The One and Only Ivan (5 page)

Thud. Thud
. Step, step, pause. Step, step, pause.

And there she is, so small she can fit underneath Stella with room to spare. Her skin sags, and she sways unsteadily as she makes her way down the ramp.

“Not the greatest specimen,” Mack says, “but I got her cheap from this bankrupt circus out west. They had her shipped over from Africa. Only had her a month before they went bust.” He gestures toward Ruby. “Thing is, people love babies. Baby elephants, baby gorillas, heck, give me a baby alligator and I could make a killing.”

Stella ushers Ruby toward her domain. Mack and the two men follow. At Stella's door, Ruby hesitates.

Mack gives Ruby a shove, but she doesn't budge. “Doggone it, get a clue, Ruby,” he mutters, but Ruby isn't moving, and neither is Stella.

Mack grabs a broom. He raises it. Instantly, Stella steps in front of Ruby to shield her.

“Get in the cage, both of you!” Mack shouts.

Stella stares at Mack, considering. Gently but firmly, using her trunk, she nudges Ruby into her domain. Only then does Stella enter. Mack slams the door shut with a clang.

I see two trunks entwined. I hear Stella whispering.

“Poor kid,” says Bob. “Welcome to the Exit 8 Big Top Mall and Video Arcade, Home of the One and Only Ivan.”

When Julia comes, she sits by Stella's domain and watches the new baby. She barely talks to me.

Stella doesn't talk to me either. She is too busy nuzzling Ruby.

She is cute, little Ruby, with her ears flapping like palm leaves, but I am handsome and strong.

Bob trots a circle around my belly before settling down in just the right spot. “Give it up, Ivan,” he says. “You're old news.”

Julia gets out a piece of paper and a pencil. I can see that she is drawing Ruby.

I move to the corner of my domain to pout. Bob grumbles. He doesn't like it when I disrupt his naps.

“Homework,” Julia's father scolds. Julia sighs and puts her drawing aside.

I grunt, and Julia glances in my direction. “Poor old Ivan,” she says. “I've been ignoring you, haven't I?”

I grunt again, a dignified, indifferent grunt.

Julia thinks for a moment, then smiles. She walks over to my domain, to the spot in the corner where the glass is broken. She slides papers through. She rolls a pencil across my cement floor.

“You can draw the baby elephant too,” Julia says.

I bite the pencil in half with my magnificent teeth. Then I eat some paper.

Even after Julia and her father leave, I try to keep sulking. But it's no use.

Gorillas are not, by nature, pouters.

“Stella?” I call. “It's a full moon. Did you see?”

Sometimes, when we are lucky, we catch a glimpse of the moon through the skylight in the food court.

“I did,” Stella says. She is whispering, and I realize that Ruby must be asleep.

“Is Ruby all right?” I ask.

“She's too thin, Ivan,” Stella says. “Poor baby. She was in that truck for days. Mack bought her from a circus, the same way he bought me, but she hadn't been there long. She was born in the wild, like us.”

“Will she be okay?” I ask.

Stella doesn't answer my question. “The circus trainers chained her to the floor, Ivan. All four feet. Twenty-three hours a day.”

I puzzle over why this would be a good idea. I always try to give humans the benefit of the doubt.

“Why would they do that?” I finally ask.

“To break her spirit,” Stella says. “So she could learn to balance on a pedestal. So she could stand on her hind legs. So a dog could jump on her back while she walked in mindless circles.”

I hear her tired voice and think of all the tricks Stella has learned.

When I awake the next morning, I see a little trunk poking out between the bars of Stella's domain.

“Hello,” says a small, clear voice. “I'm Ruby.” She waves her trunk.

“Hello,” I say. “I'm Ivan.”

“Are you a monkey?” Ruby asks.

“Certainly not.”

Bob's ears perk up, although his eyes stay closed. “He's a gorilla,” he says. “And I am a dog of uncertain heritage.”

“Why did the dog climb your tummy?” Ruby asks.

“Because it's there,” Bob murmurs.

“Is Stella awake?” I ask.

“Aunt Stella's asleep,” Ruby says. “Her foot is hurting, I think.”

Ruby turns her head. Her eyes are like Stella's, black and long-lashed, bottomless lakes fringed by tall grass. “When is breakfast?” she asks.

“Soon,” I say. “When the mall opens and the workers come.”

“Where”—Ruby twists her head in the other direction—“where are the other elephants?”

“It's just you and Stella,” I say, and for some reason, I feel we have let her down.

“Are there more of you?”

“Not,” I say, “at the moment.”

Ruby picks up a piece of hay and considers it. “Do you have a mom and a dad?”

“Well … I used to.”

“Everyone has parents,” Bob explains. “It's unavoidable.”

“Before the circus, I used to live with my mom and my aunts and my sisters and my cousins,” Ruby says. She drops the hay, picks it up, twirls it. “They're dead.”

I don't know what to say. I am not really enjoying this conversation, but I can see that Ruby isn't done talking. To be polite, I say, “I'm sorry to hear that, Ruby.”

“Humans killed them,” she says.

“Who else?” Bob asks, and we all fall silent.

All morning, Stella strokes Ruby, pats her, smells her. They flap their ears. They rumble and roar. They sway as if they're dancing. Ruby clings to Stella's tail. She slips under Stella's belly.

Sometimes they just lean into each other, their trunks twirled together like jungle vines.

Stella looks so happy. It's more fun to watch than any nature show I've ever seen on TV.

George and Mack are out by the highway. I can see them through one of my windows. They are next to each other on tall wooden ladders, leaning against the billboard that tells the cars to stop and visit the One and Only Ivan, Mighty Silverback.

George has a bucket and a long-handled broom. Mack has pieces of paper. He slaps one against the billboard. George dips the broom into the bucket. He wets the paper with the liquid from the bucket, and somehow the paper stays in place.

They put up many pieces before they are done.

When they climb down from the ladders, I see that they've added a picture of a little elephant to the billboard. The elephant has a lopsided smile. She is wearing a red hat, and her tail curls like a pig's. She doesn't look like Ruby. She doesn't even look like an elephant.

I've only known Ruby one day, and I could have drawn her better.

Ruby asks a lot of questions. She says, “Ivan, why is your tummy so big?” and “Have you ever seen a green giraffe?” and “Can you get me one of those pink clouds that the humans are eating?”

When Ruby asks, “What is that on your wall?” I explain that it's a jungle. She says the flowers have no scent and the waterfall has no water and the trees have no roots.

“I am aware of that,” I say. “It's art. A picture made with paint.”

“Do you know how to make art?” Ruby asks.

“Yes, I do,” I say, and I puff up my chest, just a little. “I've always been an artist. I love drawing.”

“Why do you love it?” Ruby asks.

I pause. I've never talked to anyone about this before. “When I'm drawing a picture, I feel … quiet inside.”

Ruby frowns. “Quiet is boring.”

“Not always.”

Ruby scratches the back of her neck with her trunk. “What do you draw, anyway?”

“Bananas, mostly. Things in my domain. My drawings sell at the gift store for twenty-five dollars apiece, with a frame.”

“What's a frame?” Ruby asks. “What's a dollar? What's a gift store?”

I close my eyes. “I'm a little sleepy, Ruby.”

“Have you ever driven a truck?” Ruby asks.

I don't answer.

“Ivan?” Ruby asks. “Can Bob fly?”

A memory flashes past, surprising me. I think of my father, snoring peacefully under the sun while I try every trick I know to wake him.

Perhaps, I realize, he wasn't really such a sound sleeper after all.

“How's that foot, old girl?” George asks Stella.

Stella pokes her trunk between the bars. She inspects George's right shirt pocket for the treat he brings her every night without fail.

George doesn't always bring me treats. Stella's his favorite, but I don't mind. She's my favorite too.

Stella sees that George's pocket is empty. She gives George a frustrated nudge with her trunk, and Julia giggles.

Stella moves to George's left pocket and discovers a carrot. Nimbly she removes it.

Mack walks past. “Toilet's plugged up in the men's bathroom,” he says. “Big mess.”

“I'll take care of it.” George sighs.

Mack turns to leave. “Um, before you go, Mack,” George says, “you might want to take a look at Stella's foot. I think it's infected again.”

“Darn thing never does heal up right.” Mack rubs his eyes. “I'll keep an eye on it. Money's tight, though. Can't be calling the vet every time she sneezes.”

George strokes Stella's trunk. She inspects his pockets one more time, just in case.

“Sorry, girl,” George says, as he watches Mack walk away.

“Ivan? Bob?”

I blink. The dawn sky is a smudge of gray flecked with pink, like a picture drawn with two crayons. I can just make out Ruby in the shadows, waving hello with her trunk.

“Are you awake?” Ruby asks.

“We are now,” says Bob.

“Aunt Stella's still asleep and I don't want to wake her 'cause she said her foot was hurting but I'm really, really”—Ruby pauses for a breath—“really bored.”

Bob opens one eye. “You know what I do when I'm bored?”

“What?” Ruby asks eagerly.

Bob closes his eye. “I sleep.”

“It's a little early, Ruby,” I say.

“I'm used to getting up early.” Ruby wraps her trunk around one of the bars on her door. “At my old circus we always got up when it was still dark and then we had breakfast and we walked in a circle. And then they chained my feet up, and that really hurt.”

Ruby falls silent. Instantly Bob is snoring.

“Ivan?” Ruby asks. “Do you know any jokes? I especially like jokes about elephants.”

“Um. Well, let me see. I heard Mack tell one once.” I yawn. “Uhh … how can you tell that an elephant has been in the refrigerator?”

“How?”

“By the footprints in the butter.”

Ruby doesn't react. I sit up on my elbows, trying not to disturb Bob. “Get it?”

“What's a refrigerator?” Ruby asks.

“It's a human thing, a cold box with a door. They put food inside.”

“They put food in the door? Or food in the box? And is it a big box?” Ruby asks. “Or a little box?”

I can see this is going to take a while, so I sit up all the way. Bob slides off, grumbling.

I reach for my pencil, the one I snapped in half with my teeth. “Here,” I say, “I'll draw you a picture of one.”

In the dim light, it takes me a minute to find a piece of the paper Julia gave me. The page is a little damp and has a smear of something orange on it. I think it's from a tangerine.

I try my best to make a refrigerator. The broken pencil is not cooperating, but I do what I can.

By the time I'm done, the first streaks of morning sun have appeared in flashy cartoon colors. I hold up my picture for Ruby to see.

She studies it intently, her head turned so that one black eye is trained on my drawing. “Wow. You made that! Is this the thing you were telling me about before? Art?”