So I’m getting braver, plus Queenie Grace is shaking a little, so I decide to carefully stand beside her while Henry Jack works. I pat her gently, as he uses the dropper to dribble brownish-orange liquid onto Queenie Grace’s cigarette burn. Red blossoms out like a blooming flower on the elephant’s rough gray skin.
“It’s okay, girl,” I whisper. “It’s okay.”
But the elephant doesn’t like the iodine. She flinches and quivers, and then she swings her trunk, hard.
Queenie Grace’s trunk slaps my face. It feels like the hand of a boneless giant.
“Owwww!” I holler, holding a hand to my cheek. I sink to my knees in the grass. “She hit me!”
“I don’t think she tried to hit you,” says Henry Jack.
“I know. But still. It hurts.”
I stand up, holding my cheek. Queenie Grace just looks at me. Then I step back, back, back . . . until no part of the elephant can possibly reach me. I’m rubbing my cheek. It smarts, and I’m starting to have a headache, too.
“What’s going on? Who the heck was screaming? Can’t we have any peace around here, even on Christmas?”
It’s Grandma Violet, standing on the little porch and yelling across the yard.
“No worries,” Henry Jack calls back. “Just a little accident with an elephant slap. It’s fine.”
“Yes,” I say. “You can go back inside, Grandma. I’m fine.”
But my grandma obviously doesn’t believe that, because she’s already making her way across the yard, past the tree, directly to me. I keep my hand on my cheek.
“Let me see,” Grandma Violet commands.
I take away my hand
“Good grief,” my grandma says. “There’s a huge red mark! I bet that’s going to bruise.”
I shrug. “It’s okay,” I say.
“No,” says Grandma Violet. “It’s not okay.”
Trullia comes out, wearing shorts that are way too short and a top that barely covers her belly button.
“What happened?” she asks.
“Queenie Grace accidentally slapped Lily,” Grandma says.
Trullia strolls over, tugs down her shirt, plucks down her shorts.
“It doesn’t look too bad,” she says. “How did it happen?”
“It was an accident,” I say. I can’t believe that I am actually defending the elephant.
Mike’s watching now from the doorway of the trailer, blowing smoke.
“What happened?” he asks.
“It was an accident,” says Henry Jack.
Grandma Violet shakes a finger at the elephant, the way a mother lovingly reprimands a little kid.
“Queenie Grace!” she exclaims. “You know better.”
“No, she doesn’t!” yells Fire-Eating Charlie, who’s back outside, smoking a cigar. “It’s a wild animal, and it’s going to act wild! I keep telling you people.”
“Hush, Charlie,” Grandma snaps back. “It’s none of your business.”
“It’s my business when that elephant wallops one of my dogs!”
“Your dog was biting her leg!” Grandma shrieks.
“Well, don’t worry; it won’t happen again,” Fire-Eating Charlie shouts. “Because of that elephant, I have to keep my dogs inside! The only time they come out is when they need to go potty.”
Henry Jack snickers.
“Go potty,” he whispers. “Big tough fire-eating cigar-smoking Charlie and his itsy wittle doggies that wear pink tutus and go potty. Plus that ugly beard of his. Did you know that a beard has more germs than a toilet?”
“Ewwwwww,” I say. “Thanks for sharing that.”
“Charlie’s got a point about the danger,” Mike calls, in between puffing away. “A wild animal is going to do wild things. It’s in their nature.”
“Zip it, Mike,” Grandma says.
“The thing hurt your granddaughter!” Mike says. “Smacked her right in the face! And you’re not going to put it in the chains.”
“No,” says Grandma Violet. “I’m not. Queenie Grace is obviously not herself, but none of us are quite right at this time. So let it go.”
Mike throws down his cigarette and grinds it out with his flip-flop, then throws up his hands.
“I’m going in,” he says. “You guys interrupted my TV show.”
Trullia is not expressing any opinion. She’s now sitting in a lawn chair, smoking, inspecting her legs like a monkey picking bugs.
“Don’t know what my daughter sees in that man,” Grandma mutters. She’s sweating, and she lifts her long hair from her neck with one hand, fanning her face with the other. Grandma Violet is wearing a T-shirt version of the Ugly Christmas Sweater: all green and red, with a Rudolph and Santa. Rudolph has a red light for his nose, and it blinks: Off. On. Off. On.
“I’m sorry, Lily, honey,” Grandma says. She pulls me into a hug. “Not a very relaxing visit, is it? I apologize for everything.”
“It’s okay,” I say.
“No,” Grandma says, “it’s not okay. Poor Grandpa would have hated all this commotion. He would have wanted you to have a nice peaceful Christmas visit.”
And then Grandma notices the red blotch on Queenie Grace.
“What is that red spot?” she asks, and Henry Jack looks at me. We both shuffle our feet. I have no idea what to say, and apparently, neither does Henry Jack. The silence is heavy as Grandma bends close to inspect the red spot on Queenie Grace’s skin.
“Why, there’s a little circle of a burn mark!” Grandma says. “It’s the size of a cigarette! Did somebody . . . did Mike . . . burn her?” she asks, a look of horror crossing her face.
“Yes,” Henry Jack says. “With his cigarette, when you were taking off the chains. We went and got some iodine, put it on the burn. I thought maybe we should wait to tell you. You know, you already have so much on your mind. Plus, we weren’t completely one hundred percent sure until now. Not like swear-your-life-on-it certain.”
“We were hoping that maybe it was an accident,” I add, my voice quiet and trembly.
“This was no accident! That man!” Grandma Violet says. “He’s going to have to go. Trullia, get over here!”
Trullia heaves herself up, saunters over.
“Look what your boyfriend did!” Grandma says. She points to the burned spot on Queenie Grace. “With a cigarette, for heaven’s sakes! What is wrong with that man?”
Trullia glances at the burn.
“Oh, Mom,” she says. “I’m sure it was an accident, and it probably wasn’t even Mike.”
“It was Mike, all right, and it was on purpose,” Henry Jack says. “We saw him. Me and Lily were watching.”
Trullia’s eyes widen, and confusion covers her face.
“But . . . why?” she says. “Why on earth would he do that? Queenie Grace is so sweet.”
“Anybody who would hurt an elephant like that,” says Grandma, “has problems. Big problems.”
“Well, I told you about his childhood and all that,” says Trullia. “He had it rough. Remember, his mother pushed him down the steps? Pulled his hair and stuff? His childhood was tough.”
“That is no excuse!” Grandma Violet says. “That man needs to own his mistakes, take responsibility! Why, I have half a mind to call the police on him!”
“Mom,” says Trullia. “Please. Give him one more chance.”
Grandma just takes a big breath, shakes her head.
“Go tell him,” she says, slow and firm. “Tell him to get out of here and never come back. I don’t want him in my home.”
Trullia stomps off. Henry Jack and I stare at our feet.
“Maybe we shouldn’t have told you,” he says to Grandma. “It’s like, you don’t need that on top of . . . everything else.”
“Oh, it’s good you told me, honey,” Grandma says to Henry Jack. “We all need to look out for one another.”
Grandma hugs Henry Jack, then me. She leans into Queenie Grace and kisses her skin.
“I’m so sorry,” she says to the elephant. “I’m so sorry you’ve had to deal with him.”
Grandma steps back, looks at Henry Jack and me.
“Mike’s not happy with himself,” she says. “And it comes out against everything and everybody else. Not that it’s an excuse. It is what it is.”
I nod. This is beginning to sound like a conversation with the school guidance counselor. “How’s your face, sweetie?” Grandma asks.
“It’s okay. It’s fine.”
Grandma just looks up at Queenie Grace’s face for a few minutes, as her Christmas shirt winks off and on. Queenie Grace looks back, blinking. There’s love in her eyes, love in Grandma’s eyes, a shared bond between them.
“No more swinging that trunk,” Grandma says to the elephant. “Be a good girl.”
“She’ll be good,” Henry Jack says. “Queenie Grace is the best elephant I know.”