The Elephant's Girl

by Celesta Rimington

  Mrs. Leigh’s face glistens with rain, making her look even more radiant than usual. Her dark hair is sleek and shiny. Her skin is all one smooth color, unlike my own that gets more freckled with each summer day.

  Mrs. Leigh reaches over the seat and settles her hand gently over mine. “You shouldn’t do this kind of thing to Roger, Lexington,” she says.

  What kind of thing?

  “You’re very important to him. You know that, right?”

  I nod.

  “I hope the things I said to you this morning have nothing to do with you disappearing on Roger today.”

  “What things?”

  “The assignment I gave you.”

  “Oh,” I say.

  “I don’t want it to make things difficult between you and him.”

  Difficult? That’s not a word I would ever choose to describe Roger, or me and Roger, or things between me and Roger. Maybe that weird feeling in my stomach isn’t from Miss Amanda’s tea and biscuits. It’s probably something else, but I’m not sure what to call it. It’s not right, though.

  “That assignment I gave you is to help you grow. I intended for you to learn something new about yourself, as well as to more deeply evaluate the book you read.”

  Fisher squirms and shifts in the seat so he can look out the other side of the cart. He doesn’t like listening to my school lessons. He says he gets enough of it when he’s at school. But this time feels different. I get plenty of school lectures from Mrs. Leigh, so this one shouldn’t bother me. But it does, a little.

  “You need to do this assignment and still respect what Roger asks you to do,” she continues. “Does that make sense?”

  I swallow. “Yes.”

  “Okay.” Mrs. Leigh smiles. “And I’m going to want you to write something for me about what you discover about Karana and yourself.”

  I hope she’s not about to give me a deadline, because I’ve been doing school assignments since last September, and this treasure of Miss Amanda’s should get to come first. Mrs. Leigh turns back around.

  Across the grass from our golf cart, Engine 109 idles on the tracks. Pop-off valves by the whistle shoot clouds of creamy-looking steam into the air with a loud hiss, releasing the extra pressure from the boiler. The rhythmic clank of the steam-powered compressor sounds like the locomotive’s metallic heartbeat. Roger’s assistant engineer, J. P. Felt, looks out from inside the red-and-gold-painted cab. He sees me and waves his gloved hand out the window and then down the tracks at Roger, who is doing his pre-run inspection and hasn’t noticed us yet.

  “Thanks for the ride,” I say to Mrs. Leigh. Then, thinking that Fisher and I have some planning to do, I add, “Can Fisher come on the train for a while?”

  Mrs. Leigh doesn’t answer but instead glances over at the train. Roger is now striding toward us with his long legs and work boots. He waves his engineer’s cap at us, not looking upset with me at all. I knew he wouldn’t be mad about lunch. That’s just not Roger.

  “I think you need a little time with Roger,” Mrs. Leigh says, “but you and Roger are invited to our house for dinner tonight.” Her voice lifts almost like she’s singing whenever she invites us to dinner. “So you and Fisher can make your plans then.”

  Fisher looks at me. How his mom always knows when we’re up to something is a mystery. Luckily, she doesn’t always know what we’re up to.

  I step out of the cart just as Roger reaches us.

  “Thanks for bringing her, Fern,” Roger says. He puts his arm around my shoulders. It feels like it weighs more than me, even though he doesn’t rest its full weight. Roger shovels coal, lifts heavy machinery, and can fix nearly anything. His arm feels safe, but it’s not enough to keep me from feeling like I might blow away sometimes. Even Roger’s strong arms couldn’t have kept my family on the ground in the tornado. Sometimes I wish he could’ve been there to try.

  “It was no trouble,” Mrs. Leigh says, holding up her radio and waving it.

  The zoo staff radios are set to the same channel, so everyone hears all the messages. Heat spreads in my cheeks when I think of Roger sending that message on the radio for everyone at the zoo to find me.

  “You and Lexington are invited to dinner at our place,” Mrs. Leigh calls out happily. “Come over any time after closing.”

  Roger glances down at me and raises one bushy eyebrow. He’s asking my opinion about dinner with the Leighs. He knows I already spend a lot of time with Mrs. Leigh, and not as much as I would like with Fisher. I nod and smile. Dinner with the Leighs is perfect—especially today, when Fisher and I have work to do.

  Roger smiles. His eyes are kinder than most. “We’ll be there.”

  I watch as Mrs. Leigh drives Fisher away in the golf cart and then look up at Roger. The rain has streaked the coal dust on his face and has completely soaked us both, but a few minutes inside the steam engine’s hot cab will dry us off.

  “So…,” Roger says, drawing the word out long with the deep rumble of his voice. He takes his arm from my shoulders and rubs his neck like he does when he’s thinking. We slog through the wet grass toward the main station pavilion. “What happened with lunch today?”

  I’m not sure if now is the right moment to tell him I met the ghost from the night of the storm. I want to tell him, but not here, at the station, in the rain, after being brought here like a fugitive.

  “I went out of the zoo—to the woods. I lost track of time.”

  Roger’s eyebrows lift so high that his forehead wrinkles.

  “I’m sorry. Are you angry?” I have to ask, because I’ve never seen Roger angry. I don’t know what that would be like.

  “I’m not angry. Just surprised. You went out of the zoo and into the woods? Didn’t Fisher have baseball this morning?”

  “Yes. I went in the woods by myself.”

  Roger presses his lips together, still rubbing his neck. We reach the pavilion. It’s full of people waiting for the train’s next run. A train ride is always a good option for the guests when it’s raining. Roger walks around the side of the pavilion to the gate that leads to the tracks. He leans one arm against the metal railing and bends at the waist, lowering his head a little closer to mine and keeping this conversation just between the two of us.

  “I expected you were with Fisher, but when no one could find either of you for a while, I got worried.”

  Why would Roger worry? I’ve been roaming free in this zoo for a long time. I know every inch of this place. I know where I’m allowed to go, and I never get lost. Roger rubs his hand over his hair and sighs. Suddenly, I think of Roger bent over his food, sitting all alone at a table for two at the Wild Eats Café. I think of him waiting for his entire lunchtime, possibly not eating because he wants me to get there so we can eat together. I think of how he didn’t know what happened to me and that I’ve never made him worry like that before.

  I put my hand on top of his where it rests on the gate holding his engineer’s cap. “I’m sorry I didn’t come. I’m sorry I worried you.”

  Roger gives me a slight smile. “I gave you a radio to use. I know it’s kind of bulky, but I want you to take it with you when you go out for the day. Do you know where it is?”

  “Yes. It’s in the treehouse. On the charger.” My radio is set to a different channel than the main zoo communication. It uses the same channel as the second radio Roger keeps with him on his train runs. Basically, it’s just for us. And I think about that as I realize I haven’t really used it all that much.

  He stands up straight and places his engineer’s cap on his head. “Get it, keep it charged, and keep it with you. Okay?”

  “Okay.”

  Roger pats my hand gently. My hand nearly disappears underneath his. Then he steps into the pavilion and speaks to the people waiting on the benches. His deep voice carries easily across the crowd. “The trai
n will leave for another round trip of the zoo in five minutes. If you take a ride and want something to do to wait out the rain, we have a station stop just beyond the African Grasslands at the Wild Kingdom Education Center. You can check out the displays in there, watch a movie about the zoo conservation programs, and stay dry.”

  Roger knows everything there is to know about the steam train—its history, how to maintain it, how to keep it running even though it’s an antique. He also knows almost everything about the zoo’s schedule and activities. He makes sure we mention those things in the train ride speech.

  But now, I realize, Roger knows how to take care of people. I think people sense it, because they like his ideas. Moms and dads with baby strollers, kids, older people—they get up from their seats after he finishes talking. Either they line up to show their tickets to J. P. Felt at the gate, or they buy tickets from the girl running the booth.

  “Come on the run with me, Lexington,” Roger says.

  “Of course.” I never get tired of the train. “Roger?” I say as I climb the metal steps into the cab.

  “Yes?”

  “I’m sorry again that you waited for me and I didn’t come.”

  Roger helps me up the last step—it’s a tall one. The cab smells of grease and coal and hot metal. It’s a good smell. “Well”—he tilts his head to the side and checks the gauges, monitoring the water level and the pressure—“I suppose it was bound to happen at some point. What were you doing out in the woods?”

  I don’t mean to say it, but it’s just me and Roger in the cab, and it bursts out of my mouth. “I met the ghost you told me about. Miss Amanda Holtz.”

  Roger’s coal-streaked face suddenly looks like it’s made of clay that was left out in the sun.

  “She never talks about it anymore, but my mom knew a ghost once,” Fisher says quietly. I settle into the soft cushions on the Leighs’ living room sofa and hug my knees.

  Roger wouldn’t tell me what was so bad about me seeing our ghost. He just got quiet for the rest of the day. He only spoke when necessary—to give me things to do at the station. Then, as he drove the engine into the train shed for the night, he asked me if Fisher saw Miss Amanda’s ghost. I told him Fisher hadn’t been with me when I saw her, and that when we went looking for her again, she wasn’t there. All Roger said was “Well, that’s good.”

  Fisher watches the kitchen carefully through the doorway that joins the two rooms, making sure our conversation is private. The grown-ups are still at the dinner table. Roger and Mr. Leigh are on their second and third helpings of Mrs. Leigh’s delicious green chicken curry. They’re discussing some trouble Mr. Leigh is having with the new habitats in the reptile house and about a keeper at the Harbor Reef who’s been missing shifts.

  “They can’t hear us,” I say. “Tell me about the ghost.”

  Fisher picks up a stack of his baseball cards from the teakwood table near the couch. Beneath the protective glass top, a hand-carved scene depicts a busy Thai village full of trees and people carrying baskets. The carvings are so detailed that I’ve always wanted to touch the texture on the ferns and coconut palms.

  Fisher passes his baseball cards back and forth from one hand to the other. “When my mom was a girl living in California, her dad still had business in Thailand sometimes. My grandpa’s business in Thailand is how he met my grandma, you know.”

  I nod. I did know that Mrs. Leigh’s American dad was in Thailand on business when he met her mom. They were married and moved to California after that.

  “When my mom was ten, my grandparents took her to Thailand for a few months while my grandpa was working there. That summer”—Fisher pauses to glance at the kitchen doorway again—“my mom’s best friend back home in California died in an accident.”

  The air feels heavy as I hear this. I hug my knees tighter. I didn’t expect the conversation to go this direction.

  “Fisher, that’s awful.” Fisher is my best friend. I can’t imagine what I would do if he died in an accident. It hurts to even consider it. I suddenly want to go into the kitchen and hug Mrs. Leigh really tight.

  “When they got home to California, my mom kept running away and disappearing. My grandparents would search for hours with no idea where she went, and when they would find her, she would say she’d been with her friend—her friend who died.”

  I feel a chill that’s not from the ceiling fan spinning overhead.

  Fisher keeps shuffling through his baseball cards, not looking at them. “Pretty soon my grandparents couldn’t keep her from running off. She would say she needed to visit her friend. People kept an eye on the place the girl was buried, but my mom was never there.”

  Goose bumps prickle over my arms and neck.

  “She was with her best friend’s ghost. My mom says they would go to the park or down to the beach and talk like they had when her friend was alive. The problem was, the longer her friend was a ghost, the more forgetful she got. My mom had to reteach her things every time they were together.”

  “Hey, Fisher!” Mr. Leigh has stepped into the living room, startling us so much I nearly fall off the couch and Fisher drops half of his baseball card stack. “Do you two want dessert?”

  I sometimes forget that Mr. Leigh is completely bald underneath the Indiana Jones–style hat he wears for work. He shaves his head because he was losing his hair anyway, and Fisher says Mr. Leigh didn’t like being partially bald.

  “Bixly sent me home with leftover brownies and ice cream from the AZA meeting today,” he says. “You’re welcome to it.”

  Mr. Leigh meets with people from the Association of Zoos and Aquariums to be sure the zoo stays compliant. It seems Mr. Bixly provides the treats.

  Mr. Leigh fills up doorways much like Roger does. Besides working on a Wyoming ranch when he was a boy and playing football in college, he was a wildlife ranger in Nairobi, Kenya, and in a documentary movie before becoming the wildlife expert he is for the zoo. Mr. Leigh is the zoo’s very own superstar, but to us he’s just Fisher’s dad.

  Fisher takes a deep breath and gives me a look of relief. “Yeah, we’ll be right there.” We don’t eat in the living room at the Leighs’ house—only the kitchen.

  Mr. Leigh starts to head back to the kitchen and then quickly turns around. “Oh, how was your first day of baseball lessons, son? Are you going to be the next Johnny Damon?”

  “Who?” I ask.

  “He’s a Major League Baseball player,” Fisher tells me. “I found out his mother is Thai, so we kinda have that in common. He also played for the Kansas City Royals.”

  “Fisher gets to go to Kansas City to train with the pros this summer,” Mr. Leigh says, sounding super proud. “Did he tell you?”

  “Yes!” I say, trying hard to sound excited. I can’t imagine wanting to play baseball for three solid weeks. It seems like that would get boring. But I do think it’s cool that Mr. Leigh has a football trophy sitting in a display case in the living room, yet he’s happy for Fisher, who wants to play a different sport.

  “The lessons were great, Dad,” Fisher says. “Coach says I’m doing really well throwing to the corner of the strike zone. My velocity isn’t as good as some my age, but he says that command is always better.”

  I have no idea what he’s talking about. Fisher and I haven’t talked baseball in this sort of detail.

  “That’s good news,” Mr. Leigh says. “Be sure to let Grandma know how much you’re enjoying the lessons.”

  “I will,” Fisher says.

  Mr. Leigh returns to the kitchen and continues a conversation with Roger and Mrs. Leigh about the AZA and the recent cooperation between the Lexington Zoo and the Denver Zoo.

  Fisher picks up the cards he dropped and says, “So…where was I?”

  “Your mom had to help her friend remember things,” I prompt.

  “Oh
yeah. Pretty soon, my mom spent every moment she could with her friend’s ghost to teach her all the things she couldn’t remember. I heard my mom tell Roger once that spending time with ghosts makes you forget how to live. She and Roger had an argument about ghosts and whether they can be trusted.”

  So that’s why Roger seemed upset after I told him I saw Miss Amanda today, and that’s why he was glad Fisher didn’t see her. Because of Mrs. Leigh.

  “How did she ever stop seeing her friend? What happened?”

  Fisher fidgets with his baseball cards some more. “Well, my mom disappeared again, only this time no one could find her for two days. The police were looking and everything. Everyone was afraid she’d been kidnapped or drowned in the ocean. When they finally found her, my mom said she’d been with her ghost friend.”

  “Two days? That’s really bad!”

  “Yeah. My grandparents decided they had to get her away from the ghost for good, so they all moved to Omaha, where my grandpa had a business opportunity. My mom knew it wouldn’t be long before her ghost friend would forget her and all their memories together. It takes three days to drive from Los Angeles to Omaha, did you know that? And my grandma says my mom cried almost the whole way.”

  “Poor Mrs. Leigh,” I whisper under my breath, thinking of a little-girl version of Fern Leigh, crying about losing her friend. It makes my throat tighten up.

  I lean over the teakwood table and imagine the scene in the Thai village coming to life. These beautiful things in the Leighs’ house have always reminded me that everyone has a piece of their life that’s different from what we know. But I never really thought about the feelings attached to that life before. Maybe Mrs. Leigh and her parents visited a village in Thailand like the one carved into this table. Maybe this is similar to where her mother grew up. I think the wooden scene probably reminds Mrs. Leigh of good things, a place that’s special to her and her family, as well as the sadness of coming home from Thailand as a girl to find out her friend had died. A sort of happy-sad table.