Henry Jack and I stand, arms crossed, both of us panting and sweating, watching Mike carry the heavy, clinking chains to Queenie Grace. Now I’m sorry that we brought her back. If I was brave enough to say it, I’d tell Mike to stop. To just stop and let her be. Leave Queenie Grace alone; let her be free.
“She broke that other chain,” Mike says to nobody in particular. “Needs heavier ones.”
Henry Jack nudges me with his elbow.
“Mike needs to be chained,” he says under his breath.
I snicker.
Surprisingly, I might be starting to like this elephant. Maybe just a tiny little bit. Something about the way her eyes shine in the sunlight, and the way she gazes at Henry Jack. I’m pretty sure I saw love in Queenie Grace’s eyes when she exchanged looks with the Alligator Boy.
“Mike better not get the thotti,” mutters Henry Jack.
“The hottie?”
“Thotti,” Henry Jack replies. “It’s like a Hindu word for ‘hook.’”
“Why would Mike get a hook?”
“To punish Queenie Grace,” Henry Jack says. “It’s what some mahouts use to control their elephants.”
“Mahouts?”
“The guys who ride and train the elephants. It’s Hindi, too. You never heard of a mahout?”
I shake my head. I’m wheezing, so I sink down into the warm grass. Henry Jack plops next to me. Mike circles the elephant’s leg with the chains, hitching her to the tree once again.
“Your grandpa Bill was Queenie Grace’s mahout,” explains Henry Jack. “It’s always a boy, usually a kid who gets the elephant when he is little, in other countries. They grow up together, the kid and the elephant, and they get super bonded.”
“My grandpa wasn’t a little kid when he got Queenie Grace,” I say. “He was already married. I think it was before my mother was even born. Yeah, it was. My mother is only thirty. She had me when she was just eighteen.”
“The age of the mahout isn’t the important thing,” says Henry Jack. “What matters is the bond. And your grandpa sure was bonded with Queenie Grace. It’s like their hearts were superglued.”
I lean back on my elbows. The Florida sunshine does feel good, that’s for sure. Now I can understand those tourist brochures. Any place that feels this good in wintertime is all right with me.
Queenie Grace uses her trunk to throw some dust into the air. I sneeze.
“She’s just covering herself with dust so she doesn’t get sunburned,” Henry Jack says. “That’s what elephants do.”
“How do you know so much?” I ask. “You’re like an elephant expert.”
Henry Jack grins.
“Well, I grew up with them,” he says. “Plus, I read a lot. My favorite book is actually this old book that your grandpa gave me. It’s called Manual for Mahouts: The Care and Feeding of Elephants. I also collect books about sideshows and circus freaks and all that.”
“Cool,” I say.
Henry Jack shrugs.
“Yeah, sure,” he says. “Whatever. Not so cool when you have ichthyosis, though.”
“Ick what?”
“Ichthyosis: this skin condition that I have. It just basically means that I have super-dry skin, and it keeps flaking off and getting really scaly. In circuses, like I was telling you, it’s usually called ‘alligator skin,’ or sometimes ‘elephant skin.’ Nobody really knows how it happens or how to make it not happen. It’s just one of those things you have to deal with. Or rather, I have to deal with.”
I look at Queenie Grace, who’s throwing a big hissy fit about the chain. Dust flies; the elephant kicks.
Grandma Violet blusters out of the house like a small and sudden storm.
“Mike!” she yells. “I told you not to chain her!”
“I’m doing it for her own good,” Mike shouts back. He has a lit cigarette in his mouth, and some ashes drop to the ground. “For our own good.”
The fire-eater next door is looking out his window. Those annoying dogs are yipping again, their high yaps straining through the screen.
“Chain it!” the man barks. “I don’t want that thing running loose! It’s dangerous!”
“He’s dangerous,” Henry Jack mutters. “Somebody needs to chain Charlie.”
I can smell heavy cigar smoke from the fire-eater, plus Mike’s smoke. I take a big breath, puff out my cheeks, and blow. There’s tension in the air, and it’s building. I’m pretty good at sensing tension.
Grandma Violet catches up to Mike, and she shoves his shoulder. She kneels down and yanks away at the chains, a furious and determined look on her face.
“Bill would never stand for this!” she snaps. “Never!”
Mike takes a step back, strokes his chin. He watches my grandma, all hunched over, undoing the chains. A sneer is on his face, disdain for my grandma and the elephant. Then Mike moves closer to the back side of Queenie Grace, and glances down at my grandma. He takes the cigarette from his mouth, pinches it between his fingers. Mike sneakily reaches out his hand, cigarette held low, blows smoke.
Henry Jack sits up quickly. “Holy showman,” he says. “Did you see that? Did you see what just happened?”
“It looked like he touched the cigarette to the elephant’s skin,” I whisper. “Like he burned her on purpose.”
“Are you sure?” Henry Jack asks. “Would you swear on your life?”
“No,” I said. “Are you?”
“I’m not one hundred percent sure,” he says. “But that’s what it looked like.”
“I know.”
“I swear,” murmurs Henry Jack, gritting his teeth. “If that guy hurt Queenie Grace, I’m going to lose it. He’s going to get a piece of me . . . and this fist.”
Henry Jack raises a clenched, wrinkled fist, shaking it in the air, fixing eyes of steel on Mike.
“I never did like that guy,” he says. “There’s something fishy about him.”
“And that’s no way to treat an elephant,” I reply. Even I know that.
Henry Jack and I fix eye daggers on creepy Mike. He puts the cigarette back in his mouth and puffs away. Queenie Grace quakes and shakes.