Water for Elephants Read Online Free PDF

Couldn’t stand by and watch animals suffer.”
    “But . . . I don’t understand. Even if he took payment in, uh, whatever, how does that make everything belong to the bank?”
    “They fell behind on their mortgage.”
    “My parents didn’t have a mortgage.”
    He looks uncomfortable. Holds his steepled fingers in front of him. “Well, yes, actually, they did.”
    “No, they didn’t,” I argue. “They’ve lived here for nearly thirty years. My father put away every cent he ever made.”
    “The bank failed.”
    I narrow my eyes. “I thought you just said it all goes to the bank.”
    He sighs deeply. “It’s a different bank. The one that gave them the mortgage when the other one closed,” he says. I can’t tell if he’s trying to give the appearance of patience and failing miserably or is blatantly trying to make me leave.
    I pause, weighing my options.
    “What about the things in the house? In the practice?” I say finally.
    “It all goes to the bank.”
    “What if I want to fight it?”
    “How?”
    “What if I come back and take over the practice and try to make the payments?”
    “It doesn’t work like that. It’s not yours to take over.”
    I stare at Edmund Hyde, in his expensive suit, behind his expensive desk, in front of his leather-bound books. Behind him, the sun streaks through lead-paned windows. I am filled with sudden loathing—I’ll bet he’s never taken payment in the form of beans and eggs in his life.
    I lean forward and make eye contact. I want this to be his problem, too. “What am I supposed to do?” I ask slowly.
    “I don’t know, son. I wish I did. The country’s fallen on hard times, and that’s a fact.” He leans back in his chair, his fingers still steepled. He cocks his head, as though an idea has just occurred to him. “I suppose you could go west,” he muses.
    It dawns on me that if I don’t get out of this office right now, I’m going to slug him. I rise, replace my hat, and leave.
    When I reach the sidewalk something else dawns on me. I can think of only one reason my parents would need a mortgage: to pay my Ivy League tuition.
    The pain from this sudden realization is so intense I double over, clutching my stomach.
    B ECAUSE NO OTHER options occur to me, I return to school—a temporary solution at best. My room and board is paid up until the end of the year, but that is only six days away.
    I’ve missed the entire week of review lectures. Everyone is eager to help. Catherine hands me her notes and then hugs me in a way that suggests I might get different results if I were to attempt the usual quest. I pull away. For the first time in living memory, I have no interest in sex.
    I can’t eat. I can’t sleep. And I certainly can’t study. I stare at a single paragraph for a quarter of an hour but can’t absorb it. How can I, when behind the words, on the white background of the paper, I’m watching an endless loop of my parents’ deaths? Watching as their cream-colored Buick flies through the guardrail and over the side of the bridge to avoid old Mr. McPherson’s red truck? Old Mr. McPherson, who confessed as he was led from the scene that he wasn’t entirely sure what side of the road he should have been on and thinks that maybe he hit the gas instead of the brake? Old Mr. McPherson, who showed up at church one legendary Easter without trousers?
    T HE PROCTOR SHUTS the door and takes his seat. He glances at the wall clock and waits until the minute hand wobbles forward.
    “You may begin.”
    Fifty-two exam booklets flip over. Some people riffle through it. Others start writing immediately. I do neither.
    Forty minutes later, I have yet to touch pencil to paper. I stare at the booklet in desperation. There are diagrams, numbers, lines and charts—strings of words with terminal punctuation at the end—some are periods,some question marks, and none of it makes sense. I wonder briefly if it is even English. I try it in Polish, but that doesn’t