The Elephant in the Room

by Holly Goldberg Sloan

  It began with a train trip.

  Sila and Mateo, accompanied by Oya, Alp, Rosa, and Gio, traveled for thirty-eight hours to Arizona, where they met the people who cared for Madhi, Veda’s mother.

  It took months of correspondence with the Randolf family who ran the sanctuary to make it happen. Sila believed that Veda needed to be with her mother. She pressed them endlessly to figure out how the two elephants could be together. Finally it was agreed that Sila and her parents, with Gio, Mateo, and Rosa, would make a trip to meet in person. And it was there that a deal was made.

  Madhi would come live in Oregon at Gio’s property, and when he was no longer alive, both elephants would return to Arizona, where the Randolf family would guarantee they would be properly looked after. There were still many details to work through, not the least of which was transporting the elephant to Oregon. But Madhi had spent most of her life in the circus, and she had traveled in trucks on highways for years.

  * * *

  Sila woke up and it was still dark outside. She was too excited to sleep. Six weeks had passed since the agreement had been made. She opened the window and stared out into the darkness, knowing that a train would pass soon. She could tell time by the freight cars and she knew that in four hours she would be driving out to Gio’s. She had learned how to endure waiting, but it still felt as if her heart was going to explode.

  Sila sat in the back seat with Mateo and his mother. Her parents were up front. When Alp pulled inside the gate at Gio’s a hay truck was just leaving. A new, large order had been delivered, and Klay and Carlos were already working. There were bales stacked high on wooden pallets.

  Sila took a seat on the steps next to Mateo to wait. Gio, Alp, Oya, and Rosa continued up to the porch to sit in the old wicker furniture. At 12:08 Mateo removed his lunch from his backpack and started eating his sandwich. Sila was too anxious to have any of the food they had brought. She watched the sky for birds, pointing out, “There are so many different species of birds out here.”

  “They’re actually avian dinosaurs,” Mateo clarified.

  He finished chewing before telling her, “Life spread around the world by the three W’s: wind, wing, and water. The Hawaiian Islands are a good place to see this because they’re late from an evolutionary perspective. The islands are all made from active volcanoes. The plants came from seeds carried by wind and birds. The ocean brought other life. But a lot of what you can see there today came from man.”

  Sila answered, “Maybe we’ll go there one day.”

  Mateo had moved from his sandwich to his almonds. “First I’d like to see the North Pole. I’m interested in polar bears. Only, who isn’t interested in polar bears?”

  From behind them on the porch Gio chimed in, “Bears can be a bigger problem than you’d think.”

  Sila knew he was talking about Mr. Pickles.

  They all heard the transporter before they saw it. Gio opened the gates and the large rig pulled in. There was an enormous covered crate on the back. Behind the flatbed was a second truck with a forklift.

  A woman was driving the flatbed. She rolled down the window and called out: “Sila Tekin?”

  The woman seemed surprised that a kid answered.

  “I’m Sila.”

  “We’ve got your elephant.”

  The flatbed wheezed as it moved toward the barn. Then the rumbling engine shut down and the world fell silent. Sila could now hear her heart pounding in her ears. She was trying hard to stay calm. Maybe the biggest thing she had learned while her mother was away was how to wait. Patience truly did pay off.

  Gio asked everyone to stay on the porch. Sila went up the steps and stood with her parents. Mateo leaned against the front door next to his mother. Luckily the view on the porch was good and Sila could see what was happening.

  Once the trucks were in place, the forklift removed a metal platform from the flatbed and lowered it to the ground. It was a step for the elephant. Two men then untied the heavy tarp and pulled it off the metal enclosure.

  Madhi was beautiful. She was bigger than Veda. Her skin was a stormy-sky color of gray, but the pigmentation around her ears and on most of her trunk was gone and she had big areas of pink hide everywhere else. It looked like she was a pink elephant with freckles.

  Madhi knew to follow commands. First one rear foot stepped down out of the enclosure and then back onto the platform below, then the other. And then the front two. Once Madhi was off the truck onto the ground, Sila could see that she had a big chain around the bottom of her front leg. Gio went over to the men and said something, and then one of them got a key and undid a lock. The metal links fell to the ground.

  The sight of that happening made Sila’s eyes fill up.

  Klay and Carlos had gone down to the pond to be with Veda, and they’d placed watermelon, oranges, and bananas on the sandy shore. Gio checked in with them on his cell phone. Veda was eating at the water’s edge.

  Madhi had barely moved. The men had put four bales of hay in front of her, cutting the wire and spreading some of the straw out. The elephant looked interested, but didn’t touch the stuff.

  After the papers had been signed, the driver got into the cab of the flatbed and the two men helped her back the truck out the double set of gates. Their part of Madhi’s journey was done and it wasn’t long before they were gone.

  Once the trucks were off the property, Madhi’s trunk rose up high into the air. She was taking in the smells of this new world. She looked suddenly agitated. Her ears flared wide. She began to sway from side to side.

  Gio got in the golf cart. “Get in, kids. Let’s get Veda!”

  Sila and Mateo climbed in the cart while their parents waited on the porch. Gio was usually careful about the potholes in the road, but not today. He was driving as fast as the “old bucket” could go. Sila gripped the aluminum frame that held up the cart’s canopy and Mateo repeated multiple times, “We have a surprise for you, Veda.”

  Gio took his foot off the accelerator when they reached the top of the hill. It slowed to a stop as they looked down at Veda. Gio had trained her over the summer to come whenever he beeped the horn on the cart. He pressed down hard on the steering wheel, and Veda stared up with an expression that seemed to say, “What’s going on?”

  Sila couldn’t stop herself from shouting, “Veda! You’re not going to believe it!”

  Gio honked the horn again, and Veda started out of the water. The flamingos swirled around her in their organized but confused way as she moved to the shore. Gio gave the horn another beep as he shouted, “Let’s go, Veda! This way!”

  She might have known it was the wrong time to go to the barn, but Veda was on the dirt road and heading up the hill. Gio put the golf cart in reverse and spun around in a big arc, still tooting the horn. Veda was halfway up the incline when her ears flared out wide and then her trunk shot up into the air. She started to walk faster. Sila knew that Asian elephants don’t run. Only African elephants do that. But Veda was moving as quickly as Sila had ever seen. She was charging up the incline, her feet hitting the ground with such force that dust rose in puffs with each step.

  Mateo’s eyes were like lasers on the elephant. His voice was even as he said, “She knows.”

  Sila looked from Mateo to Gio, shouting, “Really?! Does she smell another elephant?”

  Gio kept turning back to look at Veda. “I don’t know!”

  “What will she do when she sees Madhi?” Sila asked.

  Mateo raised his voice. That was something he didn’t do often. “We’re about to find out!”

  Up ahead on the road, moving straight toward the golf cart, was Madhi.

  Gio yelled, “I really thought she’d stay with all that hay.”

  Madhi lifted her trunk and trumpeted. It was a big, long, incredibly loud blast. This happened just as Veda came up over the rise in the hill. The golf cart wa
s on the road between Veda and Madhi, who were moving to each other like two cement trucks.

  Veda’s trunk rose up high into the air, and she answered the trumpeting with a blast of her own. Sila hadn’t known she could make that kind of noise. Both elephants were moving fast. Then Gio did the only thing he could. He drove straight off the dirt road.

  The golf cart bumped up and down as it rode over ferns and hit rocks. It grazed a tree, then when the left two wheels went up onto a rotten log they all screamed as the cart kept moving on an angle like a roller coaster car. Sila was certain they were going to flip. But luck was on their side and the cart thumped off the log and finally came to a stop a foot before a giant boulder.

  They all looked back at the road just in time to see Veda and Madhi meet. Their trunks wrapped around each other. They both made loud rumbling noises that sounded to Sila like the largest cats in the world purring. They were rubbing up against each other in what seemed to be pure happiness.

  They were lost from each other and then they were found.

  They were back together after twenty-one years.

  “Are you okay?” Gio asked the kids.

  Sila nodded. Mateo took a while before saying, “I’m okay.”

  Sila couldn’t take her eyes off the two elephants. She murmured, “I can’t believe it.”

  And then she started to cry. Her tears were of joy. Of relief. Of fear. They were tears of gratitude. Of empathy.

  Mateo looked over at his friend. “It’s all right, Sila. I promise. It’s okay.”

  She didn’t know if he was talking about the two elephants, or just about everything in life. She didn’t say anything. But her eyes said she believed him.

  You had to hope for the best.

  You had to keep going even when things weren’t fair.

  You had to believe in the possibility of days like this day.

  And you had to work to make them happen.

  40.

  SHE WAS MY BABY, thought Madhi.

  I WANTED TO KEEP HER SAFE.

  BUT I COULDN’T STOP THEM

  FROM TAKING HER AWAY.

  AFTER THAT SHE WAS ONLY IN MY DREAMS.

  UNTIL SO MUCH TIME PASSED

  I WASN’T SURE SHE HAD EVER BEEN REAL.

  I HAD ONLY ONE HOPE.

  I SAID IT TO THE MOON AND THE SUN

  AND THE OPEN SKY,

  I SAID IT TO THE STARS.

  MY ONLY WISH

  TO THE WIND AND THE RAIN AND THE SNOW,

  ONLY ONE THING IN THIS LIFE TO WANT,

  AND THAT WAS TO SEE HER AGAIN.

  TO KNOW SHE LIVED ON.

  TO KNOW I WAS ONCE A MOTHER.

  I DID NOT FORGET YOU, thought Veda.

  BECAUSE I LOVED YOU.

  AND BECAUSE I BELIEVED

  THAT THERE WEREN’T JUST

  BAD PEOPLE.

  THERE WERE ALSO

  GOOD PEOPLE

  IN THIS WORLD.

  I DID NOT FORGET YOU, MAMA

  BECAUSE I BELIEVED IN OUR LOVE.

  Acknowledgments

  My editor and publisher at Dial, Lauri Hornik, cares about every single word. I am grateful for her incredible ideas, attention, and support. Lauri is a thoughtful person in all ways and I’m so fortunate to be able to work with her and the rest of the team at Penguin Random House, including Regina Castillo (copyeditor) and Rosanne Lauer (proofreader), Jessica Jenkins and Mina Chung (cover and interior designers), and Julie McLoughlin (cover artist).

  Amy Berkower at Writers House, along with Cecilia de la Campa, are trusted advisers and wonderful friends.

  I’m indebted to the help I received from Basak Agaoglu and Rabbi Ruti Regan, who both brought so much insight to this story.

  When I was sixteen years old, I lived in Istanbul, Turkey and was a student at Robert Kolej (The American Robert College of Istanbul). The friendships made at that time changed my life. I want to particularly acknowledge Dilek Bulgu, Ayşen Keskin Zamanpur, Oya Göçmen Girit, Soli Özel, Herve Rijneveld, and Kate Thayer. Love to you all.

  In my lifetime I haven’t seen as much change as the world has experienced in this past year. School teachers and librarians remain my North Star.

  The day starts and ends with Gary Rosen. Thank you more than anything, honey, for making me laugh.

  About the Author

  Holly Goldberg Sloan was born in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and spent her childhood living in Holland; Istanbul, Turkey; Washington, D.C.; Berkeley, California; and Eugene, Oregon. After graduating from Wellesley College and spending some time as an advertising copywriter, she began writing family feature films, including Angels in the Outfield and Made in America. She is the author of the New York Times best sellers Counting by 7s and Short, among other novels.

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