Ralph Helfer Read Online Free PDF Page A

carefully.
    “When elephants grow old they rarely lie down because of their tremendous size and weight. The circulation in their legs is restricted and could cause numbness, and if they can’t feel their legs, they are unable to stand. Fluid collects in their stomach, and eventually can cause their death. In the wild, adult elephants doze for only a few minutes at a time. Captivity changes their habits, and therefore their sleep patterns.”
    Later, in the barn, Bram lay awake in the dark. The oat hay mixed with the alfalfa gave off an intoxicating aroma.
    As his father suggested, he lay head to head with Mo. He hadbarely closed his eyes when a loud bang yanked him from sleep. Bram felt Mo’s trunk reaching in the dark, frantically trying to find him. He touched her trunk. She grabbed his hand, hard, across the wrist, and held tight.
    “It’s all right, girl, just a window blown open by the wind.” He felt her nervous twitching and stroked her skin, soothing her as best he could. It was amazing to him that such a large animal could be so scared of small things, until he remembered that she was still young.
    As Modoc moved a leg to scratch an itch, her leg chain clanked against the steel plates in the cement. It reminded Bram of prison: chains, steel, and concrete. He recalled when he was five, wondering how his father could be so cruel as to put a chain on an elephant, the one animal he loved more than any other. It seemed so mean! Later he was to learn that because of elephants’ incredible size and strength, they have to be controlled as best they can without putting any undue stress on them.
    “No, no, the leg chains work quite well. They hang loose, don’t get in the way, and are easy to slip on and off,” his father had explained. “As for the chain, it’s like the one Curpo wears around his neck. Elephants could care less whether it is on them or not.”
    Bram learned some elephants could break their leg chains if they so desired. It was only the perception of humans that made the chains appear so wrong.
    By midnight the weather had turned unusually cold. Bram had a blanket to sleep in and was quite warm, but he felt Mo shivering. He knew it wasn’t just the cold, but a sense of loss for her mother. Once his own mother had traveled far away, and while she was gone young Bram had shivered every night. He figured Emma’s huge body gave off a lot of body heat that helped Modoc stay warm. He got up and, not wanting to start the electric generator that ran the heater for fear of waking the family, lit a candle. He set the candle far from the hay and pondered the situation. How does one warm a two-ton elephant? Hay! He decided to cover her with hay. Bram opened bale after bale; pitchfork after pitchfork ofhay was thrown on her. He had no idea it would take so much hay. When he was done, there stood before him a mountain eight feet high. He couldn’t see Mo, but he knew that somewhere in that enormous pile was a young elephant.
    “You all right, Mo?” asked Bram.
    A snakelike trunk slithered out from under the edge of the hay. A stifled sneeze and a puff of dust and hay blasted out of her trunk. This time he slept with his arm wrapped around Mo’s trunk.
    During the night Bram awoke again. It was unusually quiet. It was too quiet. Something was wrong. Mo wasn’t breathing. He listened again. Nothing. Was she just sleeping soundly or…or…? He sat up in a panic. Maybe something horrible had happened, like suffocating under all that hay? Bram reached down and gently pinched the tip of her trunk closed to see if she was breathing. He waited, figuring that if she was all right this would force her to breathe through her trunk. Like a bursting boiler, a great rush of air blasted out of her trunk, blowing it free of his grip and throwing Bram, startled, onto his back. Then, like a mystical apparition, she rose from the earth. The hay fell away, some still remaining on top of her head. Towering eight feet in the