WHAT COULD POSSIBLY GO WRONG?
I KNOW THE ANSWER.
EVERYTHING.
T. Lillian Decker is a high school senior with a twelve-year plan: avoid stress, drugs, alcohol and boyfriends, and take regular psych quizzes administered by her best friend, Sawyer, to make sure she’s not developing schizophrenia.
Genetics are not on Lily’s side. When she was seven, her mother, who had paranoid schizophrenia, tried to kill her. And a secret has revealed that Lily’s odds are even worse than she thought. Still, there’s a chance to avoid triggering the mental health condition, if Lily can live a careful life from ages eighteen to thirty, when schizophrenia most commonly manifests.
But when a newspaper internship results in Lily witnessing a mother elephant try to kill her three-week-old calf, Swifty, Lily can’t abandon the story or the calf. With Swifty in danger of dying from grief, Lily must choose whether to risk everything—including her sanity and a first love—on a desperate road trip to save the calf’s life, and perhaps find her own version of freedom along the way.
Praise for When Elephants Fly
“When Elephants Fly is a compelling read, beautifully threading the complex relationship between mothers and daughters, mental illness and elephants.”
—Carrie Arcos, National Book Award finalist, author of We Are All That’s Left
“Not only does this book show the reader the perils of keeping elephants in zoos and having them perform in circuses, it does it with heart, grace, and imagination.”
—Nina Berry, author of The Notorious Pagan Jones and the Otherkin series
“When Elephants Fly will inspire readers to love through fear, to love themselves and their humanity, to love the world.”
—Jenny Torres Sanchez, author of The Fall of Innocence
“A captivating page-turner filled with hope for both humans and elephants.”
—Patricia Sims, filmmaker, When Elephants Were Young, and founder, World Elephant Day
“Nancy Richardson Fischer has managed to combine so many important topics—family, mental illness, extinction, animal welfare, and adolescence—into an accessible, moving and extraordinary story.”
—Ellen C. O’Connell, executive vice president, global, Space for Giants
“I encourage everyone to read this inspirational book and discuss mental illness and tolerance and the need to improve wildlife protection.”
—Katie Rowe, Pritzker Genius Award nominee and cofounder of Reteti Elephant Sanctuary
“A fascinating adventure and a stirring coming-of-age novel.”
—Sara Zarr, National Book Award finalist, author of Gem & Dixie
NANCY RICHARDSON FISCHER
WHEN
ELEPHANTS
FLY
Nancy Richardson Fischer is a graduate of Cornell University and a published author with children’s, teen and adult titles to her credit, including Star Wars titles for Lucasfilm and numerous autobiographies of athletes, such as Julie Krone, Béla Károlyi and Monica Seles. She lives in the Pacific Northwest.
This book is dedicated to Henry.
There are more stars to wish upon
More dreams envisioned and fulfilled
More adventures near and far
Since you took my hand.
I love you beyond infinity times eleven.
Contents
Note
Verses
The Pennington Times, September 1
The Pennington Times, September 15
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
The Pennington Times, October 1
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
The Pennington Times, October 24
Chapter 19
The Pennington Times, October 26
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Acknowledgments
Author’s Note
Resources
This novel is a work of fiction.
Mental health challenges manifest in myriad ways.
Every individual has a different journey.
The commonality is the courage it takes to survive and thrive.
Heal my splits
Make me whole
Wrap me in blue-velvet folds
—SWIFT JONES, RAZOR
Letting go can set you free
Drowning might just let you breathe
Surviving means so many things
Live Leap Love Sanctify
Never ever say goodbye
—SWIFT JONES, ELBOWS & KNEES
Turn your back to change the view
Keeping eyes closed nothing’s new
Spread your arms to let her fly
What doesn’t break solidifies
—SWIFT JONES, THE STUDIO SESSIONS
The Pennington Times
SEPTEMBER 1
BY T. LILLIAN DECKER, INTERN
New Arrival at Pennington Zoo
The Pennington Zoo is expecting! Thirteen-year-old Asian elephant Raki’s due date is October 5. Her twenty-two-month-long pregnancy was the result of a live breeding with Lorenzo, an elephant on loan from Wild Walker’s Circus in Haven, Florida.
Dr. Addie Tinibu, director of the zoo, began its elephant breeding program. “Asian Elephants are on the endangered species list,” Tinibu said. “The addition of Raki’s calf is not only good for the zoo’s herd, but for the protection and continuation of the species.”
Visitors of the Pennington Zoo can expect to view the calf by Christmas. For more information visit: penningtonzoo.org/elephants.
The Pennington Times
SEPTEMBER 15
BY T. LILLIAN DECKER, INTERN
Contest: Name Raki’s Calf!
Have you ever wanted to name an elephant calf? Now you can! Raki, one of the Pennington Zoo’s Asian elephants, will give birth to her first calf in early October. The Pennington Times is holding a contest to pick that newborn’s name.
Zoo officials don’t know the sex of the calf. But if you’d like a chance to name him or her, go to www.penningtontimes.com/namingcontest to make a $5.00 donation to the zoo and enter your name of choice for Raki’s calf. You can enter as many times as you’d like. The most popular name will be the winner.
“All proceeds from the contest will go toward creating an even better home for our growi
ng Asian elephant herd,” said the zoo’s director, Dr. Addie Tinibu.
*Contest ends September 28. The winning name will be announced October 5.
1
Crazy is genetic. It’s the house I was born inside. There are no windows, just two locked doors. One door leads to Normal, the other to Insanity. At some point, I will inherit a key, but I don’t get to pick which door it unlocks. Even if I did, there’s no guarantee I’d understand the choice, or realize where I was when I got there.
The minute hand on the Paddington Bear clock my mother, Violet, gave me when I turned five clicks to 12:01 a.m. I hold my breath, wait. The loft I share with my dad in downtown Pennington is silent. I’m not sure what I expected. A roar in my ears like waves punishing rocks; the whisper I’d never heard before, curling like smoke through my brain; a steady stream of nonsense dripping from my lips?
I’m one minute into my eighteenth birthday, twelve more years to go before I’m relatively safe. A text pings my phone.
SAWYER: You good?
ME: Still me
SAWYER: Want to talk?
ME: No
I roll onto my back, stare at the ceiling. It’s white now. Years ago, the month before she tried to kill me, Violet covered every inch of my room, including the ceiling, with posters of Escher drawings. Violet was going to be an architecture major before my dad got her pregnant during her freshman year of college. Escher was her favorite artist. His work explored infinity, and the print Violet taped over my seven-year-old self’s bed was called Relativity. It showed a room with seven stairways, and people going up or down depending on their own gravity source so everyone traveled a different path. That’s probably what it was like in Violet’s head.
My finger traces the scar above my right eyebrow. A well-meaning doctor said he could make it smaller, possibly invisible. My dad was all for it. But it’s a gift, a reminder stitched into my pale white skin that if I don’t remain vigilant, keep my head down, avoid all triggers, stick to my Twelve-Year Plan, I could turn into Violet.
Carefully, I withdraw a yellowed newspaper article from beneath my mattress. Once a year, always on my birthday, I read it to remind myself of the stakes.
The Pennington Times
Oregon Mother Guilty of
Attempted Aggravated Murder
Friday a Pennington County jury found Violet Hanover Decker, twenty-six, guilty of attempted aggravated murder of her seven-year-old daughter, T. Lillian Decker. She faces up to fifteen years in prison. Sentencing will take place next month.
On September 17, Decker attempted to push her daughter off the eleven-story rooftop of their Pearl District apartment building, according to police and a crowd of eyewitnesses.
Decker’s husband, Calvin Christopher Decker, age twenty-eight, and Mike Gomez, a lieutenant in the Pennington Police Department, gained access to the rooftop moments before the incident unfolded.
“I didn’t know if we were dealing with a mother who was a meth addict or someone who’d just snapped,” Gomez said. “All I knew was that I had to get to that little girl before her mom killed her.”
As previously reported, Gomez grabbed the child’s ankles as she fell. Decker caught his wife. The child was treated at Emmanuel Hospital for a concussion and a deep laceration to her forehead that required twenty-nine stitches. Violet Decker was taken to the Samaritan Institution for assessment. She was later diagnosed as having paranoid schizophrenia.
Pennington district attorney, Alfred Bench, charged Violet Decker with attempted murder despite that diagnosis. “Decker was first diagnosed as having schizophrenia at age twenty-three. She knew she was mentally ill and stopped taking her medication,” Bench said. “She understood there might be terrible consequences. But she did it anyway. That makes her culpable.”
“I really feel for the little girl,” Lieutenant Gomez said after the guilty verdict was read. “Crazy is genetic.”
At the time of this article Calvin Decker could not be reached for comment.
After folding the article, I replace it beneath my mattress and hope that when I read it next year, I’m still me. My heartbeat is a pointed finger jabbing at the truth. Today, on my eighteenth birthday, I’ve officially entered the danger zone, ages eighteen to thirty, when females with my genetic history are most likely to manifest symptoms of schizophrenia. Violet’s condition began in her teens with hearing voices, but the illness can also start with bizarre behaviors, a lack of emotion or disconnected speech.
When Violet went off her meds, she quickly unraveled. She answered questions I didn’t ask and read J. M. Barrie’s Peter Pan over and over again, because she said there were messages in the text written expressly for her. In addition to my bedroom, she wallpapered every inch of our loft with Escher posters and scribbled quotes from Barrie’s book on our walls. Her temper was short, her memory shorter. If she hit me, five minutes later she’d wonder about a red mark or bruise, then kiss it to make it better.
But it wasn’t always bad. On the drugs, Violet never smiled. She paced nonstop, had brutal muscle spasms in her back that made her cry and had facial tics that scared me. Off the meds, she giggled a lot; made elaborate desserts, including a very detailed pirate ship cake; wove flowers through my hair and sang songs in Italian. At least I think it was Italian.
Grabbing my phone, I send another text.
ME: I wish
SAWYER: If wishes and buts were candy and nuts we’d all have a Merry Christmas
It’s a quote from my school counselor, Ms. Frey, from when she was just starting her career and fell back on tired clichés. I laugh aloud. Big mistake. My dad knocks on my door like he’s been lurking in the hall. When I don’t respond, he peeks his head in.
“Hey, Lily. You’re still awake?”
I look up from my phone. “Just doing some research for a reporter at the Pennington Times.”
The lines around his faded blue eyes deepen. “Awfully late. You sure that internship isn’t too much on top of schoolwork?”
This is the game he plays, never saying what he really means. If he did, he’d tell me that my internship is a threat.
“I’m sure,” I say.
This is the game I play, pretending not to notice the way he watches me, waiting for crazy to smash into our lives again.
My dad glances at his watch. “Wow. Hey. Happy birthday.”
I smile. “Thanks.”
“I know you don’t want a party, but how about I pick up a carrot cake from Peyrie Bakery for dessert?”
I haven’t liked carrot cake for years and steer clear of refined sugars. “Sure. That’d be great.”
The door closes with a soft click. It’s now 12:09. I go over the core tenets of my Twelve-Year Plan: No drugs, alcohol, boyfriends or stress until I’m thirty years old. Closing my eyes, I attempt to grind my subconscious’s voice beneath an imaginary heel. It’s asking what could possibly go wrong. We both know the answer.
Everything.
2
“I’m not talking to you.” I slam my locker shut and give the combination a rough spin.
Sawyer grins. “Happy eighteenth and you just did.” He leans in. “Come on. It’s pretty much the best birthday present ever, and it’ll make you look good at the P-Times.”
“I don’t celebrate birthdays.” I try to glower at him, but it’s impossible to stay mad at Sawyer for more than three seconds because Sawyer isn’t just my best friend, he’s my only friend, and he pretty much has the greatest smile in the universe. Plus, what Sawyer did will indeed make me look really good.
“How many times do I have to say it? All I have to do to get into community college is keep breathing.” We’re seniors, and college applications are due this month. Most of the kids in our grade are hoping to leave Oregon, or at least our city. I’m staying put. But I’m good with it. Sawyer, on the other hand, is applying early
admission to Stanford. He’ll get in because he has a 4.5 GPA, is captain of the lacrosse team and his grandfather’s money built one of the libraries. I don’t blame him for wanting to get away. But if Sawyer were a body part, he’d be my toes or thumbs or the smartest part of my brain. Without him I’m going to be off balance, uncoordinated, challenged. Basically, I’ll live but it’ll suck.
Yesterday is history, tomorrow a mystery and today is a gift. That’s why we call it the present. That’s another pearl of wisdom from the early iteration of Ms. Frey that still pops up. She also used to say things like Worrying is wishing for something bad to happen. Forcefully, I squelch her voice.
Sawyer tugs me down the hall. The kids rushing to class part in a way they never do when I’m walking alone. People wave to him. They slap his hand or grab his shoulder like he’s the touchstone of cool and it might rub off. If there were a picture of a high school guy in Wikipedia under the entry for cool it’d be Sawyer with jeans hanging off his hips, broad shoulders beneath an old flannel shirt, killer smile and Converse sneaks.
“Hey, Sawyer,” Carla Bonani calls out.
Carla, the editor of our yearbook, is traveling in her usual pack, Dawn, Claire and Bethany at her heels. The entire crew is what the guys at our school call librarian hot—lip gloss and mascara only. Artfully unbuttoned tops hint at cleavage and their skin tones, ranging from pale white to deep brown, are blemish-free. The orange blossom perfume they all wear wafts over me. It would smell good on one person, but as a collective, it’s overwhelming.
“Lily, we’ve been looking for you,” Bethany says, her long-lashed eyes scanning me.
“We heard you have an internship at the P-Times,” Claire explains. “We really need someone to write human interest stories for the yearbook.”
“If you’re game,” Dawn explains, “we’ll give you writing credits.”
“How about it, Lily?” Carla asks.
I shake my head. “Sorry. I’ve got too much going on.”
Carla gives her friends a look. “Told you.” She turns to Sawyer. “Secret?” She puts a hand on his arm. “You were voted most likely to break a girl’s heart.”
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