One Amazing Elephant

by Linda Oatman High

  But Trullia? All she did was cough. My mother coughed and coughed, a deep empty rattle where her heart should have been, and then she just strolled off the porch to smoke another cigarette.

  She apparently didn’t have fear, didn’t even seem to be one bit afraid of her little girl being hurt.

  I stayed far away from the elephant from that day on, and I think that’s when I started to be so scared of her. Grandpa tried so hard, every summer when I saw him, to push me past the fear, to make me brave, but it never worked. I stayed afraid … until today, anyway. Now, maybe I am brave.

  “You need to forgive, Lily,” Dad always tells me. “Only when people forgive do they truly begin to live. You need to get over it, sweetheart.”

  But that’s easy for him to say. My dad’s not a twelve-year-old girl whose mother ran off and joined the circus. I know it’s been hard for him, too, but at least he’s not a kid. Plus, he knew that Trullia was a circus girl from the moment they met.

  And so I’m thinking about all this as I ride into the spotlight when all of a sudden the elephant breaks into a run. She bolts, thundering all the way across the tent, as I hold on for dear life.

  The audience obviously thinks this is part of the show, and they applaud and cheer.

  But they don’t know what I know from way up here: I have it again. The fear. The fear is back, and it’s worse than ever.

  Queenie Grace Meant No Harm

  I meant no harm. I never meant to frighten that odd girl Lily, not when she was little and not tonight, when the bee scared me.

  When Lily was tiny, I was protecting her! I also saved the girl’s mother one time. I saved Trullia’s life. I kept her from hurting herself that one night when her illness was very bad. I grabbed the knife in my trunk, carefully, so carefully, and I took it away from Trullia.

  And so I knew that I could save the girl Lily, too.

  I still remember that day in West Virginia, when Lily was very young. Trullia was smoking. Blowing. In. Out. In. Out.

  I saw the child. She wobbled, riding the bike. I saw her fall. And I heard her screams.

  I tried to comfort her, lying by her side. I tried to calm the crying child. I did not want her to be afraid, to be alone, to be hurt.

  Oh, I know about hurt. I know about blood. I know of fear and I know about tears. I know loneliness and I know pain, and I certainly know how it is to be afraid.

  My first owner, in a faraway country, before here, before Bill, kept me in chains. He beat me. He made me bleed. I had red raw scrapes on my knees, on my legs. I ached from the switch, my skin worn thin. That man, that first owner, shot my parents when I was little. I always wished somebody would come and save me.

  I learned in that other country how to be fearful of people. I learned to feel hate.

  Then I came to the United States, on a ship. My spirit and my skin broken, sick.

  I was sold to angry men who reeked of greed, circus workers. I lived for more than two years with eight other elephants, all of us treated the same. We were a family, though. When I became heavy and tired with pregnancy, I realized I was going to have a child. I felt the baby move within, shifting, kicking. Feeling that life kept me alive. Twenty-two months I carried my child inside.

  But then the men took the baby away, soon after it came into the world. Those men made me feel hate once again, stronger than ever. They took my baby, my Little Gray.

  She looked back at me, that day she was taken. I was chained. I pulled and pulled! I could not break the chains. I could not save my baby.

  To this day, I think of her with great pain. I wish they had allowed her to stay. I pray. I know how to go down on my knees. I raise my eyes to the sky and I cry out on the inside.

  Please. Please. I want to see my Little Gray.

  I will never stop looking for Little Gray. I search the elephants at each circus that works with ours, hoping to see her face, hoping for eyes like mine.

  Never Again

  I am trying to hide it, but I’m crying by the time we reach the other side of the tent, and Grandpa Bill comes limp-running behind. He makes his noise for stop, and the elephant does. Then he pets her, pats my knee, looks at me.

  “She didn’t mean to scare you, Lily,” says Grandpa Bill. “There was a bee; I heard it, I saw it. I knew Queenie Grace was going to be scared, but there wasn’t much I could do. I’m so sorry that happened, honey.”

  The audience is still going wild with excitement.

  “Just wave at them like everything is fine,” says my grandpa. “They can’t see your eyes.”

  I do: I wave and pretend that it was all part of the act. Grandpa Bill whistles “Amazing Grace” and leads Queenie Grace out of the tent and into the back.

  My heart is still hammering hard. I’m wheezing. This shimmery pink shirt is itchy. The circus life is obviously not for me. I see the bald twins, Harry and Larry looking with identical green eyes from a doorway; I see Trullia in her costume. The show must go on.

  Grandpa stops Queenie Grace beside her painted trailer, parked in the fairgrounds, and she gets a long drink of water from a trough. He makes a stirrup of his hands and lifts me down to the ground.

  “Whew,” I say. “I’m never doing anything like that again.”

  I step back, way back, from the elephant.

  Grandma Violet appears, white and purple hair flying around her face.

  “It’s okay, sweetheart,” she says, hugging me. Her head comes exactly to my chest, right about where my heart is.

  “Even something as big as an elephant has fear,” says Grandma. “I bet she saw a bee. That’s about the only thing that would make Queenie Grace take off like that.”

  “It was a bee,” confirms Grandpa Bill. “Queenie Grace is still shook up. Look at her face.”

  “Let’s walk her over to the lake and give her a bath,” says Grandma Violet. “Cool her off. That always makes Queenie Grace happy. It’s fine for us to leave for a little while. The big top’s under control.”

  “Come on, Lily,” says Grandpa. “It’s fun to give her a bath. Elephants love the water. Maybe she’d spray you, too, cool you off.”

  “No, thanks,” I reply. “I’m … just going to go in and find my dad. I’m … kind of tired.”

  What I don’t say—what I keep inside—is that I am even more terrified than before. I will never again ride an elephant, or be in a circus. I will never, ever take such a stupid chance again, ever. Pushing past fear and trying to be brave is just not worth it. And I will never, ever, in a million years be friends with Queenie Grace.

  Queenie Grace Remembers December

  It is already winter, December. I remember December. In one month of the wintertime, we live in Florida, in Gibtown, in this trailer park of other circus people and animals and amusement rides. Some retired; some not.

  In Gibtown, there is a lion and some monkeys and three silly little dogs in frilly pink tutus next door. There is a rusted Ferris wheel and a crumbling silent carousel and an abandoned cotton candy stand. There is a fire-eating not-nice man and his kind wife, Mary the Bearded Lady, and my friend the Alligator Boy. This is where we all rest in December.

  I am not made for snow, or for cold, so I am pleased to be here, in Florida, in Gibtown, where it smells warm and sweet like orange blossoms. I live in a field thick with flowers and grass, free to roam.

  I love my vacation month. Bill always gives me a special gift for Christmas.

  On this dusky Friday night, I see the colorful strands of lights draped from Bill and Violet’s mobile home. Red and green twinkles, glimmers of hope. Through the window, I can see the tree, sparkly-light, shining very bright. I see my mahout, my sweet keeper—Bill the Giant. I see his tiny wife Violet.

  Bill and Violet sometimes weep, especially at Christmastime, in Gibtown in December. They remember how much they miss the girl, their granddaughter, that odd girl Lily. They wish for something different for their daughter.

  I know exactly how they feel.

/>   Winter in West Virginia

  It’s December 22, only two more sleeps until Christmas Eve, and this is our baking day. We always make Rice Krispies Treats and peanut butter cookies. Tonight at seven, I will Skype with Grandpa Bill and Grandma Violet. Dad and I, we have our Christmas traditions, and I always know what to expect. I like a life with no surprises.

  One day, I hope Trullia will explain. I want her to explain everything, like how and why she left us, and I’m going to ask her to explain what we ever did to force her to run away like that.

  When elephants fly, maybe my mother will apologize. When elephants fly, maybe I’ll forgive. Maybe. Maybe not.

  The cabin is warm with the smell of butter and sugar. Cookies are cooling on paper towels. I love this Christmas baking day smell, plus the scent of the evergreen tree we cut from the mountain. The whole room feels cozy with cookies and Christmas. The tree is all lit up in the corner, decorated with every special ornament I’ve made since I was a baby. Dad is so proud of my art.

  “Time to top off the tree,” Dad says. He hands the shimmery star to me. My grandparents gave us this star when I was little.

  “To light our way,” I say, like always, carefully placing the star on the tip-top pointed branch of the tree. I arrange it nice and straight. It’s always important to us that our star be just right.

  Dad plugs the star into the strand of twinkle lights, and it gleams to life, shining.

  “There,” he says. “Now we can see through the dark. Find our way through another winter and back to summertime.”

  I love summer best, when everything is a riot of blossoms and blooms. My mother was named for a wildflower, and so am I. Lily Rose Pruitt, named for the common daylily that grows here on the mountain. I guess it’s an appropriate name, because common daylilies are untamed and orange, and so is my hair. Not that anybody could have known that when I was born, a bald-headed baby that cried way too much and kept people awake at night.

  I was born in summertime, when the mountain is full of flowers. They make me wheeze with my asthma, but I forgive them for that. After all, they’re so beautiful and it’s not their fault some people have allergies.

  We have tall buttercup and jewelweed, touch-me-nots, Venus’s looking glass and devil’s paintbrush, purple goat’s beard and fireweed. We’re so exploding-full of flowers in the summertime that it almost makes your eyes go blind with beauty.

  Sometimes I wonder how my mother could have left all these flowers, this mountain, our campground, my dad. But mostly I wonder how and why she could have left me. Her own flesh and blood and bones and breath.

  And tonight, just like always, she won’t even join in on the Skype call.

  My grandparents’ faces fill the computer screen, and their smiles beam sunshine. The wonder of Skype always makes them laugh. They look even older than the last time we Skyped, after a turkey dinner on Thanksgiving Day, but they are still really cute, in that old-people kind of way. Both with hair white as cotton (but Grandma’s long and streaked with purple), and their eyes shine soft and blue.

  “There you are, Lily-Bird!” says Grandma Violet. “Big as life! West Virginia to Florida, and we’re together again. Magic! Ta-da!”

  “Hi!” says Grandpa Bill in his raspy voice. “How are you, Lily dear?”

  “I’m fine.”

  “So good to see your face!” says Grandma Violet.

  “So what do you want for Christmas?” asks Grandpa.

  I shrug.

  “Maybe new paints. A great year for me and Dad. To get good grades in school. That probably sounds like New Year’s resolutions, but that’s what I want.”

  “What a good girl!” says Grandma.

  “A heart as big as West Virginia!” says Grandpa. They are full of compliments for me, that’s for sure.

  We never bring up my mother on these Skype visits. We act as if she doesn’t even exist.

  “So, uh, how’s Florida?” I ask.

  “Bright and sunny as ever!” says Grandpa. “Seventy degrees tonight.”

  “Wow,” I say. “It’s like below freezing here.”

  “One day, we’re hoping you get down here to visit, sweetie,” says Grandma. “Before you’re all grown up.”

  “I know, right?” I reply. Dad’s tapping my back. “Here, Dad wants to say hi.”

  Dad leans over my shoulder and puts his face in front of the screen.

  “Hi!” he says, then steps away.

  My grandparents laugh, and they both say “hi” at the same time.

  “Let’s see your tree, Lily,” they say, like always. I carry the computer to the living room and show them the tree so they can ooh and aah.

  “So sweet!” says Grandma. “Still using the star we gave you when you were a baby.”

  Then we chat about random things like school and how cool it is that Dad and I always make so many cookies and treats.

  “Well, I’m beat,” Grandpa says. He yawns. His face is pale. “Love you to the moon.”

  I look outside, through the living room window, at the frosty Friday night full moon hanging over our home in West Virginia. The same miraculous moon that shines over Florida, and my grandparents, and even over my mother.

  “I love you, too,” I say. “To the moon.”

  And I seriously do.

  Queenie Grace Knows When Something Is Not Right

  I am going to paint! I will paint Little Gray. Gray, gray, swish, gray. I love to paint.

  Violet is inside baking. Bill sets my special easel up in the field. He gives me brushes and squirts of paint, circles of many colors I can choose to use.

  “Paint away, Queenie Grace,” he says. “I’ll be mowing the yard.”

  Bill the Giant pats my back. He saunters away, a quick shuffle-shuffle limp-limp, wearing sneakers and torn shorts and a white T-shirt.

  I smell the gasoline, hear the familiar putt-putt-putt. Bill pushes; tall grass disappears like magic. I love the smell of cut grass. Bill sings as he mows.

  “‘Amazing Grace,’” he sings loud and strong.

  Twilight, Saturday sky streaked with purple and pink and blue. I add colors to my painting of Little Gray.

  “How sweet the sound,” Bill the Giant bellows.

  But then there is no song. Something is wrong. My friend Bill has fallen. Bill lies on the ground. His face is down. The mower continues to putt.

  I run. I try to push him up.

  Bill, my keeper, my friend, my mahout, does not move. He lies still. But he is not sleeping.

  Bill’s face presses grass. I trumpet; I bellow; I wail. I push the running mower away from his face. I trumpet again.

  I will not stop until someone comes to help!

  This Bad News

  Dad and I shiver outside and the sky snuggles up close to nighttime. It’s December 23, Saturday, the day after our cookies and Skype. We always clean the wet dead leaves on this day, sweeping them from the mini-golf course. We bag and rake and rake and bag, collecting whatever is left from the fall. We get ready for wintertime, for the snow, for the never-ending darkness and the stubborn cold that we know will blow so nasty over our home.

  “That wind is bitter,” Dad says. His cheeks splotch red behind the rough stubble of beard.

  “I know, right?”

  “Let’s get inside. I don’t want you catching a cold.”

  We prop our rakes against the big, rickety wooden pirate ship that people walk through at the entrance to the golf course, sailing fast on their way to a good time. The pirate ship echoes empty at this time of the year. The wind blusters through it. If ships had wishes, this one would be wishing for summer, that’s for sure.

  “Now the grounds are all cleaned up and ready for Santa,” Dad says, like always.

  “Dad,” I say. “I’m going to be thirteen. I don’t believe.”

  “We all need to believe,” Dad replies.

  I just grin and go along with it, following Dad into the cabin.

  I’m chowing down on a Ri
ce Krispies Treat when Dad’s cell phone rings. We’ve just put a pot of water on the stove to boil for hot chocolate.

  “Magic Mountain Campground,” Dad says in his business voice.

  He listens. Dad’s body stiffens; his eyes widen with surprise.

  “Oh, my. Oh no. Oh, Violet,” he says.

  I stop chewing, sticky sweetness gluing my lips. The stove ticks; the water is getting hot.

  “Okay,” Dad says. “We’ll get on Skype right away.”

  I swallow.

  “What?” I ask. “What’s wrong?”

  Dad doesn’t seem to hear me. He’s standing at the kitchen table, flipping open his laptop and logging quickly in to Skype.

  “What happened?” I ask.

  “Grandma wants to tell you something,” he says. “Sit down, honey.”

  Uh-oh. Sitting down is what you do for bad news.

  I drag over a kitchen chair. It squeaks and complains across the floor. Grandma’s face fills the screen. Her hair flies wild around her face; her eyes bulge puffy and red. Her mouth is turned down, and everything about her seems to sag.

  “Where’s Grandpa?” I ask, breathing fast.

  “Honey, Grandpa had a heart attack tonight.” Grandma pauses, licks her lips, looks down. “He’s gone, sweetheart. Grandpa Bill died.”

  I am frozen to the chair, shocked. Am I dreaming this?

  “How? When? Why?” Three words: that’s all I can say. My own heart is attacking my body, hammering like something mad and alive.

  Grandma Violet dissolves. She starts to cry.

  “Nobody knows how or why. I don’t know what time. This doesn’t even feel real.”

  “No way! No! He was fine, just last night, right? He was … fine.” I’m so confused.

  “He was,” replies Grandma, “and then he wasn’t.”

  My heart falls like a dropped ball, bounces uncontrollably around the floor. The water on the stove is bubbling furiously, crazily trying to escape the pot.

  I look at Dad. Tears dribble down his face, tracing slow, awkward paths through the beard stubble. He puts his arm around my shoulders, draws me close.