One Amazing Elephant

by Linda Oatman High

  “Oh, we’ll recognize her, all right,” Grandma Violet says.

  “And she’ll definitely know us,” Henry Jack adds. “She probably smells us already.”

  And then, in a rush of pounding gray and swinging ears, there they are! Queenie Grace and her baby: both of them close to the same size, with the same soulful eyes. They stop, side by side, and meet our gazes, ears flapping in the same rhythm.

  “Queenie Grace is just a little bit smaller than her baby,” Grandma Violet says.

  “Just like you and me, Mom,” Trullia says. “And also like Lily and me. The baby’s always the tallest in this family, so it seems.”

  Queenie Grace and her baby lock trunks for a minute, and we all laugh and clap.

  “They’re hugging!” I say.

  And then Queenie Grace plods straight to me, nuzzling my neck with her trunk. I kiss her on that long, searching, bristly-haired trunk. Who would have believed I’d ever kiss an elephant?

  “Hi, Queenie Grace,” I say. “Sorry for getting you in trouble the other night. We shouldn’t have tried that running-away thing.”

  “Yeah,” says Henry Jack. “I have to admit: that was a big mistake.”

  “It’s all right.” My grandmother waves her hand. “Let the past be the past, bygones be bygones. Time to move forward. Plus, the big mistake somehow resulted in this good outcome.”

  “You’re right,” Henry Jack says. “This is like the bright side of that night.”

  “And mistakes are made to be forgiven, and forgotten,” Trullia says. “Lord knows I’ve made enough of them in my lifetime.”

  Queenie Grace nudges her baby forward, as if to introduce her to us.

  “Hi,” I say. “Nice to meet you.” I shake her trunk as if I’m shaking a human hand. “I’m Lily. My grandfather was Bill the Giant. He was Queenie Grace’s—your mother’s—owner. Her owner, her trainer, her mahout. Her favorite person in the world.”

  The baby looks at me. Her eyes are so sweet. She lifts her trunk and she brushes it, soft as a smooch, across my cheek.

  And then Queenie Grace kneels on the ground beside me.

  “Is she praying?” I ask.

  “No,” Grandma Violet says. “She wants to give you a ride.”

  I don’t even have to think about it. I just scramble up onto Queenie Grace’s back, helped up by Trullia and Henry Jack and Grandma and a small ladder leaning against a fence. I settle in and grasp her skin, squeezing my knees against her. Queenie Grace begins to walk, slow and steady and sure, way around the sanctuary. She goes far; it’s like she’s giving me a tour. And I’m not one bit afraid! It feels as if this is where I belong: sitting on top of the world, riding Queenie Grace in this peaceful place. Birds chirp, and there are the sounds of elephants. No cars; no traffic. Just quiet, and nature, and relaxation. I roll along with the rhythm of her steps.

  “It’s so beautiful here,” I say. “I like your new home.”

  Queenie Grace’s ears flap as if she agrees.

  She walks back toward our family: Grandma and Trullia and Henry Jack and Baby. Her ears flap like happy flags; I can actually feel the celebration and contentment in her body. It’s our own little parade, our own private big top. Our own “Step Right Up” moment.

  “There’s no place like home, right?” I say to Queenie Grace. “I’ll be going home soon, too.”

  But I wish I were staying longer than tomorrow. I don’t want to go. Not yet.

  The Girl Lily Is Leaving

  The girl Lily will be leaving me. She is going home. I will see her in the summertime, she says. We will always be best friends, she says. Little Gray and I will make each other happy, and we will all be together again, she says. Her words are nice, and she speaks them soft and sweet, so they do help a little bit.

  I will miss this girl. She has taught me that there is always someone else to love, and to trust. Not to replace, but to grace a life with the best that person has to give.

  I make noises with my crying. The others have gone to the car but Lily lingers here, with us elephants. The moon glows; stars sparkle in dark sky. My people have stayed a long time, from day into night.

  “I will miss you,” Lily whispers. “You’re my favorite elephant ever, in the whole wide world.”

  And she is my favorite girl. Henry Jack is my favorite boy. Bill the Giant was my favorite man. Little Gray is my favorite baby, no matter she big she is.

  And this much I know: We will all be together again. We will. Even Bill.

  In the shine from the moon and stars, I can see that Lily cries, too. Tears drip down her face, and she does not try to wipe them away. I reach out with my trunk, and I touch the tears. I taste them: salty like my own.

  Lily tries to smile. Her eyes meet mine, and I try not to cry. I try, but the tears leak out.

  I don’t know what else to do, so I just reach out with my trunk once again, and I brush at Lily’s tears. I can’t make them go away, but I can at least sweep them from her face.

  Lily reaches out and brushes my tears away, too.

  This is all we can do.

  When You Wish Upon a Star

  “Look!” I say to Queenie Grace, trying to make us both stop crying. “A falling star! I need to make a wish.”

  Queenie Grace just looks at me funny, like I’ve finally lost my marbles.

  “Just go with it,” I say. “I think Disney started it.”

  I follow the star with my eyes and with my heart, just like in the movies. What should I wish, what should I wish?

  A dozen wishes whiz through my mind as I fix my eyes on the sky. Should I wish to be a millionaire? Nah, money wishes are the worst kind. Should I wish for my mom to come home to West Virginia? No, that’s one wish that would never come true, and probably wouldn’t be so great if it did.

  I finally hit upon the perfect wish, and so I wish it, hard. I wish to stay best friends forever with Queenie Grace and her baby and with the Alligator Boy Henry Jack, and I wish to remember forever everything I learned in Gibtown over Christmas. I wish to stay brave and to always have faith. I wish for the New Year to be happy and healthy for Grandma and Dad and me, and I even wish the same for Trullia. I wish to forgive everybody who ever hurt me, and I wish for happily ever after … or at least as close as it gets.

  The star disappears, and Queenie Grace makes a contented little sigh like a secret in the night.

  It is time for me to go, but I don’t say good-bye.

  “See you soon,” I say. “Until we meet again, Friend.”

  Queenie Grace Can Feel a Secret

  I can feel a secret in the air as the car full of people I love disappears into the night.

  Sometimes I do sense secrets. I smell them and I see them. I smelled a secret the night that I saved Trullia’s life, and I smelled secrets when I first met Mike. Charlie the Fire-Eater reeks of secrets.

  And I certainly smell a secret tonight. It smells like a good one.

  A Surprise

  It’s Tuesday, January 2, flying time. School starts again on Thursday, and then it’ll be back to real life. Life in West Virginia with just Dad and me and our campground.

  Early in the morning, Henry Jack stands at Grandma’s door, grinning, hands hidden behind his back as the sun rises behind him.

  “I have a surprise,” he says. He is way too perky for this time of the day.

  “What?” I ask, groggy. If you ask me, sunrise is too early for surprise. A person has to at least be able to fully open her eyes.

  “Ta-da!” Henry Jack says. He holds out a tattered old red book: Manual for Mahouts: The Care and Feeding of Elephants.

  “For you,” he announces.

  “What?” I say. “That’s the book my grandpa gave you.”

  “And now I’m giving it to you, now that you’re Queenie Grace’s mahout. Little Gray’s, too, I bet. It’ll be ‘The Amazing Queenie Grace and Little Gray and their Best Friend Lily Rose Pruitt!’ Next thing you know, Lily Pruitt will be the famous Elephant Whis
perer or something. Maybe you’ll have your own circus troupe, be a girl on the high-flying trapeze, too… .”

  “Keep dreaming big for me,” I say, “and I’ll dream big for you, too. I think you’re going to do something great in your lifetime. Something ginormous, big enough for both twins.”

  Henry Jack blinks, pulling his feelings back inside. He flips his hair from his eyes. He hands me the book. The book smells like Grandpa Bill and like Henry Jack’s house, and the pages feel old and fragile. The cover is tattered at the edges, and you can tell it’s been well-loved. Well-used.

  “Thanks,” I say to Henry Jack as the sky turns purple and pink behind him. “I’ll definitely keep this forever.”

  My flight is at two o’clock in the afternoon, so there’s not much time left. I don’t like when minutes start to tick away and there’s nothing you can do to stop them or to slow them down.

  Grandma’s still in her nightgown. Trullia, too. Nobody has brushed their hair or their teeth; nobody has eaten. It’s like we’re human-sized slugs, sprawled in the living room.

  “Shouldn’t we, like, get moving?” I ask, and Grandma laughs.

  “What’s so funny about that?” I respond. “Airplanes don’t wait, you know. And it’s not like I can sprout wings and fly myself home.”

  “Guess what?” Grandma says. “I have a surprise.”

  “Another one?” I ask. “Henry Jack already gave me the greatest.”

  I’m still holding the book, sometimes sniffing it, sometimes hugging it. My fingers keep stroking the pages, rubbing the cover.

  “So,” says Grandma, “are you ready for my surprise?” Her eyes shimmy with excitement.

  “Yep,” I say, remembering how I used to like a life with no surprises. But that was before Gibtown, before Florida, before the elephants and my mother and Henry Jack and trapeze flying. Before Boldo the Lion and George and Faith.

  “You are going to freak out,” says Trullia. She grins big with all her teeth showing.

  “Soooooooooo,” Grandma says, dragging out the suspense, “Trullia and I are making some major changes. I’ve decided to retire, to stop traveling with the circus. Trullia will still perform, and teach trapeze with Faith, but when we have time to relax at home …”

  She pauses.

  “Yes … ?” I say. “The suspense is killing me here.”

  “We’ll have a second home, and it will be near you!” Grandma says. “I’ve decided to move my home base from Gibtown to Magic Mountain. I’m renting a cabin at the campground! Your dad got me a special deal. Life is too short to be so far away from the ones you love. Queenie Grace and her baby helped to teach me that.”

  “Sweet!” I say. “But … what about the elephants? You need to see them, too.”

  “Oh, I will,” Grandma says. “That’s why we’re keeping this trailer in Gibtown. We’ll split our time fifty-fifty: Florida and West Virginia. What your mother makes teaching trapeze with Faith will easily cover the lot rent for the trailer. And we’ll all get to see one another a lot, like family is supposed to do.”

  “But … what about me?” asks Henry Jack. He tosses back his hair. “No fair,” he says. “I always wanted to see snow, you know. Plus that blue-bottomed swimming pool at Magic Mountain, and the pirate-themed mini-golf, and the hiking trails …”

  “Of course you’ll visit West Virginia to see us,” Grandma replies. “Don’t worry, Henry Jack, you’re like part of our family, too. We’ll make sure to see you.”

  Henry Jack shrugs. I think his brow is furrowed, but you can never really tell, what with all the wrinkled skin.

  “Okay,” he says. “I guess. If you promise.”

  “So what do you think, Lily-Bird?” Grandma asks. “Family should be close, right?”

  I nod.

  “And I’ve decided to work less,” Trullia says. “See you more. That’s what’s important. Flying is exciting and being famous is nice, but it’s family that really matters. You’ll be all grown up before we know it, and I don’t want to miss so much from now on. My New Year’s resolution is to spend more time … more time with you. I can’t get back all that I lost, but I can start over brand-new.”

  I’m sitting next to Trullia on the sofa and she reaches over. Trullia makes the first move, and we squeeze each other tight. I feel her heart beating next to mine, hear her breath in my ear.

  “I love you,” Trullia says quietly. Her voice quivers; she’s nervous.

  I take a breath, draw it deep and far into my body, where I always kept all the feelings inside. From now on, I’m going to let them out, set them free.

  “Love you, too,” I say. The words feel good in my mouth, comfortable, as if I’ve been saying them all my life.

  I’m so happy I could float away. I might not even need an airplane to get home.

  “Lily Pruitt,” says my mother, “you are one amazing girl.”

  “And now,” Grandma states, “it’s time for one more surprise!”

  The door flies open, and Dad leaps into the room, spreading his arms wide.

  “SURPRISE!” he yells.

  I draw back; my eyes widen. I’m laughing and crying all at the same time.

  “What—how? When—how did you get here? Why are you here?”

  “He was worried sick about you having that asthma attack,” Trullia says, “plus he was dying to meet Queenie Grace’s baby. Plus, he wanted to come visit Grandpa’s grave, and to give Grandma a hug. Said he was sadder and lonelier than he imagined with you gone. And so I pitched in on his airline ticket … and here he is!”

  “I brought Christmas to you,” Dad says. “So we’ll be here for two more days. You’ll only have to miss one day of school. Your school said it was cool because the trip is considered to be educational. And so is being with your family, both human and otherwise.”

  I’m dumbfounded, in shock. I stare at Trullia.

  “You … did this for me? For us?” I ask.

  She nods, smiles.

  “Thanks so much,” I say. “Thank you.”

  And then I whisper one word, under my breath, just for me: “Mom.”

  Her eyes fly wide; her eyebrows arch up. She says nothing, but I can tell that she heard that one word. Maybe one day, I’ll say it out loud. She’s one step closer to being a mom, a real mom like I always wanted.

  “Thank you from me, too, Trullia,” Dad says. “I’m happy to be here, and I know that Bill would be proud of you.”

  My parents exchange a glance, and I can actually see that maybe they really did love each other, once upon a time.

  Dad looks away first and smiles at me.

  “And because I brought Christmas to you, Lily, of course I had to bring this.”

  Dad unzips his suitcase, reaches in. He brings out the old golden star, our special Christmas tree star, the one that Grandpa and Grandma gave us so long ago.

  “Put it on the tree,” Grandma Violet says. “We need some light in this place.”

  Dad arranges the star just right, on the tip of the highest branch of Grandma’s bare plastic green tree. He plugs it into an outlet on the wood-paneled wall. The star comes to life, shining a strong white light into Grandma’s little trailer.

  “There,” Dad says, “it’s lighting our way through another winter, and it’ll be summer again before we know it.”

  Queenie Grace Likes Happily Ever After

  I love it here: our wonderful new home at the sanctuary. All the green, the trees! It is so big … big like me. Big like my baby, Little Gray.

  I look up at night, and I see Bill the Giant in the sky. I hear his voice. And I rejoice, to know that he is still here. People never really leave, and neither do elephants.

  There’s a kind lady who works here, an old lady with a minty smell. She has yellow hair and fancy cat’s-eye glasses, and her cheeks are rosy with blush. Her name is Donna, and she knows exactly what we elephants are thinking, how we are feeling. Donna reads our minds, just takes a quiet peek inside the mysterious brains
of Queenie Grace and Little Gray.

  And today, Donna is here. So is Lily, and Lily’s kind father, and Violet, and Trullia. Henry Jack, too. They are all here, a ring of family, a circle of happy.

  Queenie Grace now loves Lily’s father, too. There is always the chance to love someone new.

  Donna peers quietly into my eyes, and I feel our connection: stretching back and forth. She looks into the eyes of my baby Little Gray. Her eyes shine behind her glasses.

  “What the elephants want to say,” Miss Donna announces to the humans, “is that they are very happy. They love this place, and they are thrilled that they can still paint. They say, ‘That’s not work, it’s fun!’ They are grateful to retire together, and to feel such a huge love for their young mahout Lily Pruitt.”

  Lily stretches both arms wide, to touch both me and Little Gray at the same time. She reaches so hard it’s like she’s trying to hug the earth, this whole big mysterious world full of surprises.

  “I love both of you,” Lily says to us. “And I think we need to give Baby more of a name.”

  Donna smiles. She knows Little Gray’s name, because she sees it in my heart and mind.

  “What are you thinking would be a good name for the baby?” Donna asks Lily.

  Lily looks at my child. She squints, thinking. I concentrate, sending brain waves of the name into Lily’s heart and mind.

  “Well, she was once littler than Queenie Grace, and she’s gray,” Lily announces. “Let’s call her ‘Little Gray’! I don’t even know where that name came from. It just popped into my head from out of nowhere.”

  “It’s perfect,” says Donna with a knowing smile. “Just perfect.”

  Donna and I exchange a glance. Little Gray and I each wrap a trunk around Lily’s shoulders and hold her close. We will always watch over her, keep her safe. That is what Bill expects, and I like to please my best friend. My best friends.

  “You know how they say an elephant never forgets?” Lily says. “It’s more like a girl never forgets an elephant, once they’ve met and gotten to know each other.”

  “You should write a new Manual for Mahouts,” says Henry Jack. “And put that in the book.”

  “The elephants agree that you should write a book,” announces Donna. “And they say thank you, Lily. Thank you for saving them.”