The One and Only Ivan

Inside her domain, Stella paces as much as she’s able: two steps one way, two steps the other. She slaps her trunk against rusty metal bars. She grumbles.

“Stella,” I ask, “did you hear the baby?”

Stella mutters something under her breath, a word she uses when she’s angry.

“Relax, Stella,” I say. “It will be okay.”

“Ivan,” Stella says, “it will never, ever be okay,” and I know enough to stop talking.

stella helps

The men are still yelling. Some of the yelling is at each other, but most of it is at Ruby.

We hear scrambling, pounding, shifting. The side of the truck shudders.

“I’m starting to like this elephant,” Bob whispers.

“I’m getting the big one,” Mack says. “Maybe she can coax the stupid brat out of the truck.”

Mack opens Stella’s door. “Come on, girl,” he urges. He unties the rope attached to the floor bolt.

Stella pushes past Mack, nearly knocking him over. She rushes as best she can, limping heavily, toward the open back door of the truck. She catches her swollen foot on the edge of the ramp and winces. Blood trickles down.

Halfway up the ramp she pauses. The noise in the truck stops. Ruby falls silent.

Slowly Stella makes her way up the rest of the ramp. It groans under her weight, and I can tell how much she is hurting by the awkward way she moves.

At the top of the incline she stops. She pokes her trunk into the emptiness.

We wait.

The tiny gray trunk appears again. Shyly it reaches out, tasting the air. Stella curls her own trunk around the baby’s. They make soft rumbling sounds.

We wait some more. A hush falls over the entire Big Top Mall.

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.”

old news

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.

tricks

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.