Small as an Elephant

by Jennifer Richard Jacobson

  Jack curled up on a clump of pine needles outside the fort and cried. Not softly, not with the silent tears that had rolled down his face when his mother had said they would not see Lydia. Nor with the frustrated tears that came when he’d ruined his cell phone. No, this cry came from deep in his gut and heaved out of him, causing his chest to hammer against the earth. He moaned between sobs, not caring who heard him now, and let the snot pour down his face.

  He was worn out, sunburned, hungry, and lonely, and everything he needed, everything he had counted on, had been stolen.

  When the sobs subsided, he remained curled on the ground, hiccuping. He wondered briefly if his things had been taken by people who were searching for him, but that didn’t make sense. If they were searching for him, they would have gone into the fort and found him. It wouldn’t have been hard. No, it seemed his stuff had been stolen by someone who just wanted the stuff. He’d stolen the bike, and now someone had stolen it from him.

  He was tired of thinking of the next step and the next. He wanted this whole trip to end — for it to be one long, bad dream. He wanted to wake up in his own bed and have his mother shout from the kitchen, “Do you want strawberry French toast or an everything omelet for breakfast?”

  He wanted someone else to be in charge.

  And then, lying there in that pine-needle patch, staring up at the boughs above him, he suddenly didn’t want anything at all.

  Nothing.

  He didn’t want to get up. He didn’t want to eat. He didn’t want a ride back to Massachusetts. He didn’t want to see Nina, or Gram — ever. Didn’t want to see his old apartment. He didn’t even want a free boat ride to the Bahamas.

  Or to ever see his mother again.

  Tears rolled down his cheeks once more.

  Jack would have stayed there, stayed right there, until some unsuspecting person tripped over him, if it weren’t for the setting sun and the onslaught of mosquitoes. He tried to ignore them, like he was trying to ignore the rest of his troubles, but their needle-like mouths pierced his cheeks, his neck, his exposed arms and legs. Their insistent squeal and the increasing stiffness he was feeling from his sunburn forced him to get up and get walking.

  He didn’t have a plan. Didn’t know where he was going or what he was going to do when he got there. He was just heading south, out of habit now more than anything else.

  He missed his long-sleeved shirt, not because it was cold, although it was getting cooler, but because it would have given the mosquitoes one less place to suck. He wondered why the bugs, which had been nearly nonexistent on Mount Desert Island, were such a nuisance now.

  It was kind of a relief not to be carrying the heavy backpack, but without a bike and helmet, he was fairly conspicuous; anyone passing would wonder whether he was the missing boy. But he no longer cared.

  He saw headlights approaching, and he kept his head up, staring right at them. You too can be on the news tomorrow night. You can be the heroes that find me.

  The Volkswagen Beetle whizzed by. Seemed they didn’t care, either.

  Neither did the man on the motorcycle.

  Jack didn’t know why he had bothered trying to go home in the first place. It had been a stupid plan. Even if he could walk like this all the way to Jamaica Plain, even if he could get back to his apartment, how was he going to pay for things? Not just food, but the rent and the electricity bill?

  You could get a job, said the ever-hopeful voice in his head.

  Sure, he could get a job. Maybe they’d let him wash dishes or something at Ten Tables. Or he could work for Mrs. Harris, downstairs. She always had jobs for him to do.

  Sometimes he would tell his mother all he had done for Mrs. Harris in a single afternoon.

  “And she only paid you five dollars? Child-labor laws exist for a reason,” his mother had said one time. “I think I may need to remind her.”

  Five dollars was not going to pay the rent.

  And what would he do when he wasn’t working? He couldn’t go to school. No doubt, everyone at Curley Middle School had already heard about his summer vacation. The moment he showed up there, someone was bound to call DSS.

  But she could come back.

  Shut up.

  Headlights were approaching.

  She could.

  Shut up!

  The headlights came closer.

  Jack jumped up and down, waving his hands over his head.

  The headlights glared.

  “Stop!” he yelled.

  But the tanker went right on by.

  It was music that made him slow down. There was a church — the Safe Harbor Church, according to the sign — up on the hill to his right, and there was singing coming from inside. Jack had to think a moment. It wasn’t Sunday, was it? And besides, services were held in the morning, not at night. Even a nonchurchgoer like him knew that much. So why the singing on a — on a Thursday night? It could be a performance, but the singing started and stopped, started and stopped. Each time it stopped, someone shouted.

  It wasn’t a performance, he realized. It was a rehearsal. These singers were practicing.

  The windows were brightly lit, and he was cold. It was hard to believe that just an hour ago, he was being cooked alive. The moment the sun went down, the heat shut off. He might not have known his future, but at least he knew what he was going to do next.

  He waited until the singing resumed; then he opened the large church door and crept inside. Having been to a couple of weddings, both times as his mother’s date, he knew what to expect. He knew there would be a big entryway before the main part of the church. And there would be stairs if he was lucky — and he was. Jack tiptoed up the stairs to a small balcony, which mostly housed the organ pipes, but there were also a few rows of seats.

  Jack didn’t need a seat. He crawled to the front of the balcony, which was surprisingly warm, and stretched out on the floor. Song rose up, and, even though he was too tired to concentrate on the words, it tucked in around him like a soft blanket. He pulled his elephant out and held her above his eyes.

  What would his mother say about this elephant? He could no longer predict her reactions (though she’d be furious if she learned he stole it). When he was little, she used to bring him something elephant almost every week: pictures from the newspaper, elephant Pez, elephant lollipops. Once, she swapped a necklace she was wearing for an elephant key chain owned by a kid in their apartment building. Another time, a guest had told her about a bakery that sold elephant-shaped raspberry tarts, and she drove the Intown Inn van all the way to the North End to buy him one. It had almost gotten her fired. But as he got older, she seemed to get impatient with his obsession — like he should have outgrown it or something.

  He wished that elephants were still something they shared. Maybe that was why he’d told her about elephant poo power on the ride up. He’d wanted to remind her one last time about Lydia . . . wanted her to respond like her old self — like the mom who loved to make him happy. He wanted to give her the opportunity to pull off the highway in York and surprise him. But mentioning elephants had only irritated her.

  The music climbed right up to the church rafters and swelled. Jack could distinguish the sound of one female singer with a high voice and one male with a very low voice. All of the other voices seemed to blend into one.

  He thought about Lydia, the one and only elephant in Maine. He had discovered her existence on the day he and his mother had left for Mount Desert Island. He and Nina had been goofing around on the Internet and did what he often did: searched for elephant and ____________ (whatever interested him or came to mind). He’d searched using the terms elephants and comics, elephants and pie, and elephants and toothpaste, and had learned some pretty crazy things. That morning, he had searched under elephants and maine and discovered Lydia.

  Lydia was at York’s Wild Kingdom. She performed in a show and gave elephant rides to children. Jack had called his mother at work and begged her to put the animal park on the lis
t. (The town of York was on their way!) But she had refused. She used the same old argument: they would be supporting the keeping of elephants in captivity, elephants who were forced to give people rides. His mom wouldn’t fund that.

  When they had passed the exit and his mom had not turned off, he’d switched from hinting to pleading.

  “Mom, I agree with you! But we don’t have to fund it. I don’t want to pay for a ride; I just want to see a real elephant again!”

  His mother had been slowing the car down, going through a toll. “Someday you and I will go to Asia or Africa, Jack. Then you will see an elephant. In Maine, you will see puffins and lobsters — maybe even a moose!”

  She’d made him feel like he was four. “So it’s OK to eat a lobster, but it’s not OK to look at an elephant?”

  “All right, then, we won’t eat lobsters, either. We’ll do other things on the list.”

  “I don’t care about the stupid list. It’s your list — not mine. There’s not one thing on that list that I want to do.”

  “You are so stinking selfish, Jack Martel. Do you realize I spend every day of the week driving a hotel shuttle so you can have the things you want —?”

  “Like what?”

  “Like a computer, a cell phone, vacations. And now that I have a few days off to enjoy myself, you are determined to wreck it.”

  He should have stopped there; he’d known that. He had felt the small storm brewing in his mother as she’d driven north, known she was becoming increasingly agitated, the way she often did before things went crazy. But he couldn’t stop himself.

  “You’re the one who’s selfish. You’re the one who doesn’t take her medication so she’ll feel more ‘alive.’ Who goes off without —”

  “Stop it, Jack! Stop it right now!” she’d screamed. She’d pulled over to the side of the road and had ripped up the list. “You’ve completely ruined this vacation. We’ll spend one night in Maine, and then we’re heading back home.”

  They’d hardly talked again that night. Jack had cried silently, then dozed the rest of the way.

  The next morning, she was gone.

  And now he was starting to wonder if he would ever see her again.

  He started to shake. It could have been chills from the sunburn, but he didn’t think so. It was as if thinking about the fight was searing the edges of his heart the way he and Nina used to sear the edges of maps to make them look old.

  If only he could reverse time and take the whole argument back. If only he had said to himself, Shut up, Jack. She’s not herself — not her true self, and had stopped. If only he hadn’t wanted to see that elephant so badly.

  Tears pushed against the backs of his eyeballs, and he reminded himself that it didn’t matter. Nothing mattered.

  Nothing.

  Not anymore.

  And then the choir below sang a song he knew: “Morning Has Broken.” It was a song his mother sang, usually when she was feeling good: when the spinning had stopped and the sad times had stopped and for a while she would be her new-morning self. She would say, “I’m so, so sorry, Jackie.”

  And he would say, “It’s OK, Mom. Really, look — I’m OK. We’re both OK.”

  “Sweet the rain’s new fall.” Jack mouthed the words to the song.

  And that’s when he knew. He knew the what next. He knew what he had to do. He couldn’t control what happened to him in the long run — whether he’d make it to Jamaica Plain or to the Bahamas . . . whether he’d be scooped up by DSS and handed over to his grandmother, or maybe even placed in foster care. But he did know this. He, Jack Martel, was going to York’s Wild Kingdom. He was going to see Lydia.

  Not out of anger. It wasn’t his way of saying, “I don’t care what you want, Mom. I’m seeing this elephant.”

  It was a way of going back to the beginning. To the beginning of the trip, before they had argued. To the beginning, when elephants were something they both treasured. Jack knew that when he finally saw his mother (Of course I’ll see my mother again — of course, I have to), she’d cry. And he’d be ready. He’d say, “It’s OK, Mom. Really. Guess what I did when I was in Maine? I saw the elephant.”

  And she’d smile and say something like, “Wait till I tell the animal-protection people,” but she’d be so glad . . . so relieved to know he’d gone ahead and grabbed a special moment, so happy to know that he was the same old Jack she’d left in Maine. He knew she would.

  It would be their new day, their morning broken.

  He’d see Lydia. He’d do it for both of them.

  He closed his eyes and let the choir sing him to sleep.

  Jack woke as the only person in an otherwise empty church. Despite his sunburn, despite his now-obvious thirst and the lack of a blanket the previous night, he had slept soundly. And he’d dreamed. Dreamed he was riding high on an African elephant. He and the tusked elephant ambled through a lush green forest and then emerged into a field where a large crowd was waiting. In the back of the crowd

  was a blond woman — smiling, running along, waving her arms. It’s Mom, Jack had thought while dreaming. She’s come. And then she’d faded. He closed his eyes and tried to recapture the dream, but it was gone.

  Never mind. Today he was headed for York. He stood, stretched, and went down the narrow stairway to find a bathroom — and maybe food. On the opposite side of the church entry was a small office that smelled both musty and of polished wood. There was a desk, a small bookcase with a couple of worn Bibles on one shelf, and two folding chairs. On the corner of the desk was a jam jar holding a few dead marigolds, probably put there last Sunday. In the corner of the little office, Jack found a restroom no bigger than a closet.

  One look in the filmy mirror made him realize he was very lucky not to have been seen last night. Anyone could tell from his red, dirt-streaked face that things were not what they should be. He used a bar of soap and some soggy mounds of toilet paper to give himself another sponge bath.

  If only finding food was that easy. Jack walked to the back of the church, behind the pulpit, and cautiously opened a door. A modern room had been added on — a meeting area where people probably came for refreshments after church — and it had a little kitchenette. But all the cupboards held were paper goods, serving trays, and stuff for serving coffee: creamer, sugar cubes, stirring sticks. Jack popped a sugar cube into his mouth, pocketed a handful, and checked out the miniature refrigerator. One box of baking soda — that was it. He’d have to find another way to get food.

  As Jack was leaving the church, he noticed a lost-and-found box on a bench near the door. Maybe there’d be a jacket inside. No such luck, but he did find a baseball cap that said Searsport Vikings. It was a little big, but that was good — it covered more of his face that way. This, he figured, was as good a disguise as anything. He pulled the baseball cap lower and continued walking.

  Acorns lined the road, and for a while Jack concentrated on crushing them beneath his feet. He noticed that along this patch of highway, some of the trees’ leaves had started to turn red. He remembered the fall when he and his mother had collected leaves and ironed them between wax paper. He’d hung them in his bedroom windows until the wax paper yellowed and began to curl. For some reason, this memory caused his heart to form a fist, but then he reminded himself that he was too old to do that now anyway, and besides, it wasn’t like he hadn’t had that experience. He had.

  And there were things other than leaves to look at on this road. There were a couple of places where flea markets were held; lots of antiques shops, with funky stuff like weather vanes and giant rocking horses out front; even a shop with mini lighthouses all over its lawn. As he popped sugar cubes into his mouth, he kept his eyes peeled for a vegetable garden, but so far, no luck.

  Eventually, a sign welcomed him to Searsport, Maine. He wondered why a kid from this town would go to a church that was two hours away but then laughed. A distance that took two hours for him to walk would probably take less than ten minutes to driv
e. This sure was the slow way to York.

  Jack was starving and needed to come up with a plan for finding food. He hadn’t noticed a single soda can on his walk that morning. But he wondered if he could risk turning in cans if he did manage to collect some. With his picture all over the evening news, it would be pretty chancy. And there was absolutely no way that he could approach a food pantry. Perhaps if he got off Main Street and headed down one of the side streets in town, he’d spot a garden.

  The houses on the side street he chose were fairly close together — no gardens in sight. But he found himself walking behind three kids — kids he guessed to be about his age — on their way to school. They were wearing new jeans, new sneakers, and clean backpacks. It was definitely the first week of school.

  Jack imagined Nina sitting in the front row (she always chose a desk in the front, if allowed) in Mr. Giovanni’s class at Curley. He wondered if she was still hanging out with the same friends as last year. It used to be just the two of them, until the other kids began to tease them about going steady, and they’d both found other kids to hang with during the day. It was fairly easy, since they were both pretty laid-back. And they never expected to be invited to other kids’ homes in the afternoons or on weekends — that’s when they hung out with each other. Or used to.

  But now that Jack knew he couldn’t trust Nina, he doubted he’d ever hang out at her place again.

  A brick school loomed ahead, and Jack paused on the sidewalk, wondering if this one, like Curley, had a free-breakfast program. If he simply walked into the cafeteria and grabbed a tray, would anyone question him? Probably. At home, he needed to provide a number — his school number — to get hot lunch.

  “Are you new?”

  Jack turned and saw a girl standing beside him. She was taller than him, with dark, curly hair and big blue eyes. She was wearing a long white T-shirt, leggings, and black leather boots, and she carried a messenger bag instead of a backpack. Older. She was definitely older than he was.