Wrong color for a moose, or a bear, for that matter.
Just as if he were standing right close to my ear, I heard Dad’s voice—or maybe it was a memory replay—telling me ‘Climb the tree. Quick.’
A flood of energy surged through my body. Next thing I knew, I was half way up the tree and climbing purposefully toward a high perch where I could rest in safety, look down to see if there really were wild animals about or if I’d given myself a good scare for no reason whatsoever.
Clinging onto a branch, the bark rough against my palms and the insides of my knees, I looked down. At first I didn’t see anything, but I sensed a movement, a kind of surging of leaves. The trees parted almost like stage curtains then closed again. And there he was. Only one, but unmistakably an elephant: brownish gray, hairy skin, the distinctive head and gently flapping ears and a certain smell, almost like rotting fruit.
Here I was, in an extremely remote area, pretty defenseless when it came to dealing with rampaging rogue elephants. I wasn’t up for a confrontation. Not, at least, with a creature more than twice my height. African elephants, I discovered, were large. Not those dinky ones they have in the Far East I’d seen when Dad took Granpa and me to the circus. I was talking dinosaur huge.
Closer he came, and closer. Now he was directly below me, his broad back a curved trampoline. How easy it would be to drop down and take a ride. I stifled a hysterical bubble of laughter. Right.
I climbed higher.
In a minute I was thanking my lucky stars I had. The elephant stretched his trunk in a swift upward curve, and like a homing device sensing something alien nearby, lifted the seeking end towards me. Yikes! I hitched myself a notch higher. If I’d been any lower down, that twitching, sensitive trunk, which I knew was extremely powerful, able to uproot quite large saplings, would have been able to reach me and possibly push me right off the tree. I had visions of being tossed around like an unfortunate bull-fighter, or trampled underfoot until I was one squashed Alexa.
I swallowed, but the dryness in my throat didn’t ease. These were not the kind of thoughts I should be having.
So what were? Who knows who or what whispered in my head, but suddenly I knew. Much better to tune into the elephant, send the creature some sympathy, get into its skin, so to speak. With a conscious effort I calmed my breathing, closed my eyes and pushed away the fear. My heartbeat resumed its regular rhythm and then, all of a sudden, I was in touch with the elephantness. The massive creature was not truly threatening, just curious as to who was invading its territory.
I looked down at him. He stood still, his trunk swaying from side to side like a giant pendulum.
It was as if I were transported back into another era, an ancient time when all creatures lived in harmony. Which didn’t mean I wasn’t shit scared, but that I’d kind of entered a different dimension. The elephant, large and heavy as he was, moved on soft feet, each movement performed like a master of Tai Chi. He glided to the water, lifted his trunk as if first acknowledging the gift in gratitude, then lowered the long tube to suck up at least a couple of bucketsful.
I watched warily. At last, his thirst quenched, he turned. Took a few steps in my direction. I let out a cheep of distress. My hands, arms, legs were aching and cramping. I wasn’t sure how much longer I’d be able to cling to the tree.
But it seemed his interest in me was a thing of the past. He lowered his trunk to inspect this alien thing that lay on the loamy ground of the forest floor. My water bottle. I watched as he nudged at it, lifted one front leg, the foot larger than a Frisbee.
He’s going to crush it, I thought. But no, it seemed he was more in the mood for a game, because he began rolling it forward and back.
By now my spine was a red hot poker. My fingers had fossilized and I was suffering from the most extreme case of numb bum in the universe, when suddenly, without warning, the elly lost interest. In a few seconds, with practically no noise and hardly any apparent movement, he disappeared.
I blinked, unbelieving, unable to trace a hint of that huge animal’s movements. The forest had simply swallowed him up.
