One Amazing Elephant

by Linda Oatman High

  “Yes,” I agree. “They can be.”

  Just then, there’s a high yelp from somewhere nearby. Henry Jack and I both sit up, quickly.

  “Was that a kid?” I ask.

  “I don’t know,” Henry Jack replies.

  Queenie Grace looks around. She heard it, too: the squeal from something little. Something that’s hurt.

  Sitting quietly in the dark, eyes like telescopes, Henry Jack and I both turn our heads in the direction of the sound. The yelps are coming from Fire-Eating Charlie’s house.

  “Holy showman,” whispers Henry Jack. “He’s hitting his dogs.”

  I see it, too. The sheer curtains are drawn, but the light is on, and we can see silhouettes. Fire-Eating Charlie is holding each one up, dog by dog, smacking them.

  “Bad!” he shouts. “You don’t chew on carpet!”

  I clench my teeth, watching mean, evil Charlie. His wife Mary is nowhere to be seen, and neither is mean Mike. Finally, Charlie stops smacking the dogs, and next thing you know, the front door opens. He walks out, slow, onto his porch: clunk, clunk, clunk.

  “He’s wearing spurs on his boots,” Henry Jack whispers. “He does that sometimes. My mom says he rode Queenie Grace wearing spurs, and kicked her in the sides. He’d dig in with those sharp spurs, trying to make her move faster. Called himself the Elephant Cowboy. He did it like three times, until your Grandpa Bill found out and put a stop to it.”

  “I despise him,” I whisper. “I despise that man Charlie with every cell in my body.”

  Queenie Grace is shaking a little bit.

  “Me too,” Henry Jack responds. “We all do.”

  Queenie Grace Remembers the Spurs

  I remember the spurs. I remember the sharp metal digging into my skin, Fire-Eating Charlie kicking. It hurt.

  Bill punched Charlie in the face when he caught him riding me with the spurs. Bill the Giant was a gentle man, but not when it came to somebody hurting me.

  I can still see Bill’s fist meeting Charlie’s cheek. Pow! It made a nice, satisfying sound.

  I never felt the spurs again. But tonight, Charlie wears them again. The sound makes me shiver. It makes me shake.

  Funeral Day

  This funeral home smells like flowers, the dust from old tissues, and strong perfume. There are paintings of angels in golden frames, and bouquets of flowers all over the place, plus my painting of Grandpa Bill, propped up on a metal stand. The room is packed, and I actually know some people: Grandma. Trullia. Mike. Henry Jack. His mom, Faith. George. Mary, the Bearded Lady. And of course, mean Fire-Eating Charlie. He’s wearing the spurs again, and it sounds like death in a Western movie when he walks on the wooden floor of the funeral home.

  Grandma, Trullia, and I are lined up beside the casket, greeting people like this is a party. A line of three, all related by blood. I’m trying not to look at Grandpa Bill’s abandoned body.

  The windows are open and you can hear birds chirping, like this is any old ordinary morning. The birds don’t know any better, and neither do the people driving by in their cars. The sky is blue and the sun shines. The world just goes on like normal, while the little universe of its own inside the funeral home is all about time standing still.

  This part of the service is the viewing. It’s where people look at the body.

  “It helps the family to accept that the person really is gone, and to find closure,” Grandma Violet explained to me last night. “It helps the loved ones to go on.”

  Not me. I don’t feel like accepting or finding “closure” or going on anywhere. Not without Grandpa Bill.

  So I just stand there beside the casket and greet people, a wet and crumpled tissue clutched in my hand. Everyone keeps raving about how tall I am, how much I look like Grandma, how much they loved Grandpa Bill, how I was the apple of his eye.

  Sometimes, over some stranger’s shoulder, I catch a glimpse of Henry Jack, sitting in one of the chairs. Every time I meet his eye, he tries to smile and he gives a little nod, like saying, It’s all right. Go on. You’re doing fine. Breathe. You’ll be okay.

  Seeing Henry Jack’s face is keeping me sane.

  It’s time for the service, and pictures of Grandpa Bill are projected onto a screen. Grandma sits in a folding chair on one side of me. Henry Jack’s on the other. Trullia hides somewhere in the very back. I can hear her hacking, and the sound of Mike clearing his throat.

  We’re in the very front, so now I can’t help seeing Grandpa Bill, all laid out in that casket. He looks like a creepy wax version of my grandfather, and I keep imagining what would happen if he just sat up and started talking. That would totally freak me out.

  “I keep thinking I see his heart beating,” I whisper to Henry Jack. “Like something is moving on the side of his neck.”

  “A trick of the eyes,” Henry Jack whispers back. “It’s just what you wish was happening.”

  I’m wearing the jeweled pink flip-flops and the nice flowered sundress from Trullia, and Henry Jack is sporting a dark blue suit. His tie is splashed with old cartoons from the 1960s.

  My grandma cries really hard but quietly, shaking with trying to keep it inside. Her hair is in a braid, and she’s wearing a long tie-dyed hippie skirt and a black T-shirt. She grabs my hand every now and then, which makes me have to bite my cheek. I will not cry, I will not cry, I will not cry. I will keep it inside.

  A funeral director—a tall bald man in a crisp black suit—conducts the service. He includes Bible verses along with funny little stories about my grandpa, like how one time he tried to run a marathon but had to stop. There’s the song “Amazing Grace,” and I can hear people blowing their noses and snorting. I guess other people try not to cry, too.

  The song comes to an end and the beehive-hairdo lady named Kathryn who is playing the piano gets up and clicks in little red pointy heels back to her seat. There’s an awkward silence, with just the nose honking and the snorting.

  A horrible noise trumpets suddenly from outside. It sounds like a combination of a monster blowing his nose and the sky falling and an airplane crashing. Some people put their hands to their ears and others look at one another, all puzzled and scared. One man stands, as if he’s going to save the world.

  And then I see the source of all that racket: Queenie Grace, standing near a window behind my grandfather’s body. She’s looking straight in at the casket, and she’s wailing at the top of her lungs.

  I look at my grandmother. She seems to be in shock. Henry Jack leans forward to look at Grandma, too, then he looks at me. I mouth the word “wow.”

  Grandma pulls herself up from her seat with a heavy sigh, swishing in her long skirt to the exit door.

  People turn around to watch. A somber silence hangs heavy in the room. Trullia gets up from the back row, mouth turned down, and she follows Grandma outside. Mike hustles out, too.

  At least all this excitement has made some people stop crying.

  Queenie Grace Does Not Like Dead

  I see Bill. I see his body, my mahout, my trainer, my keeper. I see Bill the Giant, my best friend, and he is dead. He does not smell like Bill!

  I remember dead, from that other country. There was a place there, a spot where elephants went to die. We paid our respect to the bones there, in that place. Sometimes we carried those bones, showing reverence.

  Oh, I want to break that window and lift Bill from that box. I want to bring him back to life, to make him smile, to hear his voice.

  But I cannot make this happen. Maybe someone else can bring Bill back to life. Maybe I can make them listen. Maybe they will help.

  I scream as loudly as I can. I lift my trunk to the sky, and I cry. I swing my trunk like something that can hit; like something that can hurt. I am so, so angry.

  People stare at me. I would like to break that window, but I remember the trouble with the window and the pack of peanuts. I will not cause that trouble again.

  Violet bursts outside. Grief erupts from her eyes. And then Trullia a
nd Mike storm into view.

  “Go home!” Mike shouts. He points in the direction of the trailer.

  I lower my head, shake it.

  And then Mike smacks me. I have never before been hit. I’ve been burned, and I’ve been spurred. But I’ve never been hit, not here.

  I do not like this. I try not to cry, but I feel it: a tear.

  Violet draws herself up stiff and straight. She crosses her arms and sets her face like a stone.

  “How dare you hit her?” she says to Mike. “She’s only expressing her feelings! You will not touch her again, you hear me?”

  Mike’s eyes grow wide.

  “She’s disrupting your husband’s funeral,” he hisses. “She doesn’t belong here.”

  “She belongs here as much as any one of us who loved Bill,” Violet shouts. “If there’s anybody who doesn’t belong, it’s you!”

  “Mom,” says Trullia. “Calm down. People can hear.”

  Violet rolls her eyes.

  I raise my trunk into the sky, and I let out a loud cry. I bellow. I shout to the sky about everything that makes me feel so alone.

  I shout to the sky, but there is no answer.

  The Sound of an Elephant with a Broken Heart

  I see it through the window: Mike hits Queenie Grace. I flinch when Mike’s hand meets elephant skin. Grandma keeps her arms crossed as if trying to hold her heart inside.

  I sit straight up in shock and worry, and so does Henry Jack.

  Queenie Grace bellows. Grandma stands up straight and yells at Mike; Trullia yells at Grandma.

  The people in the funeral home get all awkward and uncomfortable, shuffling and shifting in their seats. The funeral home man closes the lid of the casket.

  A tear slips from my eye, and Henry Jack pats my back. That makes it worse, and more runaway tears escape.

  I will never again see that face.

  I bite my cheek. I will not cry, not again; I won’t. Nope. I’ll keep it inside. Keep it inside where it belongs.

  We shamble outside, in a line. Some people cry; others hug.

  “I’m sorry,” people say to Grandma and me. I feel as if so many people care: about me, about Grandma Violet, about Grandpa Bill. If sorry could bring my grandpa back to life, he’d be standing here smiling.

  We go through the parking lot to where men in suits have placed little white flags of surrender on the cars that are going to the cemetery. Trullia’s car has a flag, and we all pile in.

  Trullia drives. Her eyes are red and hard in the rearview mirror. Nobody talks and there’s just the sound of wheels on road. The turn signal, the squeak of the brakes.

  Queenie Grace follows behind the line of slow-moving cars. She trudges along as if she’s a vehicle, too, part of this sad car parade. She follows us all the way to the Restful Souls Cemetery, and then she waits outside the curved iron gates.

  We park outside of the graveyard. Everybody gets out of their cars, including us. It starts to rain, tiny droplets, but the sun still shines. A few people pop open umbrellas.

  The casket is brought out of the hearse. Men with respectful expressions carry the coffin and place it carefully under a green tent.

  There’s talking, prayers, flowers, bowed heads, tissues. Grandma clutches her hands into fists.

  And then it’s all over. He’s in the ground, forever and ever. Grandpa Bill is gone.

  We are all leaving the cemetery, just as Queenie Grace is going in. She plods determinedly through the gates and straight over to the open hole of earth that holds her best friend in a blue box. She lowers herself slowly to the ground, huge body trembling.

  Queenie Grace just lies on the cool, damp ground, sprawled over that open rectangle shape in the earth.

  Queenie Grace Wants Bill

  Billlllll. I refuse to move. Oh, how I need my mahout.

  Amazing Grace

  Nobody can make the elephant move from the grave. Not even Henry Jack. They are trying all kinds of things, but nothing works. Queenie Grace just lies there, over the grave.

  “Jeez,” says Henry Jack. “She always listens to me. She’s definitely not herself.”

  “That’s what I’ve been saying,” Grandma says. “Grief changes you.”

  “What are we going to do?” Trullia asks. “How will we get her out of here?”

  And then I remember: Grandpa Bill’s song, the one that always made Queenie Grace follow.

  I whistle “Amazing Grace,” just like I remember Grandpa doing it, that last time in West Virginia.

  Queenie Grace looks at me. And then, she slowly, slowly, slowly heaves herself up to standing.

  I keep whistling. I start to walk, and she follows me. She follows me all the way out of the cemetery, onto the road. I just keep walking, never looking back, hearing the weight of Queenie Grace behind me.

  When I get to the car, I do Grandpa’s tongue-click sound for stop, and she listens. Queenie Grace listens to me and she stops, right behind the little green car.

  “Lily,” whispers Grandma Violet. “You are just like your grandpa. Why, I think she listens to you almost as well as she listened to Bill. You have the magic touch.”

  We all get in the car. Trullia drives again, her eyes checking the rearview mirror for the elephant. She’s still following the car.

  Queenie Grace follows the car all the way home.

  Queenie Grace Knows Bill’s Song

  I know Bill’s song. That is something I will never forget. And the girl Lily whistles it just right. Just like Bill.

  How to Save an Elephant

  Slumped on the porch with Henry Jack, I feel drained, as if the funeral sucked all the life out of me. My eyes hurt from crying, I’m tired, and my heart pings lonely with the missing of my grandpa.

  We slurp red Popsicles, and Henry Jack’s lips are stained. Luckily, the sky is cloudy and we don’t have to worry as much about sunburn for Henry Jack. Queenie Grace huddles in the yard, back on the chain because she already tried to run back to the grave. Queenie Grace bawls and bellows. The sound booms like thunder.

  “I never heard such a terrible noise,” comments Henry Jack.

  I nod. “It’s horrible,” I say. “Goes right through me.”

  Queenie Grace eyes us and stops making the sounds. She just stares, her eyes meeting mine, and something about those eyes makes me care a lot about this elephant. It’s like there’s an invisible thread between us, pulling, connecting, joining.

  “I can’t believe my grandma chained her again,” I comment.

  “I know,” Henry Jack agrees. “But she really did have to do something to keep her here. I think she’d just keep running back to Bill. To the cemetery.”

  “She’s so sad,” I say.

  “I know. It’s like you can feel her soul, right? Nothing like the soul of an elephant: it’s big and fluffy and floaty, kind of like those clouds.”

  I look up at the sky. Gray storm clouds have gathered, and they’re shifting and changing shapes before our eyes.

  Trullia appears at the screen door, a bag of chips in her hand.

  “You two need a snack?” she asks.

  “No, thanks,” I say.

  “Not hungry,” Henry Jack says.

  “I know, me neither,” Trullia says. “Who feels like eating on a day like this, right?”

  She goes back inside.

  “I feel bad for her,” Henry Jack says. “She lost her dad. I know how that feels.”

  “Yeah. I know how it feels, too. The losing feeling.”

  “By the way,” says Henry Jack, “you did a good job at the funeral.”

  “A ‘good job’? How can you do a good job at a funeral?”

  “Well, like, you were so polite to everybody and you held it together and stayed strong for your grandma.”

  “My dad taught me to be polite,” I reply. “And I taught myself how to hold it together. As far as being strong, not so much. I could bawl from now till my flight home, if I let myself.”

  I stare at
Queenie Grace, then close my eyes for a few seconds. The shape of the elephant remains on the back of my eyelids.

  “Did you ever notice how you can stare at something,” I say to Henry Jack, “then close your eyes and have it stay there, on your eyelids?”

  “Of course,” Henry Jack says. “Hasn’t everybody?”

  “I don’t know. But now I have an elephant in my eyes.”

  “Well, that’s better than an elephant in the room. You know, like how they say, ‘There’s an elephant in the room’ when nobody talks about the obvious bad thing?”

  I nod.

  Trullia and Grandma have moved into the kitchen, and their voices strain out through the screen window.

  “I’m afraid that we might have to … send her away,” says my grandmother. “It kills me to say that, because Bill would never have stood for it. But I don’t know how we’re going to feed an elephant, now that we don’t have the act anymore. The account’s very low, and the electric bill is due. Plus the lot rent.”

  “But where would she go?” asks Trullia.

  Henry Jack looks at me.

  “They’re thinking of putting Queenie Grace in an old folks’ home,” he says, low. “An old folks’ home for elephants.”

  “Well, there’s that nice new elephant sanctuary up near Tampa,” Grandma says. “I’ve heard they take great care of them there. And they’re free to roam, make friends, and enjoy their later years.”

  “See?” Henry Jack mutters. “Told you. That’s what happened to this other elephant I remember from when I was little, named Thunder.”

  “But why not make some money?” asks Trullia. “Sell her to another circus or something?”

  “No,” Grandma says. “She had her career, and it was with Bill. And anyway, didn’t you know that even Ringling Brothers stopped their elephant acts? They realized that not all elephants enjoy the work of being in a circus. Queenie Grace loved her job, but she loved it because it was with Bill. It wouldn’t be fair to team her up with somebody new at this age. Plus, I couldn’t trust just anybody. I want to be sure that she’s loved and that somebody takes good care of her.”

  “Well, how do we know the elephant sanctuary will take her?” Trullia asks.

  “I called them yesterday,” says Grandma. “That was one call I didn’t want to make, but sometimes a person just has no choice.”