A Girl and her Elephant Read online

  A Girl and Her Elephant

  Zoey Gong

  Red Empress Publishing

  www.RedEmpressPublishing.com

  * * *

  Copyright © Zoey Gong

  www.ZoeyGong.com

  * * *

  Cover by Cherith Vaughan

  www.CoversbyCherith.com

  * * *

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recoding, or otherwise, without the prior written consent of the author.

  For all the elephants of Thailand and around the world.

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Thank You

  A Girl and Her Panda

  A Girl and Her Tiger

  About the Author

  About the Publisher

  Chapter One

  The cries of the elephant could be heard throughout the jungle.

  Kanita could no longer ignore the elephant’s suffering. Even though her father—the king’s mahout—had warned her to stay away, she had to see what was happening for herself. She snuck out of her bedroom window and ran through the village to the royal stables where the white elephant was in heavy labor.

  Even though it was late at night, the stables and yard were lit with torches, and mahouts were running here and there, trying to calm the rest of the elephant herd. But they seemed incapable of being consoled, and each one trumpeted in distress.

  “Bring more hot water!” Kanita heard her father call to one of his men. “And my kris. I will have to cut the baby loose.”

  Her father had asked for his dagger! The poor elephant, Kanita thought. If the elephant—one of the sacred white elephants—died, the king would be displeased. She moved a bale of hay to a stable window and climbed on top of it to get a better view.

  On the floor of the stables was the large white elephant. She was straining to birth her calf into the world and tears seeped from her eyes.

  She looked at Kanita, and Kanita’s heart froze in her chest. It was as though she could hear the elephant begging her for help.

  The elephant’s wet eyes found Kanita’s, and she raised her trunk toward her.

  Kanita jumped down from the hay bale and ran into the stables. She had to do something to help. As she entered the building, she saw her father walk behind the elephant with his kris.

  “Por! No!” Kanita cried as she ran to him, pulling on his arm. “You’ll kill her.”

  “Kanita!” he said sternly. “I told you to stay in the house with your mother. Get out of here.”

  “No, I can help,” she said. She went to the elephant and looked at where the baby was supposed to come out. The area was red and swollen, but she thought she could see a trunk trying to wiggle out.

  She had never helped birth a baby elephant before. As a girl, she was forbidden from becoming a mahout. But she had helped her mother bring a woman’s baby into the world just a few days before. It didn’t look so different to her. She just needed to reach inside and pull the baby out. And with her small hands and arms, she thought she was just the right size to do it.

  She slid her hands inside the mother elephant.

  “Be careful,” her father cautioned. “Can you feel the calf’s legs?”

  She wasn’t sure what she was feeling. It was like nothing in the world she had touched before. She closed her eyes and let her hands do the seeing for her.

  She felt it. The trunk. She could feel the length of it and the ridges up to the baby elephant’s face. She felt the trunk wrap around her arm.

  “I feel its face!” Kanita cried.

  “Keep going,” her father said.

  She pushed further into the elephant, all the way to her shoulders. She slid her hands down the side of the baby elephant and gripped it under its front leg.

  “I have it!” she said. “I have the leg!” She tried to pull it out, but she was not strong enough. “Help me!” she cried.

  Her father wrapped his arms around her waist and pulled. “Don’t let go!” he ordered.

  She could feel her hands start to slip, but she refused to release her grip. The baby elephant’s trunk wrapped even more tightly around her arm. She started to feel the baby elephant’s mass give way.

  “It’s coming!” she yelled, and the mother elephant trumpeted again, forcing the baby out.

  Kanita and her father fell backward as the baby elephant plopped out of her mother on top of them covered in birthing goo. The baby struggled, still partially trapped in her amniotic sack. Kanita’s father used his kris to cut the sack away.

  The baby elephant took her first full gasp of air, and Kanita wrapped her arms around the baby, a baby that was probably ten times the weight of eight-year-old Kanita. A baby girl elephant.

  “You did it,” her father said, patting her on the back.

  Kanita breathed a sigh of relief, happy to have saved the baby elephant and her mother.

  But then the mother elephant trumpeted again and let out a horrifying moan. Blood and other fluids poured out of the mother elephant, soaking the stable floor.

  “Oh no!” Kanita cried as she stood, her chong kraben drenched with blood. Her feet slipped on the floor as she made her way to the mother elephant’s face.

  The mother elephant groaned as Kanita stroked her face.

  “I’m so sorry,” Kanita said. “I’ll take care of her. I promise.”

  The mother elephant sighed one last time, her eyes focusing softly on Kanita as though she understood before closing them forever.

  Kanita stood back and then kneeled, kowtowing to the white elephant, thanking her for her service to the king and honoring her as his representative. All of the mahouts in the stables—including Kanita’s father—did the same, as was proper. The rest of the elephants in the king’s stables—white and gray—let out a mournful trumpet, as though they all suffered from the loss of one of their own.

  Kanita was the first to raise her head, as her thoughts were now with the baby elephant left behind. The baby elephant was sitting up, its eyes wide, apparently confused about what was going on. Kanita raised the baby’s trunk and coaxed her to follow. She led her to her mother so she could nurse. Even though the mother was dead, the milk she made in preparation for her baby should still be good for the baby’s first drink.

  As the men discussed what to do next with the deceased royal elephant—they would have to inform the king and then hold a royal procession for her.

  Kanita grabbed a bucket of water and started washing the baby. As she did so, she was greeted with an incredible sight.

  “Por!” she called to her father. “Look!”

  Her father and some of the other mahouts came to see what she was excited about.

  “Well, I’ll be…” her father trailed off as he sunk to his knees.

  The baby—like her mother—was a white elephant.

  Once again, everyone in the stables—including Kanita—prostrated themselves before an auspicious elephant.

  “Is this the first time a white elephant has been born in captivity?” Kanita asked after they all were standing again.

&nb
sp; “King Sakda is truly a blessed monarch,” her father said.

  “Hey, boss,” one of the mahouts said, calling her father to him. He went to him, and the two talked quietly for a moment, frowning at the baby elephant.

  “What is it?” Kanita asked. She went to her father’s side and realized what they were looking at.

  The baby elephant had a long red birthmark down one side of her face. On her pale pink skin—white elephants were not really white, but only a pale gray or pink in color—the mark showed dramatically.

  “It’s nothing,” Kanita said, remembering that her friend Boonsri had a red birthmark on her back. “She’s still a white elephant. We will still honor her.”

  “It’s a bad omen elephant, boss,” the other mahout mumbled.

  “Don’t say that!” Kanita yelled.

  “Enough,” her father said firmly. “I will send an urgent message to the king, telling him what happened and about the new white elephant. In all his wisdom, he will know what to do.”

  “We should take good care of her,” Kanita said. “The king will want to know his auspicious elephant is well cared for.”

  Kanita went over to the little elephant, who had now finished drinking her mother’s milk, and led her to a clean area of the stables. She finished washing and drying the elephant and laid her on a fresh bed of straw.

  “Don’t worry,” Kanita said as she laid down with the elephant, wrapping her arms around her. “I won’t let anything happen to you, Safi, my sweet little friend.”

  But in her heart, she worried about the mahout calling the baby elephant a “bad omen.”

  From the royal stables in Chiang Mai, it took messages several days to reach the king in Bangkok; and it took many more days for his reply to arrive. During the wait, Kanita busied herself taking care of Safi.

  It was a challenge finding the elephant enough milk. There were other young mother elephants in the king’s herd, but they were loath to allow Safi to nurse from them too much, lest their own babies not have enough milk to thrive. All day, Kanita would move Safi from one mother elephant to another, hoping the mothers would be kind enough to let Safi nurse. But even then, there was not enough milk to go around. So Kanita spent many hours a day offering to nurse the cows of people in the village in exchange for some of the milk. Kanita stayed with Safi through the night, and Safi would wrap her trunk around Kanita.

  After only a few days, Kanita and Safi had bonded in a way that astounded the mahouts, who each had strong bonds with their own elephants.

  “Too bad she’s a girl,” one of the mahouts jokingly said to her father one day. “She has the soul of a mahout.”

  Kanita’s face burned with pride. She hoped that one day her father would defy tradition and let her join the mahouts, but he only shook his head and walked away.

  That night, from all the way in the stables, she was awoken by her parents fighting. Kanita tried to slip away from Safi so she could find out what the trouble was, but as soon as she moved, Safi was awake.

  “Stay here,” Kanita told Safi as she left the stables, but Safi followed closely behind her. “Okay, but at least be quiet!” Kanita warned the elephant.

  “This is all your fault,” her father yelled at her mother as Kanita snuck to a window and stood on Safi’s back to peek in. “You have always spoiled her.”

  “If that is what you think, you do not know Kanita,” her mother said. “She is headstrong and willful. Nothing you or I do will stop her from doing whatever she sets her mind to. She is like a bull elephant. I don’t indulge her, I only move out of her way to keep her from trampling over me.”

  “That is what the ankusha is for,” her father snapped, referring to the hook used to control and guide elephants in their training. “You never punish her.”

  Her mother waved her hands as though to brush off his concerns. “You can criticize my parenting later. The question is, what are we going to do now? You have seen how attached they have grown to each other. This king’s edict is going to devastate her.”

  “There is nothing I can do,” he said with a sigh, looking at a piece of paper in his hands stamped with the royal seal. “The elephant must be put to death.”

  “What?” Kanita shouted, standing up so quickly she lost her balance and fell backward off of Safi.

  Her parents ran out of the house and her mother helped her off the ground, dusting the dirt and leaves from her knees.

  “Kanita!” her mother scolded. “What are you doing out so late?”

  “He didn’t mean it, did he, Mae?” she asked, grasping at her mother. “He’s not going to kill Safi!”

  Safi let out a worried snuffling sound.

  Her mother sighed and held her daughter tight. “I’m sorry, my darling,” she said.

  “No!” Kanita pulled away from her mother and wrapped her arms around Safi. “You can’t! I won’t let you!”

  “Kanita!” her father said harshly, waving the letter from the king. “The king, in all his wisdom, has deemed the baby elephant a bad omen. She killed her mother. She is marked. She is not a true white elephant, but a cursed one. He has ordered she be put to death lest she bring more sorrow to the elephant herd and the king himself.”

  “But it’s not her fault,” Kanita cried. “She’s innocent. Just a baby! She needs me!”

  “Enough!” Her father snapped as he went back inside the house, leaving Kanita’s mother to comfort her daughter.

  “I am sorry, my love,” she said. “But we cannot defy the king. He knows what is best.”

  “But he doesn’t know Safi!” Kanita cried.

  “Shush, child!” her mother cautioned. “You cannot speak against the king!”

  Kanita’s eyes went wide in horror as her father emerged from their house with his rifle.

  “Por! Stop!” Kanita yelled, wrapping her arms more tightly around Safi. “You can’t!”

  Her father stomped forward, grabbing his daughter roughly by the arm and pulling her away from Safi, who let out a weak, scared trumpeting sound.

  “You know how it is, Kanita,” her father said, shoving the girl into her mother’s arms. “Hold her,” he ordered, and her mother held her tightly. He then took a rope and looped it around Safi’s neck to lead her away from the house.

  “Por! Por! No!” Kanita continued to yell, fighting to escape her mother’s grasp.

  “Come on, you damn beast,” her father grunted as he tried to get Safi to follow him back to the stable, but even though she was a baby, the two-hundred-pound infant was impossible to shift if she didn’t want to move, and right now she was too terrified to leave Kanita.

  “Fine!” he finally yelled, dropping the rope and aiming his rifle at Safi right there in the yard.

  Kanita screamed.

  “Hey, boss,” one of the mahouts said to get her father’s attention.

  Kanita and both of her parents looked at the man they hadn’t even seen approach. The mahout tossed his head, motioning around the yard. They all looked and realized that the whole village had gathered around to see what the commotion was about. Most of their neighbors were staring, horrified at the scene playing out.

  Her father lowered his rifle and shoved the letter from the king at the mahout. “What choice do I have?” he asked.

  The mahout read the letter, which he then showed to another mahout who had come over.

  Safi had slipped away and back to Kanita’s side, who wept as she wrapped her arms around Safi’s neck.

  The mahouts looked from the letter to Kanita and Safi and then to her father.

  “It’s just a little elephant, boss,” one of the men said, handing the letter back.

  “Just a little…” Her father was so stunned at their words he couldn’t finish his sentence. “She’ll grow to be just as big as any other elephant. And what about defying the king?”

  “I won’t tell him if you don’t,” the mahout said with a goofy grin.

  “The gods will know!” her father snapped. “How will
they punish me if I defy my king?”

  “The gods never punish mercy,” Kanita’s mother bravely said.

  “Why should I show mercy to an elephant?” Kanita’s father asked. “Do you have any idea how expensive it will be to raise without the king’s blessing?”

  “Not mercy for the elephant,” her mother hissed. “Mercy for your daughter.”

  Kanita looked up at her father and begged him with her eyes to do the right thing.

  Her father looked at his daughter, his wife, the men in his charge, and the villagers. He let out a frustrated grunt before saying, “Fine! The elephant can live. But I only pray the wrath of the king falls on your heads, not mine.”

  He stomped back into the house, slamming the door behind him.

  It was not until he was out of sight that Kanita was able to stop crying and breathe a sigh of relief.

  One of the mahouts went to Kanita’s mother’s side and patted her back in comfort.

  “We are all watching him, Miss Boss,” he said, and she nodded her thanks.

  “Kanita,” her mother said. “Take Safi back to the stables. Everything will be fine.”

  Kanita was still shaken from the experience and was glad to get back to the safety of the stables.

  She took Safi to her stall and laid a blanket over her.

  “Don’t worry, Safi,” Kanita said as they snuggled together and tried to fall asleep. “I’ll always protect you. We will always be together. I promise.”

  Chapter Two

  Eight Years Later…

  “Whoa! Safi! Look out!” Kanita cried, bouncing along, trying to hold on to Safi’s ears as the elephant bounded excitedly toward the river.