” And she told them her plan. The Elephant laughed and laughed. Erica was used to his laugh, but it was a very strange sound, and it seriously alarmed the man in the cell next door. (Perhaps you have never heard an elephant laugh? It sounds a bit like this: aaahTROOhoohooHOOO. To get the full effect, you need to sing it through a megaphone in your best Operatic Voice – otherwise it will just sound silly.)

  Erica did not feel like laughing. The plan was too mad to work. “We will never pull that off!” she said.

  “Now, Erica,” said Miss Pritchett, “you have to think big, if you want to do something as ridiculously big as keeping an elephant.” Erica had never seen Miss Pritchett look so pleased.

  “Won’t they just send the Elephant to another zoo?”

  Miss Pritchett cackled. “Not if you scare them off, Erica…” And she told them the rest of her plan, and they all laughed until their sides hurt.

  When they had calmed down, the Elephant shut his eyes and began his deep rumbling, feeling for an answer in his ears and trunk and feet. They waited tensely. What if the zoo was too far away after all?

  But the Elephant’s ears twitched, and then his trunk waggled in a pleased sort of way, and he gave them a happy TRONK. The elephants at the zoo had the message, and now Erica and Miss Pritchett had to send out their own. Both asked to call their families, and were given five minutes each with the telephone. No one knew that neither of them had any family to call.

  When Oliver, Amy Avis and the Officer arrived, Erica was sitting perfectly still in the middle of the cell, her eyes shut, both arms raised. Her hair had been twirled and tugged by the Elephant until it stood out in a mane around her head, and she had strange shadowy marks on her face, which had been drawn with Miss Pritchett’s eye shadow. Around her, some leaves brought for the Elephant had been arranged in a circle, and Miss Pritchett and the Elephant sat outside the circle, watching Erica.

  The Officer coughed slightly. Amy Avis tutted and Oliver smiled his mouth-only smile. Erica opened one eye. “Good morning,” she said politely.

  Only the Officer said “Good morning” back, and when he saw the way the other two were looking at her, he tried to turn it into a stern sort of coughing noise.

  Erica’s heart was beating very fast. She shut the open eye. “Oliver Drew. If you take this Elephant today, your zoo will suffer.”

  Oliver looked at her like she was mad. Amy Avis looked at her like she was mad. The Officer looked at his shoes and wished very hard that he had nice, normal criminals to deal with, instead of lunatics with an Elephant.

  “Oh, really, Erica?” said Oliver. “And why is that?”

  “I have placed a curse on it,” she said. She tried not to blush in the awkward silence that followed.

  “I see,” said Oliver. “Well, that sounds rather unlikely. I think I’ll take my chances. Shall we go?”

  The Officer didn’t need telling twice, and flung open the door with a CLANG, hurrying outside. The others followed, Amy Avis making notes about Erica as she went, while Erica chanted under her breath and walked slowly behind them. The Elephant brought up the rear. They all piled into the black van, and with a thrum from the engine they were off.

  Erica found it very hard not to laugh at the oddball collection speeding along the motorway – a polka-dot-covered fusspot, an unsmiling snake of a man, the Officer (who by now had nearly tugged his moustache right off), a tiny old woman, and an Elephant – and she, Erica, sitting in the middle of the van and chanting. Outside, ordinary cars hummed past on their way to ordinary sensible things. In that moment, she decided she was rather glad an Elephant had arrived on her doorstep and caused her all this trouble.

  When they got out of the van, it was raining very slightly. A bright red SEABREEZE ZOO sign swung backwards and forwards in the car park, looking sorry about its grey home. It was quiet. A little too quiet. No animals
growling or whistling or trumpeting, and no humans queuing at the gates. Just the creaking of the sign.

  “Well, let’s get this animal a home!” said Amy Avis brightly, and she click-clacked towards the gate. The others followed, but Oliver had stopped smiling, and seemed to have coiled inwards a little – a snake on the defence. As they walked, a teenager in a red SEABREEZE ZOO T-shirt came running out to meet him. Her badge said: SANDRA. HOW CAN I HELP YOU TODAY?

  “Mr Drew,” she said, “we’ve had to send everyone home. There’s – there’s something wrong with the animals.”

  “What on earth do you mean?” snapped Oliver.

  “Perhaps you should come and see, Mr Drew,” said poor Sandra, who just worked in the ticket office in her spare time, and had no idea what might cause a whole zoo full of animals to suddenly – well – stop.

  Every single animal in the zoo had frozen. They walked past towering statues of giraffes, piles of silent snakes, penguins scattered around like boulders, monkeys hanging from trees like furry fruit. They blinked and they breathed, but not one of them moved. It made the rain seem almost rude, with its hurried droplets and loud pitter-patter.

  “They’ve been like this for two hours, Mr Drew,” said Sandra, wide-eyed. Oliver said nothing. “They all stopped at the same time,” she went on, and Oliver carried on saying nothing. “Could it be that lemur flu?” she tried, and Oliver said nothing so aggressively that she blushed and stopped talking. They walked round the rest of the zoo in silence.

  When they reached the end – a butterfly house full of perfectly still butterflies, scattered like sweet wrappers – Oliver finally looked at Erica. “Well?”he said.

  “I DID warn you.”

  “You seriously expect me to believe this is some magical curse?”

  “You can believe what you like. They won’t move until I tell them to,” she said. “A word of advice, Oliver. Make some friends your own size. Children are complicated.”

  While all the humans stared at Erica, the Elephant gave a rumble too low for any of them to hear. Only the elephants in the zoo knew he was talking. THANK YOU, he said, and Get ready.

  At that moment, a herd of humans in suits burst into the butterfly house, waving notebooks and cameras. “That man works here!” cried one, and they rushed forwards. “Are you the manager? A few quick questions!”

  “Evening Herald, sir. What caused this?”

  “The Daily Gabble, sir. Will the zoo stay open?”

  Oliver reared up to his full height again. “Who let the press in?” he demanded.

  Sandra tried to look as still and innocent as the butterflies, and not like someone who should have been at the ticket office. Erica, meanwhile, began explaining very calmly to the baffled journalists that she had cursed the zoo to make it give back her Elephant, while Miss Pritchett explained to anybody who would listen what a terrible person Oliver was.

  Oliver was losing control now. “Don’t write down a word they say! Not a word! Who told you to come anyway?”

  The journalists shrugged and said they had received a mysterious phone call promising a magnificent scoop. The Officer remembered the phone calls that Erica and Miss Pritchett had asked to make last night, and turned scarlet.

  “Well there’s no scoop,” Oliver yelled. “There’s no story; there’s nothing to see. Skedaddle.”

  This was glaringly untrue, so the journalists stayed almost as still as the animals, just racing their pens across paper and clicking their cameras.

  Oliver swivelled to face Erica. “Fine. Just suppose I was to believe you are somehow involved in this. How exactly would I make it stop?”

  “Do keep up, Oliver,” sighed Erica. “Refuse to take the Elephant.”

  “But, you silly little girl, some other zoo will just take him instead.”

  “If they do,” said Erica, turning to the journalists to make sure they didn’t miss it, “then they will suffer the same fate.”

  Same fate, scribbled an army of pens, while the Elephant posed happily for photographs.

  “Oliver, the animals will move again as soon as the Elephant walks through my front door.”

  “That’s ridiculous,” spat Oliver, and behind him Amy Avis faintly echoed, “Ridiculous.” The Officer had gone for a little lie down on a bench round the corner.

  “Let me show you then,” said Erica. She raised her hands above her head and clapped five times, slowly. Behind her, the Elephant let out a silent rumble: GO. Somewhere across the zoo, another elephant TRONKed aloud, and the lions heard him and roared, and the monkeys heard them and screeched, and the butterflies began to flap again. Every animal in the zoo stretched and shook itself into life.

  Erica clapped again, five times. The Elephant rumbled his silent rumble: STOP. The other elephant TRONKed the message to the zoo, and by the time she had finished clapping, every animal was still again. Everyone looked at her in amazement. For once, she was very glad that no one ever seemed to realize that the Elephant did things for himself. Not one human besides Erica and Miss Pritchett had any idea that the animals were simply doing what they had been nicely asked to do.

  Oliver had turned very white. “I see,” he said, which was a lie. “Right,” he added – and then, as an afterthought, “Well.” He turned to Amy Avis and almost whispered, “Mrs Avis. I’m afraid I cannot admit this Elephant to my zoo.”

  Amy Avis nodded silently. No one else moved.

  “We’d best be going then,” said Miss Pritchett cheerfully. “Any chance of a lift in that van of yours?”

  Without pausing for an answer, she strode off towards the sign that read: EXIT THIS WAY. PLEASE COME AGAIN. Erica, the Elephant, Amy Avis and the crumpled Officer followed, leaving Oliver alone: a stunned snake surrounded by his frozen butterflies.

  When they were home, Miss Pritchett and Erica and Erica’s Elephant all laughed until they cried.

  The headlines were full of Erica and her Elephant the next day. The Morning Whisper said:

  TEN-YEAR-OLD GIRL “FREEZES” ZOO

  and the Daily Buzz said:

  HANDS OFF HER ELEPHANT!

  while the Evening Slump went with:

  TAX CREDIT CHANGES PASSED BY LARGE MAJORITY

  because the editor thought that the elephant story was silly. That day, for the first time in its history, the Slump failed to sell a single copy.

  As you can imagine, no zoo in the country would take the Elephant after that. Amy Avis rang people non-stop for nine hours: every zoo, farm, aquarium, vet, pet shop and house-with-a-large-field that she could think of. No one would have him.

  “But it CAN’T stay with a ten-year-old girl!” she exclaimed to Mr Avis over dinner. Mr Avis was a quiet sort of man who had long ago given up asking questions like “Why not?”, so he just ate his pie in a quiet sort of way. “I mean, REALLY!” she added, and tutted for good measure.

  Try as she might, she couldn’t charm or threaten anyone into taking the Elephant. At last, she decided that this was a case beyond her powers. It was time to pass Erica and her Elephant on to the highest authority. She phoned Erica to order her to report to the Minister for the Department of Exotic Animals and Hats, in Bloomsbury, London. “And take that Elephant,” she said. “Otherwise we shall arrest you both. You will be picked up at nine o’clock tomorrow.”

  Erica, Miss Pritchett and the Elephant held an emergency meeting at Miss Pritchett’s kitchen table. There was no denying how hard it would be to run away and hide now that Erica and the Elephant were famous. Besides, Miss Pritchett argued, now that no one else would take the Elephant, there was nothing even the Minister could to. “Either he lets you keep him, or he lets him run wild,” she said. “Go there and make your case. Show him that you’re a safe pair of hands, and there’s no reason why he shouldn’t give you a Licence. Lord knows, we’ve had quite enough drama.”

  The Elephant TRONKed in agreement. Erica was less sure, but they certainly couldn’t run anywhere now without being recognized, so she agreed to try it
. Miss Pritchett said she would come along too, to tell them how good Erica was with the Elephant. Because, as she pointed out, no one accepts the word of an elephant, and they often don’t listen properly to the words of a child.

  The ride to London fascinated the Elephant. He peered out of the van as the telltale marks of the capital began to appear – the round Underground signs, the billboard adverts, the red buses and the streets crammed with shops and offices. Then, as they moved through the city, the view changed to severe white buildings and sleepy green parks. Erica could not enjoy the ride as much as the Elephant did. She could not shake off the feeling that she was on her way to losing him. She almost wished Amy Avis had come with them: it felt strange and somehow sinister to be in the van without her regular tutting. As it was, they went alone, with Man Number One as driver and security.

  The Department of Exotic Animals and Hats was a white building standing between a dentist’s and a law firm. It had a brass sign with the department’s crest, and a black front door with a brass lion’s head for a knocker. Man Number One bashed on the door, which was opened by a woman with an enormous smile. While he went to wait outside in the van, Erica, Miss Pritchett and the Elephant were led to a dark waiting room. There were wildlife magazines from seven years ago on a coffee table, and some rather wilted flowers. The ceiling was a little too low for the Elephant.

  After what seemed an age, the smiling woman sprang into the room, saying, “Erica Perkins?” with alarming enthusiasm. The three of them rose and followed her down a corridor to a black door, propped open by a wastepaper basket. “Miss Perkins, Bert!” she said, with the delighted air of someone saying, “Birthday cake, Bert!” or “Massive waterslide, Bert!”. She skipped away again, leaving the trio to confront their new foe.

  BERTRAM HUGGINS, said the sign on his door. Bertram Huggins was a balding man with a perfectly round face, and glasses perched on top of his head. He looked up at the three of them rather vaguely. “Ah, yes. The little elephant sorceress. Come in, sit down.”