The Elephant's Girl

by Celesta Rimington

  The most interesting thing from the box that now belongs to me is Angus Fenn’s will, which named his descendants the owners of all his property, including the elephants he sent to the zoo from his circus. And that includes Nyah. So Nyah and Tendai were technically on loan to the zoo, an arrangement Mr. Bixly had on file in his office. But except for my parents, who one day showed up at the Grasslands and then disappeared, no one ever came forward to claim the elephants.

  Roger and I have a lot to discuss when he feels better. Mostly, it involves him and me and some African elephants. But today I’m watching a baseball game.

  “Okay,” I say to Fisher, “so the batter can technically have more than three tries to hit the ball?”

  Fisher is standing in the dirt at the bottom of the bleacher steps. He’s wearing his Omaha Storm Chasers ball cap and looks pretty official. His worn leather glove forms to his hand when he slips it on, and he’s wearing baseball pants instead of his usual shorts. He’s getting ready for that baseball camp in Kansas City, and I think it looks like he’s doing a good job.

  “Right,” he says. “If the batter has two strikes and then hits foul balls—that’s if the ball goes out of bounds—they keep batting until they either hit the ball within bounds or get a third strike.”

  “Oh.” I think I understand.

  Fisher glances back at the rest of the players wearing blue jerseys. The coach has called them over, and they’re gathering on a bench to listen to him.

  “Well, it’s time for me to go,” Fisher says with a look of excitement that makes me happy. “I’ll see you after it’s over?”

  I smile to reassure him. I’m not going anywhere today. “Absolutely. I’ll be in these bleachers, cheering you on the whole time.”

  “Thanks.” He smiles back, tugs on the bill of his hat, adjusts it a little. He starts toward the blue-jersey bench but then hurries back to say something else. “Oh, um, you know about the pitcher, right?”

  I’ve seen bits and pieces of baseball games at the Leighs’ house and in the back kitchen at the Wild Eats Café. I never paid much attention to the rules, but I’ve seen enough on TV and listened to Fisher talk about the game and his baseball cards enough to know this.

  “Of course. It’s the guy who throws the ball to the batter from the hill.”

  “Well…” Fisher smiles a little like I said something funny. “From the mound. But yes. Great!” Fisher’s smile keeps growing. He takes a deep breath. “The pitcher is really important to the game. And it’s hard to do it well.”

  “Got it,” I say.

  “Okay…see ya.” Fisher turns again and runs to meet the other blue-jersey players and his coach.

  I climb the steps to an empty section on the fifth row of bleachers. Fisher said the ball can come into the bleachers sometimes, if a batter hits a foul, so I want a little buffer. As I walk to the spot I’ve selected, I see a familiar face. I take a deep breath. If I can tell off the wind in tornado form, I can do this. I approach her.

  “Hi, Camille,” I say. It’s the nice girl from the last time I was here.

  Camille looks around and sees me. I brave a smile, wondering what she thinks of me after I ran away from her and her friends. I don’t see them here with her this time.

  “It’s Lexington,” I say.

  “Yes,” she says, smiling. “I remember.”

  “Sorry I took off so suddenly the other day.”

  Camille slides down on her bench, offering me space to sit. So I do.

  “Tae and Anna can be a little much sometimes,” she says. “I really think I would have done the same thing.”

  “Really?” I laugh unexpectedly. It’s a kind of happy relief spilling out of me.

  Camille laughs, too. She has her hair in braids, and I wish I knew how to do that with my hair. It wouldn’t be so hot on my neck.

  I glance at the players on the field and look for Fisher. The coach is finished talking to them, and Fisher and another boy are throwing the ball back and forth to each other for practice. Fisher throws it hard, and the ball slams into the other boy’s glove with a slapping thud. I didn’t know Fisher could throw the ball like that. It’s so fast I can hardly follow it with my eyes. It reminds me of those baseball games on TV, and I can tell that Fisher definitely knows what he’s doing. He looks like the pros when he throws the ball like that. And then I think I know why Fisher asked me if I knew about the pitcher.

  The blue jerseys spread out across the field, and Fisher stays where he is while his coach talks to him.

  “I heard about the tornado hitting the zoo last week,” Camille says. “Is everyone all right? Did you see it?”

  “I definitely saw it. It took the roof off the building I was in with my family and friends.”

  Camille gasps, and her eyes go wide. “I bet that was terrifying.”

  “It was scary,” I say, but I keep my voice matter-of-fact. I don’t want to make a big deal about it, because this time the tornado won’t live on as the thing that describes who I am. I get to do that. “But everyone is going to be okay.”

  “Oh, that’s good,” Camille says. She smiles at me. She has braces with pink bands on them. “You know, I love going to the zoo and seeing the animals. I think it’s so cool that you get to live there.”

  Fisher is walking to the small dirt hill in the middle of the field—the mound. He looks so sure of himself. So confident. And I realize how much he wanted me to know what his hard work is all about, and how pleased he is to have me see this. My heart squeezes with pride for my best friend.

  “You should come for a visit,” I say to Camille, glancing at her briefly but watching Fisher so I don’t miss a thing.

  “Really?”

  “Yeah,” I say. I’ve never had someone visit me at the zoo before. There must be some way for me to have a visitor without her having to pay to come into the zoo. “I’ll talk to the customer service manager and get you some free passes.”

  “Cool,” she says. “I’d like that.”

  Fisher stands on the pitcher’s mound, his hands together in front of him, holding the baseball in his glove.

  “The pitcher is my friend,” I say to Camille.

  “Friend,” whispers the wind. It hasn’t spoken to me much since Nyah and I told off the twister. But this version of the wind, when it shows up, is a changed wind. Many things have changed since the twister.

  “Yes,” I answer. “Friend.”

  The umpire yells, “Play ball!” and the batter from the white-jersey team walks to the plate. He shoulders the bat. He swings it over home plate a few times, waiting for Fisher’s pitch.

  Fisher winds up like a pro, and I hold my breath. Maybe he’s done this hundreds of times, but it’s the first time I’ve seen it, and my arms prickle with goose bumps.

  The ball leaves his hand so fast, it hits the catcher’s glove with a thud before I can spot it. The batter swings and misses.

  “Strike one!” yells the umpire.

  And I don’t care whether this is what people do or not, but I’m on my feet cheering for Fisher and his fast pitch.

  The repairs to the elephant barn are going to take longer than a few weeks. The roof still isn’t finished, but we have even bigger construction plans underway.

  It’s been almost two months since the tornado and my discovery of the Fenn fortune. Fisher left a month after the big storm to visit his grandparents in Omaha, and then he had three whole weeks at his Kansas City baseball camp. He’s due back on a fancy bus this afternoon.

  “Lex!” Camille and some of Fisher’s school friends are heading toward the construction trailer at the edge of the woods. They’ve been helping with our new project. They arrive at the construction trailer with a pile of papers and a cooler full of sports drinks and ice cream sandwiches.

  Camille hands me the papers. “W
e came up with a bunch of different flyers to take to all the downtown businesses. Our teacher from last year wants to help, and he said he can help us create a website for the sanctuary if Fisher’s mom is too busy.”

  “Always good to have more people on your team who can handle the internet,” Roger says from his swivel chair. He is sitting at the desk, going over the latest plans the architect delivered this morning.

  According to the accountant and the attorney Roger hired to help me, my family fortune and the money my parents had in an account from selling off the circus property, plus the donations we’ve had rolling in after all the news coverage, is going to be more than enough to get the Amanda Holtz Elephant Sanctuary ready for Nyah and five other elephants.

  Yes, five others.

  We still have Asha, Zaire, and Jazz.

  But with some excellent news coverage (thanks to Mrs. Leigh and her press releases), and thanks to Thomas’s and Mr. Leigh’s connections with other zoos, we’ve been able to find the rest of Nyah’s circus herd—the two remaining elephants that my grandfather loaned to a zoo in Ohio. Two females named Gypsy and Star. I have their pictures taped to the wall of the construction trailer.

  With our plans for an elephant sanctuary, and my grandfather’s will that was in his metal box, both zoos agreed to send Gypsy and Star to join Nyah. Herds should always stay together.

  “Thanks for all your help, Camille.” I spread the flyers out on the desk and show them to Roger. They have various pictures of the elephants, artist drawings of the planned sanctuary, and information about how to donate to the project.

  “My pleasure,” Camille says with a smile. “This is the best summer we’ve ever had. Thanks for letting us be a part of this.”

  “Of course,” I say, handing her an ice cream sandwich from the cooler.

  I think of the time I first saw Camille and Anna and Tae on the bus, and then again at the ball field. Camille doesn’t hang out with them as much anymore. The other two girls aren’t interested in what we’re doing here. I’m glad to have found some friends who enjoy animals and the outdoors as much as Fisher and I do.

  Although Mrs. Leigh was super impressed with the paper I wrote about myself and Karana and learning to leave my island, I’m considering going to school with my friends in the fall. But I’m still not sure. I’ll miss how active the animals are in the mornings, and lunch with Roger every day, but Roger says we will have the weekends for that. I still have time to decide.

  “It looks like Fern has something to tell us,” Roger says, motioning at the window. I look out and see Mrs. Leigh waving her arms. She’s wearing one of her business suits with a lavender blouse. That color almost lights up on her. She dresses like this on days when she meets with zoo donors and the press, but today she has layered a cooking apron on top. She notices the apron and laughs as I wave out the window at her.

  I open the trailer door and jump off the top step.

  “Is he here?”

  “I just got a call from my mom,” Mrs. Leigh says. “They’ll be here in a few minutes! I was so excited that I didn’t even notice I was still wearing this!” She laughs again and takes off her apron.

  On top of all her zoo and sanctuary work, Mrs. Leigh has been cooking a lot of food, preparing a feast for Fisher’s homecoming and a special occasion we have later today. Her newly remodeled kitchen is full to the brim, so she’s been using the refrigerators and stoves at the Wild Eats Café. We even have papaya salad and the pork fried rice I made at the Old County Bank. Fisher’s Thai grandma is riding with him from Kansas City, and I think Mrs. Leigh’s excitement might have to do with that a little.

  Camille and the others leave the cooler and flyers in the trailer and follow Mrs. Leigh to the bus stop. I hurry back inside, and Roger hands me the welcome-home banner Camille helped me make.

  “Maybe we planned too much at once,” Roger says. “Are you going to be okay to do all this today?”

  I give him my biggest smile.

  Fisher is finally coming home and planning to go with us and the Leighs to the courthouse this afternoon. We have an appointment with the judge. To settle the matter of Roger Marsh and his guardianship of a girl with the given name of Autumn Palmer.

  Once we knew I was Angus Fenn’s granddaughter and my mother’s name was Eden, it didn’t take long to locate a birth certificate. But after all those years of wondering about my last name and my birthday (which is October 23, by the way, and that means I’m older than Fisher by about eight months), I’ve decided to keep Lexington Willow. I’m adding two names today, though, and after the adoption, I’ll be legally Lexington Willow Palmer Marsh. I’ll have the names of my two dads—the circus animal keeper and the zoo train engineer.

  “It’s not too much,” I say to Roger. “I wouldn’t change a thing.”

  Roger nods. He has a tiny pink scar on the right side of his forehead from his head injury. I’m so grateful I didn’t lose him.

  “Well,” he says, “it’s about time, right?”

  I hug him, and my arms can’t reach all the way around his middle, but I squeeze tight. He hugs me back with those strong arms that survived the twister right alongside me.

  Roger and I join the crowd waiting at the bus stop for Fisher. There’s Isabel and some of her gift shop staff, Cory, DaLoris, Thomas, Camille, Fisher’s school friends, and of course Mr. and Mrs. Leigh. The surprise person in the crowd is Mr. Bixly, who warmed up to the idea of my elephant sanctuary and how it’s putting the Lexington Zoo in the news with good publicity and increased crowds. He agreed to close the zoo early today for our special celebration. And he’s here now, waiting at the bus stop with all of us instead of sitting in his office or the General Manager’s residence all alone. Between Roger and me, we think Mr. Bixly is on his way to learning what family means, just like we all are.

  Camille and I stretch out the welcome-home banner and cheer when Fisher steps off the bus with his Kansas City Royals hat on backward.

  His skin has darkened from all his time in the sun, and he looks strong. Most of all, he smiles like a kid who just spent three weeks doing something he loves. His grandma joins him on the steps, looking even prouder than Fisher does. She resembles Mrs. Leigh, pretty with smiling eyes, but she’s just a little shorter and rounder. Fisher waves his baseball star wave as if he’s on one of those floats in the Thanksgiving Day parade. Then, with his travel-worn, sun-worn backpack over his shoulder and a baseball in one hand, he hops off the last step.

  Mrs. Leigh grabs Fisher in a hug. I think Fisher grew taller. How did he grow taller in three weeks? Mr. Leigh hurries over to Fisher’s grandma and helps with her bags. She has brought a lot with her.

  “Hello, Fern.” Fisher’s grandma hugs Mrs. Leigh and then pulls a pot and a woven basket from one of her bags. “To replace the one you lost in the storm.”

  “Thank you, Mom,” Mrs. Leigh says.

  “What do you use that for?” I ask.

  “It’s a steamer pot and basket,” Fisher’s grandma says. “The authentic way to make Thai sticky rice.”

  “Yum,” I say to Fisher’s grandma. “Mrs. Leigh has been teaching me to cook.”

  “Well, maybe I can teach you some more while I’m here. I understand Fern is quite busy these days.”

  Mrs. Leigh nods at that. “Mom, you remember Lexington?”

  “Yes, I do,” Fisher’s grandma says, taking my hand and squeezing it gently. “Nice to see you again.”

  “Nice to see you, too,” I say.

  “Fisher has been telling me about your adventures, and your ghost friend.” She smiles like someone who knows about ghosts.

  “Oh, well,” I say, thinking she may want to know this, “my ghost friend has found her way….She’s not lost anymore.”

  Fisher’s grandma glances at Mrs. Leigh. “Well, that is very good to hear.”

 
; “Hey there, Slugger,” I say to Fisher. “We missed you around here. Looks like you had fun at that camp, though. Are you gonna be Lexington’s famous major league player in a few years?”

  He shrugs, but if I know Fisher, he’ll never stop working until he gets where he wants to go. “Well,” he says, presenting a signed baseball to me and his parents, “look who I got to meet.”

  We all lean forward to examine the signatures. I don’t know the names, but Mr. Leigh does. He claps Fisher on the back and spouts out the names, adding more excitement to his voice with each one until finally, he says a name I do know, just as I see the writing next to Fisher’s thumb.

  “Johnny Damon!” Mr. Leigh exclaims.

  “He met his hero,” Fisher’s grandma says, laughing. I can see where Mrs. Leigh gets her laugh. It’s the kind that isn’t about being funny. It’s about being so happy that joy spills out of you. And I know Mrs. Leigh has had plenty of things to be sad about, yet she laughs like this. Like her mom.

  “You met him?” I say.

  “Well, he used to play for the Royals a long time ago, so he came to say hi to us at the camp. He asked me about my pitching and signed this for me.”

  Fisher’s grandma wraps her arm around Fisher’s shoulders. “Fisher’s going to be just like that. He’s very talented. I’m bragging to all the cousins. My talented grandson is going to be a big American baseball star.”

  Fisher blushes a little. His grandma always makes a big deal out of him, and it’s never subtle.

  “How are the sanctuary plans coming?” Fisher asks me.

  “Amazing,” I say. Because they are. And I hand him a folded piece of paper, a color printout of Mrs. Leigh’s design for the sanctuary logo that I’ve been carrying in my pocket. It’s an outline of Nyah and Tendai, surrounded by a rich variety of trees, and the words “Amanda Holtz Elephant Sanctuary” in an arc above them.