by Adam Frost
‘Is it true that when they fight they deliberately tuck it out of the way, so it doesn’t get hurt?’ Sophie asked.
‘Absolutely,’ said Mrs Nightingale. ‘An elephant without a trunk couldn’t survive. It couldn’t eat or drink for a start.’
‘Couldn’t it just bend down to pick up food?’ Tom asked.
‘They weigh about five tons,’ said Mr Nightingale, ‘and their legs are like columns. They have really short necks. They might be able to get their heads down on the ground, but they’d have serious problems trying to eat.’
‘They also have thousands of air bubbles in their skulls,’ Mrs Nightingale continued. ‘To keep their heavy heads in the air. Without those air bubbles, their skulls would just go thump on the ground and they couldn’t lift them.’
Tom and Sophie stared at the elephants crowding around Shaurya.
Sophie looked again at how the adults were using their trunks – stroking, curling, patting, snorting, squeezing and sniffing the air. Laila was curling her trunk around Frieda’s.
Tom was imagining the air bubbles in Laila’s head. He wondered if an elephant had ever got too many air bubbles in its head and started to take off like a helium balloon, its big legs flailing in the air. He was snapped out of his thoughts by a voice behind him.
‘Isn’t Shaurya handsome?’
It was Jane.
‘He’s a miracle,’ said Sophie.
‘Mum and Dad have been telling us all about elephants!’ said Tom. ‘How Shaurya’s head is like a balloon.’
Jane chuckled. ‘You know the best way of learning about elephants is to come and see the demonstration at midday.’
‘Wow! Yeah!’ said Tom. ‘Will Shaurya be in it?’
‘Not yet,’ Jane smiled. ‘He’s a bit too young. Maybe next summer. But you’ll see Frieda, Mist and Ricky.’ She indicated the elephants in the field.
‘I was in a show last week,’ Tom said. ‘I played the trumpet.’
But then he remembered how he’d played the wrong notes and he stopped talking.
Mrs Nightingale jumped in. ‘We’ll definitely come to the elephant show. But first things first. We haven’t even had breakfast.’
During breakfast in the zoo cafe, Tom kept asking what the time was.
‘It’s OK, we’ve got ages,’ said Mr Nightingale.
‘Let’s have a walk in the deer park first,’ Mrs Nightingale suggested.
‘It won’t make us late for the elephants, will it?’ Sophie asked, looking worried.
‘Sophie, you know that’s not till twelve,’ Mrs Nightingale said with a smile.
Halfway through the deer park, Tom and Sophie asked – three times – whether it was twelve o’clock yet.
‘OK, this is pointless,’ said Mr Nightingale eventually. ‘Let’s just go to the arena now.’
‘Cool!’ said Tom.
‘Great!’ said Sophie.
It only took them a few minutes to walk there. The arena was just in front of the elephants’ field, with seats arranged in banked semicircles.
‘Now, the best view,’ said Mrs Nightingale, ‘is about four rows back. Just off to the side. That way, you can see everything.’
But Tom and Sophie had already sat down in the front row, right in the middle.
Mr and Mrs Nightingale looked at each other, shrugged and sat down next to their children.
They had fifty minutes to wait.
After about twenty minutes Tom asked, ‘Why isn’t it starting?’
‘For goodness’ sake, Tom, why do you think?’ Mr Nightingale said.
After about thirty minutes Sophie said, ‘This is taking for ever!’
‘We could have gone round on the Jumbo Express. Twice,’ Tom moaned.
Mr Nightingale sighed.
Ten minutes after this, another family arrived and sat just behind them.
‘Told you we were a bit early,’ said one of the grown-ups.
Over the next fifteen minutes, more people arrived and eventually the demonstration began.
Three elephants walked out into the arena. Frieda was first. Mist was next, holding Frieda’s tail with her trunk, and Ricky was last, holding Mist’s tail with his trunk. Jane and two of the other keepers followed them.
First, the elephants showed how they could fetch and carry. Ricky rolled a ball along the ground. Frieda picked up a log with her trunk. Mist pushed over a wooden column.
Jane was talking into a radio mike. ‘Elephants clear paths through the jungle by pushing over trees and trampling down bushes,’ she explained.
Next, Mist stood up on her hind legs and pointed her trunk straight up into the air, pulling down a branch that was suspended from a wooden beam.
‘Everyone knows that giraffes are the tallest animal in the world,’ Jane continued, ‘but, if they use their trunk, elephants can reach even higher!’
After that, all three elephants balanced on small round podiums. Then they lay on their sides and lifted up their trunks.
‘This is the safest way of washing an elephant’s stomach,’ Jane explained. ‘Lying underneath an elephant is a seriously bad idea!’
At the end of the demonstration Tom and Sophie were quiet for a few minutes. Then they talked non-stop for over an hour.
Sophie said her favourite part was when the three elephants lay on their sides, but then changed her mind and said her it was when Mist stood up and reached the branch, and then Tom got annoyed because he said that was his favourite bit and that Sophie had just copied him.
Finally, when they were back in the zoo cafe eating their lunch, Tom asked his dad, ‘Will Shaurya ever be in a show like that?’
Mr Nightingale nodded. ‘Yes, he’ll start his training when he’s a few months old.’
‘Cool!’ Tom said. ‘Can we help?’
‘Unfortunately not,’ said Mr Nightingale. ‘An elephant has to be trained every day. And it takes months. And you’re still at school.’
‘Bloomin’ school,’ said Tom. ‘Spoils everything.’
‘Can we at least visit Shaurya every few weeks?’ Sophie asked. ‘To see how his training is going? To watch him prepare for the show?’
‘What if I said no?’ Mr Nightingale asked with a smile.
‘Then I’d trample all over you!’ said Sophie.
‘And I’d drop a log on you,’ said Tom.
‘And then I’d pick you up with my trunk and hold you upside down over a mound of elephant poo,’ Sophie declared.
‘All right, you win . . .’ Mr Nightingale said, holding up his hands. ‘I’ll say yes . . . !’
With that all agreed, Tom and Sophie tucked into lunch.
Chapter 6
The summer was whizzing by. Every morning Tom and Sophie would wake up, feed all the pets on the barge, eat breakfast and then climb into the van, ready to be driven to Whipsnade.
When they arrived at the zoo, they would rush to the elephants’ field and spend at least half an hour talking to Jane about whether baby Shaurya had had enough sleep (five hours) and whether Laila had eaten enough breakfast (ten kilograms of hay and fifteen carrots).
Then their mother would arrive to check Shaurya’s weight and height and general health and Tom and Sophie would demand an update.
After that, Tom would take pictures of Shaurya on his digital camera and Sophie would draw a picture of him in her sketchbook.
At twelve o’clock, they would go to the elephant demonstration. At one o’clock, they would meet their parents or their grandad or all three for lunch. After that, they tended to visit other animals before finally checking in on Shaurya again. Their father was usually there by then, leading the elephants out of the field and into the elephant house for the night.
In the evening on the barge, after their tea, they would clear everything off the dining-room table and open their Shaurya scrapbook. Tom would paste in any new photos and Sophie would add that day’s sketch. If Shaurya had done anything new or different or memorable, Sophie would note it down.
Grandad would usually drop by just before bedtime, and he’d always ask to see the scrapbook.
‘Is Shaurya taller than you yet, Tom?’ he would ask.
It wasn’t until the last day of the summer holidays that Tom was finally able to say, ‘Yes.’
That evening, Tom and Sophie went to say goodbye to Shaurya. As a special treat, Jane let them into the elephant house and they were allowed to stroke Shaurya’s back and feed his mother some carrots.
‘When are you coming back then, kids?’ Jane asked.
‘We’ll come and see him every three weeks,’ said Sophie, holding out a carrot for Laila to grab with her trunk.
‘And then we’re going to stay for the WHOLE Christmas holidays,’ said Tom.
‘That’s great timing!’ said Jane. ‘We’ll probably start Shaurya’s training then. You’re going to love that!’
Tom asked Jane to take a photo of him and Sophie standing next to the young elephant. It was quite tricky because first Shaurya hid behind Laila, then he crept underneath her stomach, then he decided to have a drink of milk, before hiding behind Laila again.
In the end, the photo showed Tom and Sophie grinning next to Laila’s bottom and a small grey smudge that looked a bit like Shaurya.
Back in London, the autumn term flew by. Tom and Sophie went to London Zoo every weekend, visiting their favourite animals and helping their parents however they could.
One Sunday, Tom spotted a penguin swallowing a coin that someone had thrown into the penguin pool and told the nearest keeper. Mrs Nightingale was able to give the penguin some medicine that stopped it getting zinc poisoning.
On a Saturday a few weeks later, Sophie helped her dad with a new arrival: an aardvark called Mabel. Mr Nightingale was responsible for designing its diet. Sophie did some research on the internet and found a range of pet food that closely resembled an aardvark’s natural diet: ants, grubs and termites.
Every three weeks Grandad would drive Tom and Sophie to Whipsnade. They were always surprised by how big Shaurya was getting and how grown-up he was looking. They would scribble more notes and take more pictures and the Shaurya scrapbook got fatter and fatter.
Before they knew it, the Christmas holidays had come around. Tom and Sophie could barely contain their excitement as they sailed The Ark back up the Grand Union Canal towards Whipsnade Zoo, ready for two and a half weeks of uninterrupted Shaurya time.
‘Do you think he’ll have tusks yet?’ Tom asked as they brushed their teeth on the first morning.
‘Jane said not till he’s two,’ said Sophie, squeezing some toothpaste on to her brush.
‘Imagine if we had tusks,’ Tom said, taking the toothpaste from Sophie. ‘It’d take us all day to brush them.’
‘Yeah,’ Sophie said, ‘and a trip to the dentist would last flippin’ hours.’
They both swilled, gargled and spat.
Jane was waiting for them at the elephants’ field. She pointed at Shaurya and said, ‘You’re not going to believe what he’s just started to do.’
Tom and Sophie watched as Shaurya trotted round and stood next to his mum.
Laila stretched out her trunk, picked up some of her breakfast hay and passed it into her mouth. As she started to chew, Shaurya put his trunk into his mother’s mouth, pulled out some half chewed hay and transferred it into his own.
‘He’s started to eat solids!’ Jane exclaimed.
‘But . . . but why doesn’t he just eat his own hay?’ Tom asked.
‘He’s learning what food is safe to eat,’ Jane said. ‘If his mother’s eating it, then he can eat it.’
‘Oh no oh no oh no!’ cried Sophie.
‘What?’ Jane said, spinning round.
‘You’ve got to call Mum!’ Sophie exclaimed. ‘Laila just did a poo and Shaurya ate it.’
‘It’s OK, it’s OK. Calm down,’ said Jane. ‘Elephant calves have to do that too. That lump of poo contains bacteria, and without that bacteria, Shaurya can’t break down the grass he just ate. Elephants eat all kinds of weird things.’
‘You’re saying it gets weirder than poo?’ asked Sophie.
‘How about rocks?’ Jane replied. ‘In the wild, elephants have to eat rocks because of the salt they’ve got in them. They crunch them up like biscuits. In Africa, there are cave networks that only exist because of elephants munching their way through the rock.’
Tom took out his notebook. ‘Shall I write down the eating rocks and poo thing? Or do you want to?’
Jane smiled as she watched them. ‘This is all good news,’ she went on. ‘I told you we wanted to start training at Christmas. Well, now we can. Because Shaurya’s eating hay, we can teach him some basic commands.’
Shaurya had ambled over towards Ricky and was asking to play, nudging Ricky with his head and trying to climb on his back.
‘What’s eating got to do with it?’ Tom asked.
‘Well, that’s how we train him,’ Jane explained. ‘If he does something right, we give him some nice food. So he associates learning with getting a reward.’
‘Blimey, I wish my school was like that,’ said Tom. ‘A bag of crisps every time I got a question right – I’d be top in everything!’
Jane chuckled. ‘It does seem to work, I have to say. Anyway, we’ll start Shaurya off tomorrow morning. I reckon by the end of your two weeks here, he’ll be able to move forward and then stop. After that, it gets even more exciting.’
Tom and Sophie spent another half-hour talking to Jane and watching Shaurya and then they went off to revisit the rest of the park. They watched the sea-lion demonstration and saw the giraffes being fed.
About halfway through the afternoon Tom began to mumble something.
‘What did you say?’ Sophie asked.
‘Back . . . soon . . . trumpet,’ said Tom.
‘I’m sorry, Tom, you’ll have to speak up,’ said Sophie.
‘I said, I have to go back to the boat soon and practise my trumpet,’ said Tom.
‘Oh, OK,’ said Sophie. ‘I didn’t realise . . .’
‘There’s a stupid Grade 3 exam that stupid Mrs Rogers wants me to do. And I stupidly said I’d do it,’ said Tom.
‘Good!’ said Sophie. ‘You should. You’re great at playing the trumpet.’
‘I’m not,’ said Tom, ‘but I’d better do it, because Freddy’s doing it on oboe, and if you get to Grade 4, they put you in a special class where they let you play pop music and not just bloomin’ classical.’
‘OK,’ said Sophie. ‘I just want a quick look at the lemurs and then we’ll go and find Grandad.’
The next morning Tom and Sophie arrived at the elephants’ field three minutes after the zoo had opened. They had sprinted past the cloisters, run through the children’s playground and scrambled over the railroad bridge. And now they were staring at the field, out of breath, their faces red and their chests heaving. But Shaurya and Laila were nowhere to be seen.
Their dad arrived a few minutes later, still working one of his arms into his zookeeper’s uniform.
‘Jane said they’d be training Shaurya this morning,’ said Sophie.
‘That’s what she’s doing,’ said Mr Nightingale, doing up a button.
‘So where is she? And where’s Shaurya?’ asked Tom.
‘In the elephant house,’ said Mr Nightingale. ‘Shaurya needs to be somewhere calm and quiet. Where people can’t see him.’
‘So is Laila in there too?’ Sophie asked.
‘Of course,’ said Mr Nightingale. ‘Shaurya can’t be separated from his mum. He’d freak out. She would too. Believe me, an elephant freaking out is the last thing anyone wants! Come on.’
He led them to the elephant house and opened the door a fraction. Then he put a finger to his lips and pointed inside.
Tom and Sophie leaned forward and watched Shaurya’s first morning of training. Jane was encouraging Shaurya to walk on command. Every time Shaurya took a step forward, Jane blew a whistle and gave Shaurya some food.
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‘He’s good,’ Mr Nightingale whispered, ‘a really quick learner.’
They watched Shaurya’s training for another ten minutes and then Mr Nightingale said they had better go, just in case they started to distract the elephants. They headed off to the cafe to get some breakfast.
‘Dad,’ Sophie said, as they approached the cafe.
‘Yep,’ said Mr Nightingale.
‘What Jane is doing,’ she said, ‘the training, I mean. It’s not . . . It’s not cruel, is it?’
Mr Nightingale smiled and shook his head. ‘I thought you might worry about that. But nothing we’re doing is hurting or upsetting Shaurya. What’s more, everything we train the elephants to do helps us to take care of them.’
He jerked his thumb over his shoulder.
‘Think about it. At the moment, Shaurya is being trained to move forward and stop. If we didn’t train him to follow us, how would we ever get him from one place to another? He weighs a ton already. Later we’ll train him to lift up his legs. We need him to do this so we can file his nails and inspect his feet for cuts. We’ll train him to raise his trunk. That’s so we can inspect his teeth and mouth. He’ll also learn to lie on his side – so we can wash his chest and stomach. Otherwise we’d have to get underneath him and that’s NOT a safe place for a zookeeper to be.’
‘What about when he stands on his back legs?’ asked Tom.
‘That’s something elephants do anyway,’ said Mr Nightingale. ‘We never get them to do anything unnatural. And besides, they’re incredibly intelligent animals. They like to learn. They like tasks and challenges. It’s part of our job to keep them stimulated.’
‘I’m so going to be an elephant keeper when I grow up!’ Tom said. ‘I’ll teach my elephants to stand on their heads!’
‘Hmm,’ said Mr Nightingale, ‘that would probably kill them. Which I’m guessing would get you the sack.’