Small as an Elephant

  “So, how’s the finger, kid?”

  He knew that voice!

  It wasn’t a cop! It was Big Jack!

  Big Jack must have sensed the change in Jack. He loosened his hold, and Jack whipped around and hugged him round the middle.

  “What are you doing here?” Jack blurted.

  “Looking for you, that’s what. I can’t tell you how relieved I was when I got a call telling me they’d found you.”

  Jack backed up. Big Jack was working with the police? He should have known he was just one more adult trying to trap him! To keep him from doing the one thing in the world he needed to do right now!

  Jack glanced down the hill. Big Jack was, well, big. If he took off now, he could probably outrun him.

  “Hey, talk to me. I’m not a bad guy. I can help,” Big Jack said in a real calm voice, like the kind you use with trapped animals.

  “You’re not going to help,” said Jack, inching backward. “You’re just trying to turn me over to DSS like everyone else.”

  “I’m just trying to do what’s best for you,” said Big Jack.

  “What you think is best for me,” Jack countered. “No one cares about what I want.”

  “Well, for starters,” said Big Jack, “I think you want to talk to your mom.”

  Jack stared at the ground. “But nobody even knows where she is,” he mumbled. “Except somewhere between here and the Bahamas.”

  “Actually, we do. Officer Kline tracked her down this morning. She’s eager to talk to you.”

  Jack’s ears began to ring again. They’d found his mom! She was OK!

  All this time he’d spent wondering if she was all right, if he would ever get to talk to her again. And now he knew. He should be happy. So why did he feel like screaming?

  “Jack?” Big Jack said.

  Jack turned away and burst into tears. Sobbing, heaving, snot-dripping tears. He picked up a stone and threw it at a tree. Then another one. And another. “Why? Dang it! Why!” he sobbed.

  Big Jack grabbed him and pulled him back into a hug.

  Everything was flooding over Jack right now. Waking up at the campsite, all alone. The unanswered message he’d left on her cell phone. The days on the road, sleeping in the backs of trucks and in stores and churches. All the times he’d lied and stolen. All the people who’d been looking for him, worrying about him.

  He was so ashamed.

  Ashamed of it all, of everything that he’d done. But most of all, ashamed because . . .

  Because she’d left him.

  There.

  In between sobs, he thought it.

  My mother . . .

  My mother left me.

  She

  left

  me.

  Big Jack ushered him into his truck just moments before a police car passed by.

  “It’s not that I want to harbor a fugitive,” said Big Jack. “But I want to give you a moment to catch your breath.”

  “And then what?” Jack mumbled, not really caring about the answer.

  “Let’s talk about it.” Big Jack started his truck and pulled out.

  Jack pulled his Searsport cap over his eyes.

  “So, home is Boston, huh? Seems like you were pretty determined to get there on your own.”

  Jack shook his head.

  “No?” asked Big Jack.

  “No. Not really. . . . I was —” Jack sat up.

  “Yeah?” said Big Jack. He drove slowly up and down the side streets of the little town, buying time.

  “I was trying to get to the York wild-animal park,” Jack blurted.

  “Interesting. And why’s that?”

  “There’s an elephant there,” said Jack.

  “Lydia?”

  “You know her?”

  “Sure, I grew up in southern Maine. But she’s not there now. Her owners take her back to Florida after Labor Day.”

  “Labor Day?” Jack squeaked, his breath squeezed from his body.

  It just wasn’t possible, not after all his trying! It couldn’t all have been for nothing!

  “How would seeing an elephant help you, anyway?” Big Jack asked.

  Jack tried to talk but had to stop himself a couple of times, knowing if he kept going, he was just going to cry again. Finally, he gulped air and said, “I can’t explain it. But I just knew that if I made it there, if I saw Lydia, somehow everything would be all right.”

  “Hmmm.” Big Jack was quiet for a moment. “You know, it isn’t that long after Labor Day,” he said. “Less than a week.”

  Hope fluttered in Jack’s chest. He looked over at Big Jack. “Do you really think . . . ?”

  Big Jack shrugged, but he was smiling. “Hand me my phone.”

  Big Jack called the wild-animal park and talked to someone in an office on speakerphone.

  “Lydia? Oh, yeah, she’s still here,” the woman said.

  Jack let out a whoop. He couldn’t believe it!

  “At least, she was here this morning. She’s due to head south today, though. The truck might have left already.”

  “Is there some way you could find out for us?” Big Jack asked. The woman put them on hold while she called someone else. Jack held his breath till she came back on the line.

  “I’m sorry, sir. No one’s picking up.”

  Big Jack thanked her and hung up. “What do you think, kid? Is it worth a shot?”

  “Yes!” Jack shouted. No way was he going to give up now, not while there was even the slightest hope of seeing Lydia.

  Big Jack chuckled. “You remind me of me, kid. We’ll try. But as soon as we get close to that park, I’m going to have to call someone. Both our butts are on the line now.”

  Big Jack stepped on the gas, and they raced onto the highway.

  There was nothing but trees on both sides of the road, but that didn’t keep Jack from staring out the window, watching them fly by.

  “Tell me about your grandmother,” said Big Jack after some time had passed. “Why didn’t you call her?”

  “She hates my mother.”

  “I don’t want to contradict you — you knowing her and all. But I talked to her, and, well, that’s not the impression I got. Your grandmother defended your mother. Said she’s a great mom. Said your mother loves you like crazy. But she gets sick, right? From what I understand, she has an illness.”

  Jack nodded and started to cry again. Not the sobbing, retching crying he did earlier. Just tears, tears that seemed like they would never stop.

  “Do you want to call your grandmother?”

  Jack thought about the last time he’d seen his grandmother. He could picture his mother and his grandmother in her kitchen, yelling. Gram had said she was worried about him, said she wanted to help.

  Mom had said Gram was evil, had insisted that Gram wanted to keep him, to take him away from her.

  Then his mother had grabbed him by the hand and pulled him out of the house.

  Mom was prickly, Jack thought. He had been too young to recognize the pattern back then. To realize that his mother always got wound up, like one of those stupid plastic toys, right before she started spinning. She could get crazy mad. So mad, so crazy, she would leave.

  And now it hit him:

  Mom had left his grandmother. Mom had left Gram.

  Maybe Gram understood. Maybe she was the only other person on the planet who knew how things really were. Knew that his mom did her best but that sometimes her best wasn’t enough, wasn’t nearly enough.

  Big Jack held out his phone to Jack.

  “OK,” he agreed. “But after we see Lydia.”

  Jack sat forward in his seat as they drove into the busy town of York, but his stomach took a dive when he saw the entrance of the park. Hardly any cars were parked out front. Definitely not a good sign.

  They got out of the car and walked past silent kiddie rides, to the animal pens. “Wait here,” said Big Jack, and he went into the gift shop to get their admission passes.

  “N
o way!” said Jack. “I need to know if Lydia’s here!” He followed Jack inside, where they asked the woman behind the cash register.

  “Well,” she said, “Victor, one of the trainers, was in here a few minutes ago to buy a soda and say good-bye. But that doesn’t mean they’ve pulled out yet.”

  Jack raced through the gate ahead of Big Jack. She couldn’t be gone! She couldn’t! He couldn’t have come all this way, gone through so much, only to have her slip through his fingers.

  There were a few families with young children strolling around the tree-lined park, peering into cages. He dodged past them, not even looking to see what animals he passed. It was enough to know they weren’t elephants.

  Almost immediately, the paved path forked around a small pond. Left or right? Which way?

  “Go left!” shouted Big Jack, a few yards behind him.

  Jack took off, tearing past couples holding hands, a kid with a balloon, more animal cages, and then —

  There she was.

  Lydia.

  Lydia the elephant. Her trunk curled up into the air.

  It was really her! He’d actually made it!

  And right in front of Lydia’s pen, practically camping out on a park bench, was his grandmother.

  Jack turned to Big Jack, his eyes wild. What kind of trap was this? Had he known all along? Who would have told him about the elephant? Sylvie?

  “What’s wrong?” Big Jack looked past Jack and must have spotted his grandmother. “Wait a minute, kid,” he said. “You don’t think I —? I didn’t have anything to do —”

  Jack tried to push past Big Jack and run away before Gram spotted him.

  But Big Jack reached for him. “Hold on, kid.” He placed his hands on Jack’s shoulders and gently steered him toward a different bench, one that was out of sight of his grandmother. “Sit down here for a moment. Talk to me,” said Big Jack.

  Jack slumped onto the wooden bench and refused to meet Big Jack’s eyes.

  “Listen,” said Big Jack. “I was a foster kid. Bounced from house to house. My mother would be able to take us back for a while, and then something would go wrong and we’d be living with a family we’d never met. So I know a little about what you’re feeling. About the powerlessness, and the shame.”

  “It was my fault she left. The fight —”

  But Big Jack was already shaking his head. “No way, kid. It took me a long time to realize that things weren’t my fault. That I wasn’t the one in control. That no matter what I did, the consequences would probably have been the same. And it’s hard, I know; you don’t want to give yourself over to the people who are willing to take you in — take care of you — because it feels like you’re betraying your own mother.”

  Jack stared at his lap. “I am.” His voice was barely a whisper.

  “You heard about the man who called your grandmother from the boat, right?”

  Jack nodded.

  “Who do you think gave that guy your grandmother’s phone number?”

  Jack looked up. “Mom?”

  “That’s right. She may have been manic, but she was taking care of you, kid.”

  Jack and Big Jack sat silently for a few moments. Jack pulled out his elephant and held it in his hands. He remembered lying on the elephant rock on Mount Desert Island — how sturdy it had felt beneath him, how comforting it had felt to have the warm sun on his back. He looked up at Big Jack.

  “You ready?” Big Jack asked.

  Jack took a few deep breaths. Finally, he nodded, got up, and walked over to his grandmother.

  Would she be angry at him for running away, for not calling her and telling her what had happened? So angry that she wouldn’t want him?

  But the moment she looked up and saw him coming down the path, he knew he didn’t have to worry. Not about that.

  “Jack!” she yelled, like she couldn’t believe he was there, like all she’d wanted in the world was to see him and know he was safe. She ran toward him, her arms wide, and he threw himself into her embrace.

  He couldn’t believe it. He was crying for the third time that day.

  Elephants love reunions. They recognize one another after years and years of separation and greet each other with wild, boisterous joy. There’s bellowing and trumpeting, ear flapping and rubbing. Trunks entwine.

  Jack didn’t need any of those things to know that Gram wasn’t mad. That quite possibly she understood even more than he did.

  The two of them sat down on her bench together. Jack could tell that his grandmother wanted to ask loads of questions but wasn’t sure where to begin.

  “Who told you I’d be here?” asked Jack.

  “No one,” said Gram. “Every day I’ve gotten calls telling me you’ve been seen — I got one from the Waldoboro Police Department today — but no one, no one, has been able to find you.”

  “Then what are you doing here?” he asked. It seemed like too big a coincidence.

  “It was my only hope,” said Gram. “The only place in Maine I thought you might choose to come to. I’ve been right here with Lydia all week.”

  Jack looked up to where Lydia was, hidden just around a bend. He still couldn’t believe he was actually here, that he’d actually made it. “I knew I had to see her,” he said. “As soon as I realized I couldn’t make it back to JP, I knew this was where I had to go. I thought if Mom found out, it might remind her of the time she took me to see an elephant. And that she might understand that I was OK. That I still loved her.” He wondered if any of that had made sense.

  Gram’s eyes got teary, and he knew she understood. “You know, I took you to see an elephant once, too,” she said. “Of course, you wouldn’t remember,” she added. “You were such a little thing when I took you to the circus. You hated being in the big top, hated the clowns, but oh, how you loved the elephant!”

  Blood whooshed in his ears. It was Gram who had taken him? Not Mom?

  “It was like you were long-lost playmates,” she continued. “’Phant was one of your first words.”

  Jack was still trying to adjust his memories. Maybe that was why his mom had eventually stopped sharing his love of elephants — because she was so angry at Gram. If it weren’t for Gram, he wouldn’t have been obsessed with elephants in the first place.

  Another memory struck him. “Do you still have the elephant bed?” asked Jack.

  “You remember that?” Gram looked astounded.

  “The posts reminded me of an elephant’s legs.”

  “You always looked so small in that great big bed.”

  Jack looked at the ground and rocked from side to side. “Will that . . . will that bed be —?” He couldn’t bring himself to ask the question.

  Gram seemed to read his mind. “Will that bed be yours now? Is that what you were going to ask?”

  Jack nodded.

  “If it fits,” said Gram.

  Jack looked up at her, not sure what she meant.

  “I was actually thinking I might sell the big house in Cambridge, move to a smaller one in Jamaica Plain. You could stay with me and still attend the same school — with Nina! Goodness, Nina — she’s worried sick about you, you know.”

  Nina. He was surprised to find that thinking about her no longer made him angry. He could see now that she’d done what she thought was best — what probably was best. And a part of him was actually looking forward to seeing her again. He could hear her voice, egging him on to tell her about all of his crazy adventures: Once upon a time . . .

  “And as your mom gets better,” said Gram. “Well, then, you’d have two homes to go to.”

  Jack felt light-headed with hope. “Mom will be allowed to come home?”

  “Well, she will probably have to stay in the hospital for a time —”

  “Not jail?” breathed Jack.

  “Oh, no! You mother wasn’t in her right mind, Jack. She needs a place where they can help her get better. Get better and stay better. Stay better for you.”

  Jack fought
back tears. He wouldn’t cry again, not about something happy. Instead, he hugged his grandmother, gripping her as tight as he dared. When he finally let go, he saw Big Jack approaching. He ran to greet him. Gram followed.

  “This is Big Jack. He brought me here.”

  “Another Jack!” Gram said, taking hold of Big Jack’s arm. “I can’t thank you enough.”

  “It was my pleasure,” said Big Jack. He turned to Jack. “I just called the police to let them know that you’ve been found, that you’re with your grandmother. All of the news stations will be rushing to get the story. Your life is going to be a zoo for a few days.”

  Jack nodded. “Would you do me a favor?” he asked.

  “Another one, kid? You’re really pushing your luck here.” But he was smiling.

  Jack laughed. He pulled the elephant from his pocket. He studied it for a moment, running his fingers over its legs, its back, its ears, and, finally, its raised truck. He handed it to Big Jack. “Can you give this to a girl in Searsport? Oh, and this, too,” he said, remembering the ten-dollar bill that Wyatt had given him.

  Big Jack nodded, and Jack gave him Sylvie’s name. “I don’t know her address, but if anyone can find her, it’s you. Except,” he added, “you can’t tell anyone that I sent you, or ask her anything.”

  “OK,” said Big Jack, clearly confused but at least willing to go along with it. “Anything you want me to say to her?”

  “Tell her . . .” Jack thought for a moment. “Tell her I got it. I got my Monopoly.”

  Big Jack looked bemused. “Whatever you say, kid.”

  “And, Jack?”

  “Yeah, kid?”

  “Tell her the elephant’s name is Mudo.”

  Big Jack laughed. “You got it.”

  And then Jack couldn’t help himself. He grabbed Big Jack around the middle once more and squeezed tight.

  Big Jack hugged back, and when he finally let go, he said, “Someday you’re gonna be there for someone else, kid. Wait and see.”

  Jack just nodded, afraid that the waterworks were going to start again.

  “We’ll stay in touch,” said Gram.

  “Don’t forget to say hi to Lydia,” Big Jack called as he walked away. “She’s waiting for you.”