One Amazing Elephant

by Linda Oatman High

  “She broke that other chain,” Mike says to nobody in particular. “Needs heavier ones.”

  Henry Jack nudges me with his elbow.

  “Mike needs to be chained,” he says under his breath.

  I snicker.

  Surprisingly, I might be starting to like this elephant. Maybe just a tiny little bit. Something about the way her eyes shine in the sunlight, and the way she gazes at Henry Jack. I’m pretty sure I saw love in Queenie Grace’s eyes when she exchanged looks with the Alligator Boy.

  “Mike better not get the thotti,” mutters Henry Jack.

  “The hottie?”

  “Thotti,” Henry Jack replies. “It’s like a Hindu word for ‘hook.’”

  “Why would Mike get a hook?”

  “To punish Queenie Grace,” Henry Jack says. “It’s what some mahouts use to control their elephants.”

  “Mahouts?”

  “The guys who ride and train the elephants. It’s Hindi, too. You never heard of a mahout?”

  I shake my head. I’m wheezing, so I sink down into the warm grass. Henry Jack plops next to me. Mike circles the elephant’s leg with the chains, hitching her to the tree once again.

  “Your grandpa Bill was Queenie Grace’s mahout,” explains Henry Jack. “It’s always a boy, usually a kid who gets the elephant when he is little, in other countries. They grow up together, the kid and the elephant, and they get super bonded.”

  “My grandpa wasn’t a little kid when he got Queenie Grace,” I say. “He was already married. I think it was before my mother was even born. Yeah, it was. My mother is only thirty. She had me when she was just eighteen.”

  “The age of the mahout isn’t the important thing,” says Henry Jack. “What matters is the bond. And your grandpa sure was bonded with Queenie Grace. It’s like their hearts were superglued.”

  I lean back on my elbows. The Florida sunshine does feel good, that’s for sure. Now I can understand those tourist brochures. Any place that feels this good in wintertime is all right with me.

  Queenie Grace uses her trunk to throw some dust into the air. I sneeze.

  “She’s just covering herself with dust so she doesn’t get sunburned,” Henry Jack says. “That’s what elephants do.”

  “How do you know so much?” I ask. “You’re like an elephant expert.”

  Henry Jack grins.

  “Well, I grew up with them,” he says. “Plus, I read a lot. My favorite book is actually this old book that your grandpa gave me. It’s called Manual for Mahouts: The Care and Feeding of Elephants. I also collect books about sideshows and circus freaks and all that.”

  “Cool,” I say.

  Henry Jack shrugs.

  “Yeah, sure,” he says. “Whatever. Not so cool when you have ichthyosis, though.”

  “Ick what?”

  “Ichthyosis: this skin condition that I have. It just basically means that I have super-dry skin, and it keeps flaking off and getting really scaly. In circuses, like I was telling you, it’s usually called ‘alligator skin,’ or sometimes ‘elephant skin.’ Nobody really knows how it happens or how to make it not happen. It’s just one of those things you have to deal with. Or rather, I have to deal with.”

  I look at Queenie Grace, who’s throwing a big hissy fit about the chain. Dust flies; the elephant kicks.

  Grandma Violet blusters out of the house like a small and sudden storm.

  “Mike!” she yells. “I told you not to chain her!”

  “I’m doing it for her own good,” Mike shouts back. He has a lit cigarette in his mouth, and some ashes drop to the ground. “For our own good.”

  The fire-eater next door is looking out his window. Those annoying dogs are yipping again, their high yaps straining through the screen.

  “Chain it!” the man barks. “I don’t want that thing running loose! It’s dangerous!”

  “He’s dangerous,” Henry Jack mutters. “Somebody needs to chain Charlie.”

  I can smell heavy cigar smoke from the fire-eater, plus Mike’s smoke. I take a big breath, puff out my cheeks, and blow. There’s tension in the air, and it’s building. I’m pretty good at sensing tension.

  Grandma Violet catches up to Mike, and she shoves his shoulder. She kneels down and yanks away at the chains, a furious and determined look on her face.

  “Bill would never stand for this!” she snaps. “Never!”

  Mike takes a step back, strokes his chin. He watches my grandma, all hunched over, undoing the chains. A sneer is on his face, disdain for my grandma and the elephant. Then Mike moves closer to the back side of Queenie Grace, and glances down at my grandma. He takes the cigarette from his mouth, pinches it between his fingers. Mike sneakily reaches out his hand, cigarette held low, blows smoke.

  Henry Jack sits up quickly. “Holy showman,” he says. “Did you see that? Did you see what just happened?”

  “It looked like he touched the cigarette to the elephant’s skin,” I whisper. “Like he burned her on purpose.”

  “Are you sure?” Henry Jack asks. “Would you swear on your life?”

  “No,” I said. “Are you?”

  “I’m not one hundred percent sure,” he says. “But that’s what it looked like.”

  “I know.”

  “I swear,” murmurs Henry Jack, gritting his teeth. “If that guy hurt Queenie Grace, I’m going to lose it. He’s going to get a piece of me … and this fist.”

  Henry Jack raises a clenched, wrinkled fist, shaking it in the air, fixing eyes of steel on Mike.

  “I never did like that guy,” he says. “There’s something fishy about him.”

  “And that’s no way to treat an elephant,” I reply. Even I know that.

  Henry Jack and I fix eye daggers on creepy Mike. He puts the cigarette back in his mouth and puffs away. Queenie Grace quakes and shakes.

  Queenie Grace Feels Fire

  I am burned. The man Mike did this once before with his cigarette, but nobody noticed. Not even Bill, because sly Mike did it on my underside.

  I feel the spot on my back, seared, sore. I feel fire.

  This man Mike is full of anger. He is full of anger and he is full of danger and he is full of hate.

  I can smell it from a mile away.

  Nobody Deserves to Be Hurt, Not Even an Elephant

  Grandma Violet has set Queenie Grace free.

  “Now go put away those chains,” she says to Mike. She is breathing hard, chest heaving. I hope she doesn’t have a heart attack, too.

  “Put them away now, and I never want to see them again,” Grandma says.

  Mike picks up the chains, slinks into the little pink shed. We can hear the throwing-down clinking sounds from here. If metal has the ability to sound angry, it’s doing it now.

  My grandma is still ferocious, fuming, lips a thin line and her brow furrowed. My tiny grandma brims full of old-lady fury. She has her own personal storm cloud hanging over her head.

  “Should we tell her?” I ask Henry Jack. “About what Mike did?”

  He shakes his head.

  “Not yet. Let her calm down first; we’ll check it out. No use getting her all worked up if it didn’t even happen.”

  Grandma stomps inside, and I swear you can see fire flaming from her eyes. Queenie Grace just stands there, trunk swaying, as if she’s feeling awkward about the whole mess.

  “I can hear you breathing,” Henry Jack says. “Wheezing.”

  “It’s from the running,” I explain. “My asthma kicks up when I run. Or when I get super tired. Or upset. Or stressed.”

  I pull my ever-present inhaler from my pocket, take a puff. Hold it in; blow it out.

  “There. All better. No more whistle.”

  “I wish everything was that simple to fix.”

  “Oh, it’s not always that simple. A couple of times, when it was bad, I actually had to go to the ER. This one time, I had to stay overnight. And wear a hospital gown, and get an IV.”

  “That stinks,” says Henry Jack.
“I’ve been in the hospital, too. Can’t stand that place.”

  I shrug. “That’s life.”

  Mike skulks inside, and Henry Jack and I decide it’s time to check out Queenie Grace. Or at least, Henry Jack will check her out. I’m not getting that close, not yet.

  I stay back a couple of cautious yards and watch as Henry Jack leans in to peer closely at the elephant’s skin. He reaches out with his index finger and grazes it, and I can tell from here that the touch is barely there, so gentle.

  He looks back at me and shakes his head, biting his lip, and then he nods.

  “Yep,” he says. “It’s a burn, all right. Little circle, like the tip of a cigarette.”

  Henry Jack strides back to me, and I can tell he’s bubbling over with hot fury, too. He makes a fist with one hand and punches the open palm of his other hand.

  “Bam,” he says. “That guy Mike …”

  “How could somebody do that?”

  “People do the craziest things,” says Henry Jack. “Humans are actually worse than animals.”

  “What are we going to do?” I ask. “Shouldn’t we tell my grandma?”

  “I think we should wait,” says Henry Jack. “Right after somebody dies isn’t a great time to hear bad news like that. I’m worried that Violet’s feeling too stressed, and this would be just one more thing.”

  “Yeah,” I agreed, “she is really stressed. I’m kind of scared that she might have a heart attack, like my grandpa did.”

  “That actually occurred to me, too.”

  “So, then what are we going to do?”

  “Come with me to my place,” Henry Jack replies. “I need that mahout book I told you about. I don’t know how to treat a burn, but we’ll find out.”

  “And what are we going to do about Mike?” I ask as we hurry together across the yards. The three little dogs are yipping again, and it’s getting hotter by the minute. I have to keep reminding myself that this is Christmas Day. That’s way strange, when you forget a holiday because you’re in a place with people who just don’t feel like celebrating.

  “I don’t even know what to say about Mike,” Henry Jack replies. “He’s a dirtbag. And I’m not sure what to do about dirtbags. We need to figure out a plan to get rid of him, I guess.”

  “Don’t you have a book about that?” I ask.

  We both laugh, and that’s how I know we’re becoming good friends, because that combo laugh says without words, I get it. We’re in this together.

  Henry Jack’s trailer is a nice double-wide, with lots of colorful pictures on the wood-paneled walls. It smells shiny and clean, like somebody was just super-housecleaning with lots of Pine-Sol and Pledge and Windex. The air conditioner hums; it feels great in here.

  “I like your house,” I say.

  “It’s a home,” Henry Jack replies. “Just me and my mom, but we fill it up just right. My favorite time is December, when we get to stay here in one place. All. Month. Long. All the other months, we travel in a motor home, just like your grandparents do. Did.”

  “Is your mom in the circus, too?”

  “Yeah, she’s a girl on the flying trapeze,” he says. “Just like your mom.”

  “Trullia. You can call her Trullia; I do.”

  A lady floats gracefully out of one of the rooms. She’s pretty: hair like black licorice, shimmery dark eyes, tanned skin. She’s thin, yet strong-looking, with muscles in her arms and legs.

  “Hi!” she says. “You must be Lily. Bill’s granddaughter. I’m Faith, Henry Jack’s mom. I am so sorry about your grandpa, honey. We were all so fond of him.”

  “Me too,” I say.

  Faith walks, or rather glides, down the hall. Her walk is like flying: all graceful and smooth, as if she doesn’t even have feet.

  “Nice to meet you,” she says. “Bill always talked about you, how much he adored you and wished he could see you more often.”

  I nod, feeling awkward.

  “So what’s up?” asks Faith. She reaches out to Henry Jack and pushes back a bunch of his floppy black hair, and then she lets her fingers rest on his head for a few seconds. It’s as if she can hardly let go of him. I wish I had a mom like that.

  “Well, we just need to check something out in one of my books,” replies Henry Jack. “Plus get my sunburn stuff.”

  “Okay,” she says. “And be sure not to get sunburned, sweetie. Lily, you are in my prayers.”

  “Thank you,” I say. I think it’s an honor to be in somebody’s prayers.

  Faith floats off down the hallway, and I follow Henry Jack into his bedroom. The walls are covered with posters from old circus sideshows, and there are bunk beds.

  “Why do you have a bunk bed?” I ask. “Are there two of you?” Right after I say it, I get this sinking feeling, remembering what he’d said about his brother.

  “Used to be,” Henry Jack replies. “Remember I told you: I was one of the Twins with Alligator Skin. Well, I really was a twin. I had a brother, identical, one minute older than me. His name was Jeremy Zack, and he died when we were eleven.”

  “I’m sorry. I never knew anybody who lost a brother.”

  “It’s okay,” says Henry Jack. “He was really sick a lot, in pain, all that. So I know he’s in a better place, like they say.”

  “Are you sick a lot and in pain, too?”

  “Only if I get sunburned,” Henry Jack says. “The sun is my worst enemy.”

  “That’s sad,” I say. “Sunshine is usually such a happy thing.”

  Henry Jack shrugs.

  “I used to be mad about everything. Like, I was ticked off about our dad, our disease, Mom having to work so hard all the time. But then something happened that made me change.”

  “What happened?” I ask.

  Henry Jack looks down, as if he’s closing his eyes, clenching his teeth, and reaching deep into a scary memory.

  “Jeremy Zack got sick,” he says. “Really sick. Like his skin got worse and worse and worse, until there was hardly anything left of him, almost nothing left to protect him from the world. It actually felt like I was looking at a ghost: the ghost of my brother.”

  “And that didn’t make you even madder?”

  “Yeah, at first,” says Henry Jack. “I was mad at the world. But one day, Jeremy Zack said seven words that changed everything. He said, ‘You’re only hurting yourself. Get over it.’”

  Henry Jack swallows hard. He looks up at me.

  “Those were some of his last words, right before he died.”

  “Wow.” I don’t know what else to say.

  “Yeah. So those words, they changed everything. All of a sudden, I started seeing the good side of things. And believe it or not, everything—even bad stuff—has something good included; it really does. I play this little game with myself when I try to find the good things. I call it ‘the bright side.’ Want me to teach you how to play?”

  “Sure.”

  “Okay. Give me something bad. Something you don’t like in your life.”

  “Ummm … my mom left.”

  “The good: You got even closer to your dad,” says Henry Jack. “Give me another one.”

  “I have asthma.”

  “The good: You learned to appreciate breathing. Not everybody does, you know. Give me another.”

  “I … have weird hair.”

  “The good: Your hair makes you unique. Not many people have pure red hair, you know. Like, maybe you could even get a part in some movie, playing the part of an Irish girl. And then next thing you know, you might be filming in Ireland! Getting paid for it! Seeing a cool new place, and all because of that red hair you hate. See how it works?”

  “Yeah,” I say. “I guess.”

  “The bright side is always there,” says Henry Jack. “Even when it’s hiding, it’s still there. Like my bright side of having this skin condition is that I get to be in the circus.”

  “So, do you actually like working in the circus?” I’m not going to say this to Henry Jack, b
ut it seems to me that it’s mean to put a kid with a skin condition in a sideshow. Although his mom seems anything but mean.

  “I don’t like working in the circus,” says Henry Jack. “I love working in the circus. It’s definitely the bright side of being a freak.”

  “So it doesn’t bother you, being called a … freak?”

  “Nah,” says Henry Jack. “It’s all just part of the act; goes along with the job. Plus, I do other stuff than just being seen for my skin. Like I do this thing with monkeys that I trained to count.”

  “Cool. So how long have you been working in the circus?”

  “It was our idea—mine and Jeremy Zack’s—to be the Twins with Alligator Skin. We were nine years old when we came up with our plan,” Henry Jack explains. “Mom didn’t really want us to do that, but we were in the mood for something to do, plus we wanted to help make some money.”

  “Well,” I say, “I guess that’s a good point. If I could make money with this stupid asthma, I’d go for it.”

  “Yep,” says Henry Jack. “And with me not having a dad, it’s good to help Mom with the bills.”

  “Where’s your dad?” I ask.

  “Who knows?” says Henry Jack. He shrugs. “Never met him, but that’s okay. I have enough dads, anyway, right here in Gibtown. Like your grandpa Bill. He was like a dad to me.”

  “My grandpa was a lot of things to a lot of people,” I say. “He was like five guys in one.”

  Henry Jack grins. He goes to a shelf filled with books. He pulls one out and holds it like a treasure. It’s thick, and red, and the front cover is beaten up like it’s been loved.

  “Here it is,” he says. “This is the book your grandpa gave me.”

  We both sit on the bottom bunk, hunched over the book, as Henry Jack pages through. A sentence about wounds catches my eye.

  “Hey!” I say. “Wait a minute! That says never use hydrogen peroxide on a fresh cut. Well, I’m pretty sure that last night, they used it on Queenie Grace’s trunk, after she broke the window to eat my peanuts.”

  “Jeez,” says Henry Jack. “They need to read this book.”

  He flips through a few more pages and gets to a section about burns.