The One and Only Ivan (6 page)

“Sure is. I can draw all kinds of things. I'm especially good at fruit.”

“Could you draw a banana right now?” Ruby asks.

“Absolutely.” I turn the paper over and sketch.

“Wow,” Ruby says again in an awed voice when I hold up the page. “It looks good enough to eat!”

She makes a happy, lilting sound, an elephant laugh. It's like the song of a bird I recall from long ago, a tiny yellow bird with a voice like dancing water.

Strange. I'd forgotten all about that bird, how she'd wake me every morning at dawn, when I was still curled safely in my mother's nest.

It's a good feeling, making Ruby laugh, so I draw another picture, and another, along the edges of the paper: an orange, a candy bar, a carrot.

“What are you two up to?” Stella asks, moaning as she tries to move her sore foot.

“How are you this morning?” I ask.

“Just feeling my age,” Stella says. “I'm fine.”

“Ivan is making me pictures,” Ruby says. “And he told me a joke. I really like Ivan, Aunt Stella.”

Stella winks at me. “Me too,” she says.

“Ivan? Want to hear my favorite joke?” Ruby asks. “I heard it from Maggie. She was one of the giraffes in my old circus.”

“Sure,” I say.

“It goes like this.” Ruby clears her throat. “What do elephants have that nothing else has?”

Trunks, I think, but I don't answer because I don't want to ruin Ruby's fun.

“I don't know, Ruby,” I reply. “What do elephants have that nothing else has?”

“Baby elephants,” Ruby says.

“Good one, Ruby,” I say, watching Stella stroke Ruby's back with her trunk.

“Good one,” Stella says softly.

Once I asked Stella if she'd ever had any babies.

She shook her head. “I never had the opportunity.”

“You would have made a great mother,” I told her.

“Thank you, Ivan,” Stella said, clearly pleased. “I like to think so. Having young ones is a big responsibility. You have to teach them how to take mud baths, of course, and emphasize the importance of fiber in their diet.” She looked away, contemplating.

Elephants are excellent at contemplating.

“I think the hardest part of being a parent,” Stella added after a while, “would be keeping your babies safe from harm. Protecting them.”

“The way silverbacks do in the jungle,” I said.

“Exactly.” Stella nodded.

“You would have been good at protecting, too,” I said confidently.

“I'm not so sure,” Stella said, gazing at the iron bars surrounding her. “I'm not sure at all.”

Mack and George are chatting while George cleans one of my windows.

“George,” Mack says, frowning, “there's something wrong with the parking lot.”

George sighs. “I'll take a look as soon as I'm done with this window. What's the problem?”

“There are cars in it, that's what's wrong.
Cars
, George!” Mack breaks into a grin. “I think things are actually starting to pick up a bit. It's gotta be the billboard. People see that baby elephant and they just have to stop and spend their hard-earned cash.”

“I hope so,” George says. “We sure could use the business.”

Mack's right. I have noticed more visitors coming since he and George added the picture of Ruby to the sign. People crowd around Ruby and Stella's domain, oohing and ahhing at the sight of a such a tiny elephant.

I gaze out at the huge sign that makes humans stop and spend their hard-earned cash. I have to admit that the picture of Ruby is rather cute, even if she doesn't look like a real elephant.

I wonder if Mack could add a little red hat and a curly tail to the picture of me. Maybe then more visitors would stop by my domain.

I could use a few oohs and ahhs myself.

“Ivan, tell me another joke, please!” Ruby begs after the two-o'clock show.

“I think I may have run out of jokes,” I admit.

“A story, then,” Ruby says. “Aunt Stella's sleeping. And there's nothing to do.”

I tap my chin. I'm trying hard to think. But when I gaze up at the food court skylight, I'm mesmerized by the elephant-colored clouds galloping past.

Ruby taps her foot impatiently. “I know!
I'll
tell
you
a story,” she says. “A real live true one.”

“Good idea,” I say. “What's it about?”

“It's about
me
.” Ruby lowers her voice. “It's about me and how I fell into a hole. A
big
hole. Humans dug it.”

Bob pricks his ears and joins me by the window. “I always enjoy a good digging story,” he says.

“It was a big hole full of water near a village,” Ruby says. “I don't know why humans made it.”

“Sometimes you just need to dig for the sake of digging,” Bob reflects.

“We were looking for food,” Ruby says, “my family and I. But I wandered off and got lost and went too close to the village.” Ruby looks at me, eyes wide. “I was
so
scared when I fell into that hole.”

“Of course you were,” I say. “I would have been scared too.”

“Me too,” Bob admits. “And I
like
holes.”

“The hole was huge.” Ruby pokes her trunk between the bars and makes a circle in the air. “And guess what?” She doesn't wait for an answer. “The water was all the way up to my neck and I was sure I was going to die.”

I shudder. “What happened then?” I ask.

“
I'll
tell you what happened,” Bob says darkly. “They captured her and put her in a box and shipped her off and here she is. Just like they did with Stella.” He pauses to scratch an ear. “Humans. Rats have bigger hearts. Roaches have kinder souls. Flies have—”

“No, Bob!” Ruby interrupts. “You're wrong. These humans helped me. When they saw I was trapped, they grabbed ropes and they made loops around my neck and my tummy. The whole entire village helped, even little kids and grandmas and grandpas, and they all pulled and pulled and…”

Ruby stops. Her lashes are wet, and I know she must be remembering all the terrible feelings from that day.

“… and they saved me,” she finishes in a whisper.

Bob blinks. “They
saved
you?” he repeats.

“When I was finally out, everyone cheered,” Ruby says. “And the children fed me fruit. And then all those humans led me back to my family. It took the whole day to find them.”

“No way,” Bob says, still doubtful.

“It's true,” Ruby says. “Every word.”

“Of course it's true,” I say.

“I've heard rescue stories like that before.” It's Stella's voice. She sounds weary. Slowly she makes her way over to Ruby. “Humans can surprise you sometimes. An unpredictable species,
Homo sapiens
.”

Bob still looks unconvinced. “But Ruby's here now,” he points out. “If humans are so swell, who did that to her?”

I send Bob a grumpy look. Sometimes he doesn't know when to keep quiet.

Ruby swallows, and I'm afraid she's going to cry. But when she speaks, her voice is strong. “Bad humans killed my family, and bad humans sent me here. But that day in the hole, it was humans who saved me.” Ruby leans her head on Stella's shoulder. “Those humans were good.”

“It doesn't make any sense,” Bob says. “I just don't understand them. I never will.”

“You're not alone,” I say, and I turn my gaze back to the racing gray clouds.

Stella's foot hurts too much for her to do any hard tricks for the two-o'clock show. Instead, Mack pulls her, limping, into the ring, where she tracks a circle in the sawdust.

Ruby clings to her like a shadow. Ruby's eyes go wide when Snickers jumps on Stella's back, then leaps onto her head.

At the four-o'clock show, Stella can only get as far as the entrance to the ring. Ruby refuses to leave her side.

At the seven-o'clock show, Stella stays in her domain. When Mack comes for Ruby, Stella whispers something in her ear. Ruby looks at her pleadingly, but after a moment, she follows Mack to the ring.

Ruby stands alone. The bright lights make her blink. She flaps her ears. She makes her tiny trumpet sound.

The humans stop eating their popcorn. They coo. They clap.

Ruby is a hit.

I don't know whether to be happy or sad.

When Julia arrives after the show, she brings three thick books, one pencil, and something she calls Magic Markers.

“Here, Ivan,” she says, and she slides two Magic Markers and a piece of paper into my domain.

I like the sundown colors, red and purple. But I don't feel like coloring. I'm worried about Stella. All evening she's been quiet, and she hasn't eaten a bit of her dinner.

Julia follows my gaze. “Where is Stella, anyway?” she asks, and she goes to Stella's gate. Ruby extends her trunk and Julia pats it. “Hi, baby,” she says. “Is Stella all right?”

Stella is lying in a pile of dirty hay. Her breath is ragged.

“Dad,” Julia calls, “could you come here a minute?”

George sets aside his mop.

“Do you think she's okay, Dad?” Julia asks. “Look at the way she's breathing. Can we call Mack? I think there's something really wrong.”

“He must know about her.” George rubs his chin. “He always knows. But a vet costs money, Jules.”

“Please?” Julia's eyes are wet. “Call him, Dad.”

George gazes at Stella. He puts his hands on his hips and sighs. He calls Mack.

I can't hear all of his words, but I can see George's lips tighten into a grim line.

Gorilla expressions and human expressions are a lot alike.

“Mack says the vet's coming in the morning if Stella's not any better,” he tells Julia. “He says he's not going to let her die on him, not after all the money he's put into her.”

George strokes Julia's hair. “She'll be all right. She's a tough old girl.”

Julia sits by Stella's domain until it's time to go home. She doesn't do her homework. She doesn't even draw.

My domain gleams with moonlight when I awake to the sound of Stella's calls.

“Ivan?” Stella says in a hoarse whisper. “Ivan?”

“I'm here, Stella.” I sit up abruptly, and Bob topples off my stomach. I run to a window. I can see Ruby next to Stella, sleeping soundly.

“Ivan, I want you to promise me something,” Stella says.

“Anything,” I say.

“I've never asked for a promise before, because promises are forever, and forever is an unusually long time. Especially when you're in a cage.”

“Domain,” I correct.

“Domain,” she agrees.

I straighten to my full height. “I promise, Stella,” I say in a voice like my father's.

“But you haven't even heard what I'm asking yet,” she says, and she closes her eyes for a moment. Her great chest shudders.

“I promise anyway.”

Stella doesn't say anything for a long time. “Never mind,” she finally says. “I don't know what I was thinking. The pain is making me addled.”

Ruby stirs. Her trunk moves, as if she is reaching for something that isn't there.

When I say the words, they surprise me. “You want me to take care of Ruby.”

Stella nods, a small gesture that makes her wince. “If she could have a life that's … different from mine. She needs a safe place, Ivan. Not—”

“Not here,” I say.

It would be easier to promise to stop eating, to stop breathing, to stop being a gorilla.

“I promise, Stella,” I say. “I promise it on my word as a silverback.”

Before Mack, before Bob, even before Ruby, I know that Stella is gone.

I know it the way you know that summer is over and winter is on its way. I just know.

Stella once teased me that elephants are superior because they feel more joy and more grief than apes.

“Your gorilla hearts are made of ice, Ivan,” she said, her eyes glittering. “Ours are made of fire.”

Right now I would give all the yogurt raisins in all the world for a heart made of ice.

Bob heard from a rat, a reliable sort, that they tossed Stella's body into a garbage truck.

It took five men and a forklift.

All day I try to comfort Ruby, but what can I say?

That Stella had a good and happy life? That she lived as she was meant to live? That she died with those who loved her most nearby?

At least the last is true.

Julia cries all evening, while her father sweeps and mops and dusts and cleans the toilets.