At the top of the incline she stops. She pokes her trunk into the emptiness.
We wait.
The tiny gray trunk appears again. Shyly it reaches out, tasting the air. Stella curls her own trunk around the baby’s. They make soft rumbling sounds.
We wait some more. A hush falls over the entire Big Top Mall.
Thud. Thud. Step, step, pause. Step, step, pause.
And there she is, so small she can fit underneath Stella with room to spare. Her skin sags, and she sways unsteadily as she makes her way down the ramp.
“Not the greatest specimen,” Mack says, “but I got her cheap from this bankrupt circus out west. They had her shipped over from Africa. Only had her a month before they went bust.” He gestures toward Ruby. “Thing is, people love babies. Baby elephants, baby gorillas, heck, give me a baby alligator and I could make a killing.”
Stella ushers Ruby toward her domain. Mack and the two men follow. At Stella’s door, Ruby hesitates.
Mack gives Ruby a shove, but she doesn’t budge. “Doggone it, get a clue, Ruby,” he mutters, but Ruby isn’t moving, and neither is Stella.
Mack grabs a broom. He raises it. Instantly, Stella steps in front of Ruby to shield her.
“Get in the cage, both of you!” Mack shouts.
Stella stares at Mack, considering. Gently but firmly, using her trunk, she nudges Ruby into her domain. Only then does Stella enter. Mack slams the door shut with a clang.
I see two trunks entwined. I hear Stella whispering.
“Poor kid,” says Bob. “Welcome to the Exit 8 Big Top Mall and Video Arcade, Home of the One and Only Ivan.”
old news
When Julia comes, she sits by Stella’s domain and watches the new baby. She barely talks to me.
Stella doesn’t talk to me either. She is too busy nuzzling Ruby.
She is cute, little Ruby, with her ears flapping like palm leaves, but I am handsome and strong.
Bob trots a circle around my belly before settling down in just the right spot. “Give it up, Ivan,” he says. “You’re old news.”
Julia gets out a piece of paper and a pencil. I can see that she is drawing Ruby.
I move to the corner of my domain to pout. Bob grumbles. He doesn’t like it when I disrupt his naps.
“Homework,” Julia’s father scolds. Julia sighs and puts her drawing aside.
I grunt, and Julia glances in my direction. “Poor old Ivan,” she says. “I’ve been ignoring you, haven’t I?”
I grunt again, a dignified, indifferent grunt.
Julia thinks for a moment, then smiles. She walks over to my domain, to the spot in the corner where the glass is broken. She slides papers through. She rolls a pencil across my cement floor.
“You can draw the baby elephant too,” Julia says.
I bite the pencil in half with my magnificent teeth. Then I eat some paper.
tricks
Even after Julia and her father leave, I try to keep sulking. But it’s no use.
Gorillas are not, by nature, pouters.
“Stella?” I call. “It’s a full moon. Did you see?”
Sometimes, when we are lucky, we catch a glimpse of the moon through the skylight in the food court.
“I did,” Stella says. She is whispering, and I realize that Ruby must be asleep.
“Is Ruby all right?” I ask.
“She’s too thin, Ivan,” Stella says. “Poor baby. She was in that truck for days. Mack bought her from a circus, the same way he bought me, but she hadn’t been there long. She was born in the wild, like us.”
“Will she be okay?” I ask.
Stella doesn’t answer my question. “The circus trainers chained her to the floor, Ivan. All four feet. Twenty-three hours a day.”
I puzzle over why this would be a good idea. I always try to give humans the benefit of the doubt.
“Why would they do that?” I finally ask.
“To break her spirit,” Stella says. “So she could learn to balance on a pedestal. So she could stand on her hind legs. So a dog could jump on her back while she walked in mindless circles.”
I hear her tired voice and think of all the tricks Stella has learned.
introductions
When I awake the next morning, I see a little trunk poking out between the bars of Stella’s domain.
“Hello,” says a small, clear voice. “I’m Ruby.” She waves her trunk.
“Hello,” I say. “I’m Ivan.”
“Are you a monkey?” Ruby asks.
“Certainly not.”
Bob’s ears perk up, although his eyes stay closed. “He’s a gorilla,” he says. “And I am a dog of uncertain heritage.”
“Why did the dog climb your tummy?” Ruby asks.
“Because it’s there,” Bob murmurs.
“Is Stella awake?” I ask.
“Aunt Stella’s asleep,” Ruby says. “Her foot is hurting, I think.”
Ruby turns her head. Her eyes are like Stella’s, black and long-lashed, bottomless lakes fringed by tall grass. “When is breakfast?” she asks.
“Soon,” I say. “When the mall opens and the workers come.”
“Where”—Ruby twists her head in the other direction—“where are the other elephants?”
“It’s just you and Stella,” I say, and for some reason, I feel we have let her down.
“Are there more of you?”
“Not,” I say, “at the moment.”
Ruby picks up a piece of hay and considers it. “Do you have a mom and a dad?”
“Well … I used to.”
“Everyone has parents,” Bob explains. “It’s unavoidable.”
“Before the circus, I used to live with my mom and my aunts and my sisters and my cousins,” Ruby says. She drops the hay, picks it up, twirls it. “They’re dead.”
I don’t know what to say. I am not really enjoying this conversation, but I can see that Ruby isn’t done talking. To be polite, I say, “I’m sorry to hear that, Ruby.”
“Humans killed them,” she says.
“Who else?” Bob asks, and we all fall silent.
stella and ruby
All morning, Stella strokes Ruby, pats her, smells her. They flap their ears. They rumble and roar. They sway as if they’re dancing. Ruby clings to Stella’s tail. She slips under Stella’s belly.
Sometimes they just lean into each other, their trunks twirled together like jungle vines.
Stella looks so happy. It’s more fun to watch than any nature show I’ve ever seen on TV.