One Amazing Elephant

by Linda Oatman High

  Dedication

  In memory of my father, Robert L. Haas.

  I had three elephants on my bedroom wall

  and plenty of books on my shelves.

  Thank you, Dad.

  Contents

  Dedication

  Riding the Elephant

  Queenie Grace Is Good at Taking Care of People

  In the Spotlight

  Queenie Grace Meant No Harm

  Never Again

  Queenie Grace Remembers December

  Winter in West Virginia

  Queenie Grace Knows When Something Is Not Right

  This Bad News

  The Giant Has Died

  A Big Decision

  Maybe Queenie Grace Can Die, Too

  I’m Not in West Virginia Anymore

  The Girl Lily Is Here

  This Place Is Crazy

  Queenie Grace Is in Trouble

  A Christmas Tizzy

  Queenie Grace Is Free of the Chains

  The Alligator Boy

  And Maybe That Is Why Queenie Grace Ran Away

  The Care and Feeding of Elephants

  Queenie Grace Feels Fire

  Nobody Deserves to Be Hurt, Not Even an Elephant

  Queenie Grace Doesn’t Like Iodine

  A Smack in the Face

  Trunks Are Very Difficult to Manage

  Sunburn

  Queenie Grace Feels Pain for Henry Jack

  Painting Is Almost Magic

  Queenie Grace Would Never Hurt the People She Loves

  An Agreement

  Queenie Grace Paints with Lily

  Night

  Queenie Grace Remembers the Spurs

  Funeral Day

  Queenie Grace Does Not Like Dead

  The Sound of an Elephant with a Broken Heart

  Queenie Grace Wants Bill

  Amazing Grace

  Queenie Grace Knows Bill’s Song

  How to Save an Elephant

  Queenie Grace Hates to Feel Hate

  Running Away

  Queenie Grace Is Old, But She Loves to Feel Alive

  The Men with Fire

  Queenie Grace Is Afraid

  Queenie Grace Saves Me

  Queenie Grace Loves Lily, Too

  A Long Story

  Queenie Grace Watches Them Go

  An Emergency as Big as an Elephant

  Queenie Grace Is Taken Away

  Easier to Ask What’s Right

  Queenie Grace Feels Fear in Her Bones

  Nobody Ever Owns an Elephant

  Queenie Grace Is Sick

  I Never Should Have Come

  Queenie Grace Is Lost

  Nothing Left

  One of the Best Nights of Queenie Grace’s Life

  Family Needs to Be Together on Nights Like This

  We Will Never Let Go Again

  No More Bad News

  Queenie Grace and Little Gray Are Staying Together

  Flying and Hugging a Lion

  Queenie Grace’s New Year’s Eve

  New Year’s Eve

  Looking Up

  Room to Roam

  The Girl Lily Is Leaving

  When You Wish Upon a Star

  Queenie Grace Can Feel a Secret

  A Surprise

  Queenie Grace Likes Happily Ever After

  Author’s Note

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Credits

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  Riding the Elephant

  I’m finally riding the elephant, my grandpa Bill’s circus elephant, Queenie Grace, and it feels kind of like I’m riding the universe. I’m perched on top of this unsteady world (a nervous pachyderm cowgirl), sitting way high up on a slow-rolling wrinkly gray world of elephant. And the elephant is related to me. The elephant is like a child to Grandpa Bill and Grandma Violet; they’ve had her for thirty years. Much longer than I’ve been alive.

  I wheeze. I do this when I’m stressed, especially in the heat. I sweat. My legs itch with red welts from mosquito bites. Riding an elephant isn’t as exotic or special as it looks on websites about jungles. Some people even have it on their bucket lists: “Ride an elephant!” Well, I don’t have a bucket list, but even if I did, this would not be on it. I’m doing it for my grandpa.

  “Way to go, Lily!” cheers Grandpa Bill, pride rising in his scratchy voice as he hobbles alongside his elephant. “I always did say that you’d make up your mind and finally ride Queenie Grace one day! Conquer that fear and be brave! Yay!”

  Grandpa’s smile stretches like a rubber band across his face.

  I just nod, eyes fixed straight ahead, because there are times in life that a person can’t say a word.

  My legs clench loose folds of sun-scorched elephant skin; so do my hands. I grit my teeth, set my jaw, make my arms stiff and strong. I will not let go, not until I’m getting safely off this huge animal. The grass—plus good solid earth and dirt—is looking awfully good right about now. I don’t belong in the sky. I don’t belong this high.

  “It’s okay, Lily,” Grandpa Bill says with a grin, looking up at me with those kind blue eyes. “Queenie Grace is very careful. She’d never hurt you.”

  That’s easy for him to say: My grandfather—the Giant—has been the elephant’s best friend forever.

  Grandpa Bill is called the Giant because he is seven feet five inches tall. He works in the circus, advertised as “The Amazing Queenie Grace and her Best Friend, Bill the Giant!” and so does my small grandma Violet, who is just four feet nine inches. And then there’s Queenie Grace, who’s nine feet three inches. It feels much higher when you’re sitting on top of that rolling universe of elephant, holding on for dear life.

  But I’ve just turned twelve, so it’s about time that I finally ride the elephant. That’s what they’ve all been telling me, anyway.

  Grandpa Bill continues to shuffle along by my side, one brown-spotted hand on the elephant. It’s so hot, smack-dab in the middle of summertime, and the pesky burn of the sun rests heavy on my head. Grandpa Bill stumbles a little but catches himself. He has super-big feet, and every now and then he gets a bit clumsy.

  My grandparents are here in West Virginia because their circus—Haas-Millard Brothers—has a show near my home. And so they are visiting, along with my long-lost mother, Trullia Lee Pruitt, the Girl on the Flying Trapeze.

  My mother’s side of the family comes from a long line—a long quivery wire—of circus people. Tightrope walkers, high-flying trapeze artists, tiger tamers, elephant trainers. And my mom, well, truth is she ran off to rejoin that circus she grew up with. She hit the road in a glittery gold trapeze girl outfit, and apparently, she never looked back.

  “You’re doing a great job, Lily!” Grandpa Bill says as Queenie Grace trudges along in the yard near my home at the campground. Her big feet kick up dust, as it hasn’t rained in a while. I sneeze and wheeze. It’s pollen season: all the flowers and trees are bursting with blooms. Bees buzz lazily around us. I feel the elephant’s skin flinch when they fly near.

  “I have this feeling that before too long, you and Queenie Grace will be great friends,” says Grandpa Bill.

  I look down at the top of my grandpa’s head, where there’s a little circle of worn baldness, a patch of pinkish-red head that I can see from up here. I know my grandfather’s face by heart, but this bald space is something I’ve never seen before today.

  “I … don’t know,” I say. “I really can’t imagine me and an elephant actually being friends. But being up here, at least that’s a big step.”

  I feel like I can see for miles, all of Magic Mountain Campground, with its blue-bottomed swimming pool and pirate-themed mini-golf cours
e. It’s busy this time of the year.

  “Well, you might be surprised,” Grandpa Bill says. “Life can throw some big curveballs, and I don’t know why, but I have this feeling about you two… .”

  He’s just saying that. Grandpa Bill has tried all kinds of tricks through the years, to try to get me to really love his elephant. To push past my stupid fear.

  Grandpa gives Queenie Grace the little clicking sound with his mouth that means Stop now. She listens, coming to a standstill, skin still swaying. Her ears flap; her tail swishes. She snuffles. I wonder if carrying me feels like hard work to her.

  Grandpa reaches into the pocket of his shorts, pulls out a carrot.

  “She deserves a treat,” Grandpa Bill says. “She’s such a good girl.”

  I’m trying hard to believe that, especially now that my life depends on that fact. I think maybe I’m getting just a little bit brave.

  The elephant inhales the carrot, the universe of her big body still rolling and shifting beneath me.

  Then Grandpa leads the way, quietly whistling his favorite tune that he says always makes Queenie Grace follow: “Amazing Grace.”

  Grandpa walks around and around our yard at Magic Mountain, the elephant right behind him like an obedient kid. I’m sorry that the others are inside and not out here watching, because this is a “Step Right Up” kind of moment for Lily Rose Pruitt.

  Step right up! See the girl who has just turned twelve finally get up the courage to ride the elephant!

  Queenie Grace Is Good at Taking Care of People

  I am so happy! I am finally giving a ride to the frightened girl, Bill’s granddaughter, Lily.

  I like the weight of the child on my back. I enjoy feeling strong and helpful, walking along carefully so as not to fall. I will take care of her, for my best friend, Bill. I am very good at taking care of people.

  I was twenty-eight when I came to my nice people, sweet Bill the Giant and his tiny wife, Violet. They are kind. Both have gentle eyes. I do like my life these days. And now I am fifty-eight!

  Bill is my trainer, my caretaker, my mahout. He saved me, rescued me from people who did not know how to treat an elephant. I adore my mahout.

  I work in the circus, at fairs, sometimes at schools. We are called “The Amazing Queenie Grace and Her Best Friend, Bill the Giant!” We travel. I do tricks, like picking up someone to carry, folded soft and warm as a towel inside my trunk, or kneeling to say a prayer. I paint. I hold the brush carefully. The people cheer and clap. They buy my paintings.

  My keeper Bill taught me to paint. He taught me to paint and to pray and to pick someone up so gently in my trunk. Bill has taught me many things, and I like to think I have taught him things, too.

  Like now: I am teaching Bill the Giant how to make his granddaughter be brave. I am being so careful with the girl Lily Rose Pruitt.

  And she might be starting to like me, maybe just a teeny bit. I wonder if we will ever be friends.

  “Good girl,” Lily whispers. She pats my skin, gingerly, lightly. “Good girl. Don’t let me fall, okay?”

  I will not let her fall. I would never let her fall.

  In the Spotlight

  Grandpa Bill helps me down, making a step with his hands by intertwining his fingers together.

  “Grab my neck, Lily,” he says. “I won’t let you fall.”

  And I know he won’t. I circle his wrinkled old neck with both arms, holding on as Grandpa slowly lowers me to the ground.

  “Whew,” I say. “That was … crazy!”

  “Fun, right?”

  “Um, I don’t know about fun, exactly. But at least I faced my fear, and gave it a try.”

  “So, Lily, I have an idea,” says Grandpa Bill. “How about you star in the circus tonight? Kick off the first show of the evening by riding into the big top on Queenie Grace! The audience loves when an elephant starts the show.”

  “That’s usually Grandma’s job,” I say.

  “I’m sure she wouldn’t mind sharing the spotlight,” Grandpa says.

  I look at the ground, toe the grass with my sneaker.

  “Um … I don’t know, Grandpa. I’m kind of shy.”

  “I know,” Grandpa Bill says. “But there’s no need to be. You’re a star, Lily! Show the world! Let your light shine!”

  I shrug.

  “I don’t know …”

  He smiles, and like always, Grandpa Bill melts my heart like caramel in the sun.

  “Okay,” I say. “I’ll do it, Grandpa. I’ll do it for you.”

  Riding the elephant into the red-and-white-striped tent, filled with neighbors and friends and kids from school, I am jittery but proud. Wearing a shimmery pink shirt that Grandma Violet found for me, with my wild red hair tamed into a ponytail, I feel important. Special. Even pretty.

  I see Dad’s face. He lights up, waves like crazy when he sees me. You’d think the sun rises and sets on Lily Rose Pruitt, the way my dad acts.

  My mother, Trullia, must be in one of the trailers, getting all dressed up for her trapeze act, which involves lots of makeup, hair straightening with a hot iron, and a tight, glittery leotard.

  Or maybe Trullia’s hanging out in the row of silver-submarine 1960s Airstream trailers that house interesting people like the bearded lady and the conjoined twins and the three men with small heads. Some people might call them “freaks,” but to me they’re just Mary and Harry and Larry and Wilmer and Herbert and Walt. Not a lot of circuses still have “freak shows” these days, but the Haas-Millard circus does. The “freaks” are a big attraction for this little circus. Sometimes I wonder if I’ll be a “freak,” too, on account of already being over five feet seven inches tall, and being related to the Giant. It might run in the family.

  Grandpa Bill limps ahead of me and the elephant, hoisting a flag. The happy circus music starts; Queenie Grace plods into the tent. It’s warm in here and smells like roasted peanuts and buttery popcorn. The audience cheers and claps along to the tune. I wave like Grandpa taught me, smile like I’m not nervous, hold on tight. At least this time, there’s a saddle to keep me in place.

  A sea of faces swims before me.

  Like usual, my mother is nowhere in sight.

  The story of my mother goes like this: I was three years old when she took off. She left me and Dad in her dust at Magic Mountain Campground, where we get to live rent-free in exchange for my dad being the maintenance guy. He keeps everything going, and I do mean everything.

  And so she was gone, off to the circus she always loved. It’s been just Dad and me ever since.

  Don’t get me wrong. I love my dad. I love West Virginia. I love Magic Mountain Campground and I love our cozy little cabin.

  But what I don’t exactly love is that she could actually run away from her daughter. I don’t love that I get to see her face maybe once a year, if that, whenever the circus happens to be playing nearby.

  And what I certainly don’t love is that she wasn’t watching me the day that Queenie Grace almost killed me.

  Once upon a time, I almost died.

  This is what I remember: gray, a high stretch of gray like an alive and stormy day. Acres of gray wrinkled skin, an entire crumpled landscape of elephant.

  It smelled like a whole world full of wild. The dangerous eyes, a fierce shiny dark. The swishing tail, flappy ears, bristly rough hairs, the snuffling sounds of its breath, the swinging trunk.

  I was six, with a bad case of asthma. I didn’t just breathe; I wheezed. Same as now.

  My grandparents were visiting from Florida on account of a nearby gig, and my long-lost mom was along, too.

  My grandparents’ rickety old motor home was parked in our yard, with the big hitch hooked up to the elephant trailer. (The trailer was painted in rainbow colors and excitement: The Amazing Queenie Grace and Her Best Friend, Bill the Giant!)

  The elephant roamed free that day, its trunk sucking something from a huge bucket. My grandparents chatted in the cabin with my dad, and my mother was supp
osed to be watching me, except she was really drifting away like the smoke from her cigarette.

  I was riding my brand-new pink bike with the bell, the white wicker basket, and the shiny silver spokes.

  “Mommy!” I called. “Look at me! Watch!”

  I was so proud that I could ride alone, no training wheels, no help.

  “Mommy!” I called again. I rang the bell. I remember that I swerved so I wouldn’t run over a ladybug.

  And then I fell. The bike tipped. Slivers of stones stuck sharp in my bony knees. I was bleeding. I began screaming, and this is the part where I really started to maybe not trust Trullia Pruitt.

  Miss Trullia Lee Pruitt just kept on smoking. The tip of her cigarette glowed red against a sunset sky. Her frizzy hair made a silhouette, just a fuzzy dark outline of a mother, and her eyes floated far away in the sky.

  “Help me!” I screamed. It was summer, dust dry in my mouth. My knees burned, my belly churned from the sight of blood. One of the bicycle pedals was still moving, round and round, spinning.

  My mother did not answer. She did not move. But the elephant did.

  The animal’s gray skin rippled and rolled, and it lumbered fast across the yard. Then it slowly lay down on the ground, arranged all that skin right beside me, so close I could feel its hot air on my face.

  I held my breath, pulled my stinging knees tight to my chest. Curled up like a comma, everything paused. I could feel the weight, the heat. I could smell elephant, and it pushed even closer to my side. I thought I was going to die. I could not breathe right. My knees were bleeding, and my own mother was doing nothing.

  Luckily for me, Grandpa Bill came into view, towering tall and thin, his head looming.

  “Queenie Grace, roll away,” he said, in a quiet, calm voice.

  And the elephant did. It rolled sluggishly and then it stood, flinging its trunk, snorting.

  “Good girl,” crooned my grandpa. He patted the elephant’s back.

  And then Grandpa Bill lifted me, pressing his clean white handkerchief lightly to each of my bleeding knees. Red bled through, blotches like flowers.

  “Oh, Lily girl,” he said. “I’ll fix this.”

  My grandfather held me close, my head pressed next to his heart, and he carried me inside.

  Grandpa washed me up and got me some ice-cold lemonade, and he found some Minnie Mouse Band-Aids in the medicine cabinet. He covered my cuts and he cuddled me in the rocking chair. Grandpa Bill’s love was like a glove: fuzzy and snug and warm and soft. Grandma Violet kept stroking my head, and Dad kissed each knee.