Erica's Elephant Read online

  Neither of them wanted to be the first to say “Shall we go to bed?”, so they stayed up as the sky outside grew black and the town grew quiet. The Elephant had his back against the radiator, and Erica had her back against the Elephant. When his hungry stomach rumbled she felt the rumbling in her bones, and even though she was a very practical girl, it was such a sad sound that she let out a little sob.

  They slept late the next morning, and when they eventually woke up, it was to the sound of an impatient Gaggle banging on the front door. Erica looked out of her window and squealed in surprise and delight. The queue stretched all the way down the street!

  They raced into action, Erica changing from pyjamas into her smartest clothes and finding a bucket for the money, the Elephant insisting on putting on the curtains again and admiring himself in the mirror. “We’ll have to have them ten at a time!” Erica called to him as she hunted for her hairbrush. “We can do it in the garden, since it’s a dry day, and then you can give rides. In very small circles. Give everyone, say, ten turns of the garden. Try not to trample the flowerbeds if you can help it.” She was pattering down the stairs now. “Are you ready? Right, you go outside and I’ll open the door!”

  So the Elephant trotted unsteadily off to the back door, the curtain trailing behind him, while Erica ran to the front door and opened it at last. They began.

  Word had taken time to spread, but now that it had, there was no end to the queue. People kept coming. Erica had to keep emptying out her bucket when the change was getting too heavy. There were tourists and locals, young and old, bold and timid. One boy was so afraid of the Elephant that he climbed the apple tree and watched in awe from up there.

  At lunchtime, business people in suits came with their sandwiches and coffees, and the Elephant unknotted and knotted their ties with his trunk (which was so impressive that even Erica clapped), and ruffled their hair, and stole their mobile phones when they tried to make Important Calls.

  Erica served everyone lemonade and organized the rides. The Elephant was pleased as punch to be giving rides again. He limped a little, but no one seemed to mind.

  When they were dealing with the last ten people of the day, Miss Pritchett from Next Door appeared over the fence. She was a very small elderly lady, and to see over the fence she had to stand on a box. One minute she wasn’t there, and the next minute she popped up, just high enough for you to see her tiny frowning face. She had always seemed to Erica like a horrible jack-in-the-box, springing up over the fence without warning to tell Uncle Jeff off about something or ask Erica nosy questions.

  “Good afternoon, Miss Pritchett,” said Erica.

  “Good afternoon,” said Miss Pritchett, as if it wasn’t. “Where on earth did you get that Elephant?”

  “Uncle Jeff sent him,” said Erica, although what she wanted to say was, Where on earth did you get that nose of yours, always in other people’s business?

  Miss Pritchett’s face got even smaller and crosser at the mention of Uncle Jeff. “Well, don’t parade it around! Someone might call the council. Or the police!”

  You mean you might call the police, thought Erica. But she just said, “We’ll try not to disturb anyone.”

  “It doesn’t matter whether you disturb people,” said Miss Pritchett. “People have a habit of being disturbed by all sorts of silly things. The point is that you really shouldn’t have an Elephant in your house at all.”

  Erica pulled herself up as tall as she could. “I’m afraid it is his house too now,” she said, “so he will be staying.” And before Miss Pritchett could rant at her any more, she hurried off to round up the chattering visitors and see them out of the garden, ignoring the muttering and grumbling that was still drifting over the fence.

  When she had shut the back door, she could no longer hear Miss Pritchett, but it was not so easy to shut out the thought that she might report them both. Being a very practical girl, Erica came up with a plan. “Tomorrow,” she said to the Elephant, “we will go down to the beach, and then you can give rides by the sea. Miss Pritchett can’t complain about that, and we’ll get more business there anyway.”

  And so they settled into a happy routine. They would set off to the beach bright and early, before Miss Pritchett had begun twitching open her curtains. The Elephant would entertain everyone until five o’clock, performing clever tricks and giving rides, with plenty of breaks for cabbage (for him) and ice cream (for Erica). He would sway along by the edge of the sea with delighted humans on his back, while cameras clicked and seagulls cawed in surprise. Then the two of them would go home via the corner shop, buying Erica dinner (the Elephant’s cabbage had to be ordered in bulk online).

  There was always something left in their bucket to save up for the future. “When we have enough,” Erica would promise, “we’ll redo Uncle Jeff’s room so that it feels like a proper home for you. You can choose some paint, and we’ll get you a big pile of bedding, and do something to fix the bits of the wall you’ve broken.”

  The Elephant would just TRONK in a pleased sort of way, because he wasn’t sure how to explain that it already felt like a proper home, and also because he wasn’t quite sure what paint was.

  Erica had never been happier. It had been strange without Uncle Jeff these last two years, living in an empty house, and as Uncle Jeff had never thought of sending her to school, she didn’t know any other children. With the Elephant, the house was suddenly gloriously full, and she spent her evenings curled up against his side in the last free inch of the living room.

  What’s more, she was meeting new people all day. There was always someone who would buy an ice cream and sit next to her for a while to chat while the Elephant gave rides. Some of them came back more than once, so she started to get to know them. There were the identical twins, who were staying with their aunt during their school holidays, and a young woman who was writing a novel about the Spanish Armada, and an elderly couple who liked to feed the seagulls and disagree with each other.

  Her favourite was an enormously tall and spindly man called Oliver Drew, who had round glasses and curly hair that stuck up at strange angles. He knew everything there was to know about animals in general, and elephants in particular.

  “Did you know they can make noises that are much too deep for us humans to hear? It’s a sort of rumble,” he told her one day, as they licked their ice creams. “The other elephants can hear it though, and at huge distances. They can call each other from six miles away on a still day.”

  “Six miles?” said Erica. “That’s crazy!”

  “It’s important! Elephants are very social. They need their herd to survive. They feel each others’ vibrations with their trunk and feet as well as their ears,” Oliver explained. “Always watch an elephant’s ears. If they are flapping, the elephant is either happy or angry.”

  Oliver was always giving her tips like this, as if the Elephant’s messages were a difficult puzzle you could solve by knowing the right clues. Erica was too polite to tell him that she could always tell what the Elephant meant without using this kind of trick. But Oliver was only trying to help, and was excellent company, and really loved the Elephant. He loved the story of his arrival on her doorstep, and their strange life together. When she told him how the Elephant had wrecked Uncle Jeff’s room, he laughed so hard that he shook his ice cream everywhere.

  “You’ll have to come and see it for yourself some time,” said Erica, “before we patch it all up.”

  He agreed, and they arranged that he would come over for tea the next week, and swapped telephone numbers and addresses. So now Erica had two friends, not to mention a lot of ice cream.

  Even Miss Pritchett couldn’t spoil Erica’s mood when they met her on the way home that day. She was trimming the hedge in front of her house, snipping each unwanted twig with a smart click and tossing it aside. As she saw the pair approach, she stopped snipping at twigs and started snapping at them instead. “Erica,” she yapped, “have you been parading that Elephant aro
und again?”

  “Good evening, Miss Pritchett,” said Erica politely. “He’s been parading himself, really.”

  “Never mind your smart-alec talk. He should be in the house. Don’t you know the risks?”

  Yes, thought Erica, there’s a risk someone might have some fun instead of endlessly snipping their hedges and nagging. But she said, “We’ll be careful, Miss Pritchett,” as she unlocked the front door. The Elephant nodded his head in agreement so enthusiastically that his ears flapped around and knocked a passing wren out of the air, which didn’t exactly reassure Miss Pritchett.

  “Mind you do! You’re asking for trouble!” she called out, as the door shut behind them.

  Silly woman, thought Erica. But although Erica was a very practical girl, she was not always wise. However silly people might seem to you, it can be unwise to ignore them.

  The next day, Erica and the Elephant were taking a day off. She had gently suggested that he might like to try using the bath, so he was upstairs finding out about taps, while she read a book in the living room. Suddenly, there were three sharp raps on the door. TAT-TAT-TAT: LET-ME-IN.

  Erica opened it to find a stout woman on the doorstep, dressed entirely in polka dots – a black-and-white polka-dot skirt, a blue-and-pink polka-dot blouse, and red-and-white polka-dot shoes. She had topped it off with a knitted polka-dot hat.

  “Hello, dear,” she said. “Can I come in?”

  By the time she had finished the sentence she was already inside, so there didn’t seem to be a lot of point in saying no.

  “My name is Amy Avis, and I’m here to talk about something very important. Are your mummy and daddy home?”

  Erica explained that she lived by herself. An almighty CRASH came from the bathroom upstairs, so she added, “With the Elephant.”

  Amy Avis looked very shocked and produced a polka-dot notebook to write this down in. Although, thought Erica, I don’t see why she’s bothering. “No parents, one elephant” is easy to remember.

  But Amy Avis wrote it down anyway, and then started trotting uninvited through the downstairs of the house, tutting and writing more things down. Erica was suddenly very aware how untidy the house was. The trouble with the Elephant was that he did tend to leave a mess.

  “What was it you wanted to talk about, Mrs Avis?” asked Erica, when it began to seem as if the trotting and tutting would go on for ever.

  Amy Avis turned her gaze on Erica as if she was slightly surprised to find that she could talk. “Ah. Yes,” she said. “Have a seat, dear.”

  This muddled Erica, who had been about to offer Mrs Avis a seat to make her stop the unsettling trotting. It is odd to be offered your own kitchen chair by your guest. But there didn’t seem to be anything else to do but sit down. Amy Avis, meanwhile, started looking out of the window and tutting at the garden, so Erica said, “Well?” quite sharply to distract her from the mess out there.

  “I have come about your Elephant,” said Amy Avis.

  Erica’s gut went wobbly with nerves at that, because she was pretty sure that someone who wore that many polka dots and tutted at other people’s houses hadn’t come to see an elephant for fun.

  “Now, don’t be worried, dear. You’re not in any trouble. But you can’t keep an elephant without a Licence, you know.” And she giggled, as if Erica had done something very silly and quite funny. “Goodness me, no! It’s all right though, we can take care of it for you. I’m from the Department of Exotic Animals. I’ve been sent with a Notice of Elephant Extraction, and the Department will send a van round for the animal this afternoon. So you won’t have to worry about looking after that great big Elephant any more!” Amy fished in her polka-dot handbag. “Here’s your Notice. And here’s a toffee.” She put both of these on the table.

  Now, the worst way to tell someone bad news is to pretend that it is good news and ignore how horrible they are feeling. You won’t fool them, and it makes them feel like they are screaming and no one can hear them. Erica ignored the toffee. She opened her mouth to say something very rude, when she suddenly remembered: “I do have a Licence!”

  Amy Avis’s smile vanished. “Now, dear, you mustn’t—” she began. But Erica had already jumped up from her chair and sped to the living room, where she pulled open her Important Papers drawer to find the bit of paper saying she had a Right to the Elephant.

  She took this triumphantly to Amy Avis, who pulled a pair of glasses from the enormous handbag, perched them on the end of her nose and read the paper at arm’s length. “Oh no, dear,” she said, giggling again. “No, no. This isn’t a Licence. It’s just proof of sale. You have a Right to the Elephant as far as the owner was concerned. But you need a Licence from the British Government to say you can keep it.”

  Erica wished she wouldn’t refer to the Elephant as “it”. She wished Uncle Jeff had thought to check the law before merrily sending her an elephant. She wished she could rewind time five minutes and not open the door, keeping Amy Avis outside and the lovely lazy day inside.

  Amy Avis rambled on. “Now, you’re not to worry, dear. We’ll take him to a zoo, where he’ll be very happy. You’re not in any trouble.” She seemed certain that the most upsetting thing that could happen was Being in Trouble.

  “What happens if I don’t let you take him?” asked Erica.

  Amy Avis’s mouth fell open into a startled “O”, like another silly polka dot. “Well, dear,” she said, a little less kindly, “we would have to take him anyway. And you really shouldn’t try that, because then you will be in very serious trouble.”

  “What happens if he won’t let you take him?”

  She giggled her silly giggle. “Well, I really can’t see why there would be any trouble on that front. But if it was aggressive, we would just have to sedate it.” Erica thought she couldn’t hate anyone more than Amy Avis at that moment. “I hope it isn’t aggressive. You should tell us if it is, dear. The caller who spoke to us about it was very worried.” And then Erica hated Miss Pritchett most of all.

  While Amy Avis gave a lecture about how dangerous elephants were, Erica stopped listening and started forming a Plan. She knew, with sudden certainty, that she was not willing to give up the Elephant. It would break his heart, and she would have to go back to living in a silent house with no more friendly evenings together or busy days at the beach. They would have to run away. She didn’t know where they would run to, but the main thing was to run as far as they could, and then find somewhere to lie low. She did her best to look meek and sorry while she thought through the possible routes.

  After an eternity of giggling and saying “dear” and occasionally tutting, Amy Avis finally left, pausing on her way out to write in her notebook about the broken door frame. Erica slammed the door shut, but not fast enough to block out the chirpy sound of “See you this afternoon, dear!”.

  She raced upstairs to the Elephant. He was in the bathroom, where he had been spraying himself – and the floor – with water from a full bathtub. He was lying on his side, and it seemed to Erica that he looked a paler shade of grey than usual. He said a very quiet TRONK.

  “No, you are NOT fine,” replied Erica. “Don’t try and be noble. What happened?”

  The Elephant waved his trunk sadly at the water, and then at his knee, breathing out another unhappy TROOOOOOONK.

  “You slipped?” guessed Erica. “Has it hurt your bad knee?”

  He TRONKed in a resigned sort of way.

  “Can you walk?” she asked.

  The Elephant tried to stand, wobbled, turned a little paler and sank back down again.

  Erica looked at him in dismay. Even if you are the most practical girl in the world, getting an elephant out of town at speed when it cannot walk is a challenge. She knelt down and hugged the Elephant very hard, and told him as kindly as she could what had just happened. The Elephant flapped his ears angrily and made another bid to stand. This time he staggered as far as the door before falling again.

  Erica couldn’t think w
hat to do or who to turn to – Which just shows, she thought, that the Elephant is the only friend I’ve got. She remembered what Oliver had told her about elephants needing their herd to survive. Humans need herds too, she thought.

  Then – “Oh!” she said. “Oliver!”

  TRONK, said the Elephant, which didn’t seem to mean anything much except Ow.

  Erica stroked his side. “Hold on,” she said. “I’m going to call for help. We’ll be OK.”

  She stepped carefully over his head and pattered down to the kitchen, fishing Oliver’s number out of her pocket as she ran. She was so hasty dialling the number that she got it wrong and panted, “Help, they’re going to take the Elephant!” to the owner of a fish-and-chip shop, which confused them both. She dialled more carefully, crossed her fingers, and waited. After five rings, Oliver’s voice cut in.

  “Oliver Drew speaking.”

  “Oliver! They’re going to take the Elephant!”

  “Erica? Is that you?”

  “Yes! She said I have to have a Licence and she tried to give me toffee!” Erica was so happy to hear Oliver and so frantic that she said everything all at once in the wrong order, and he had to make her start again and tell him slowly and carefully.

  When she had finished, Oliver was silent for a few seconds. “What should I do, Oliver? Can you help?”

  “I’m trying to think of a way, Erica,” he said. “I’m not in town right now.” She groaned at that. “But don’t panic. You did the right thing to call me. Now, whatever you do, don’t try and leave with the Elephant before his knee has healed. I know something that might help him heal faster – but if it doesn’t work in time, I want you to promise me you won’t leave. If you leave while it’s still bad, it will only get worse and you won’t get far enough. And if they think you’ve hurt him, you’ll never get him back. Do you understand, Erica? Promise me you won’t leave until his knee is better?”