“I’m not going shark diving. Not now. Not ever.”
“That’s too bad. I was hoping that by this time tomorrow, I’d be phoning your family to let them know you were eaten by a shark,” he says, laughing.
“Well maybe by this time tomorrow, I’ll be explaining the awful machete ‘accident’ to your family!”
He doesn’t miss a beat, “That’s impossible because by this time tomorrow, I’ll be speaking at your eulogy.”
“By this time tomorrow, I’ll be dancing on your grave,” I shout, dancing on the pile of branches in the trailer.
“By this time tomorrow, I’ll be spitting on your grave!” He spits on the ground.
“By this time tomorrow I will be p…” My foot gets lodged deep in between the branches, thrusting me flat onto my back with force. I try to pull my foot out, but it’s stuck within my perfectly piled branches. By this time I’m laughing so hard, I’ve got no strength left to pull it out.
“In Africa, karma is instant,” the Drill Sergeant chants.
Surrendering to this moment of karmic justice bestowed upon me, I sink deeper into the branches.
“Don’t get too comfortable in there, you’ve still got elephant stables to clean today,” barks the Drill Sergeant.
Crap.
11
Revenge of an Elephant
The Drill Sergeant says elephants never forget. I don’t believe him. I think this local folklore is just as fictional as those “important calls” he needs to take when he leaves me alone to clean out the elephant stables.
Kittibon continues to mock me every morning by slapping me in the face with trunks full of sawdust. I thought I outsmarted her by wearing a bandana for protection—but she was smarter when the sawdust was replaced by branches whipped at my head. I couldn’t let an elephant beat me, so I upped my ante as well. I’ve been leaving a layer of dung-encrusted shavings in her feeding tray, just below the surface to give her a taste of her own medicine. Two can play her game, but only one can master it, and master I have become. I may not be able to do a lot of the jobs around here, but I can outsmart a stupid elephant. I am convinced I’ve won the battle with Kittibon and proven a point to her: No four-ton prehistoric grouch is going to intimidate me.
Today the Drill Sergeant says we will be doing ground maintenance in the elephant camp. I had never considered that we would have to work among the elephants when I had tainted Kittibon’s feeding tray.
“I daresay we must exercise extreme caution today. The ellies are territorial and get very aggressive when anyone’s in their camp,” the Drill Sergeant says.
It’s as if he can read my mind.
“And remember, I did warn you that elephants never forget when you continued to harass Kitty.”
Perhaps I could be intimidated by a four-ton prehistoric grouch, after all. What’s the worst that can happen? She charges the truck and we drive away. Right? She can’t be any faster than the lions.
We climb inside Harrison and cautiously head into the elephant camp. I search the horizon. Where is she? If she even looks at me sideways, we are outta here. We’re on ellie turf and there are no concrete barriers to protect us in here. No sign of the elephants. Hopefully, they’re on the other side of the camp taking a mud bath. I don’t really care where they are as long as it’s nowhere near me.
At one point this was an old farm, and our orders are to remove all the old telephone poles from the camp. They’re heavy and awkward to carry, even as a team. This is going to be another painful and boring morning with the Drill Sergeant.
It is not until we are in the midst of dragging the fourth pole when the Drill Sergeant stops dead in his tracks. He is staring at something behind me. Suddenly, I see what he sees, a thundering cloud of wrinkly grey skin coming towards us like a twister. Paralyzed, all I can do is watch. Where did they come from? How do such massive creatures run so fast?
Kittibon and Selati are running with trunks raised like rifles pointed at us, the targets of their charge. Holy shit. Boom. We drop the pole onto the ground below us, which has now started to tremble under the weight of the elephant offensive.
They’re coming so fast, there is no time, this can’t be real. I shriek at the Drill Sergeant. “What do we do?”
His command is simple. “Hide beside the truck!”
The ellies arrive and stop just short of Harrison. Their size makes him look like a toy truck. Kittibon stretches her trunk over Harrison and inhales deeply just above my head. I don’t move. I don’t even breathe.
She pulls back her trunk just as she gives her head a violent shake, ears flapping and slapping the sides of her head. For the record, there are three warning signs elephants give before attacking: 1) head shake, 2) lots of noise, and 3) mock charge.
She’s just given the first warning sign. We have to get out of here now. There is no way to fight an elephant, and these elephants mean business. I look to the Drill Sergeant for an escape plan, but he thinks he can scare them away.
“Get out of here!” he screams as he leans across the hood of Harrison.
The ellies retort with long trumpet blasts and push towards the front of the truck; warning sign number two has occurred. The Drill Sergeant picks up a stick and throws it at Selati. Thump. It hits him in the ear and falls to the ground beside him.
The elephants go still. Maybe this scare tactic worked.
Selati lowers his head. It worked; he’s hanging his head in defeat—or is he? The finger-like protrusions of his trunk begin to delicately move across the ground. It moves over several branches and rocks, but he doesn’t pick any of them up. I don’t recognize this sign of elephant etiquette. But then, he pauses at the very stick the Drill Sergeant just threw at him. He curls the end of his trunk around the stick and raises it high above his head.
“Look out!” the Drill Sergeant shouts, “Elephants never miss!”
We sprint to the back of the truck, ducking down and using our arms as cover. Selati flings the stick, barely missing the Drill Sergeant’s head.
The Drill Sergeant grabs a handful of stones as we both jump up into the bed of the truck. He gives me some, and together we barrage them with stones, trying to hold our position while keeping the enemy at bay, rat, tat, tat, tat, tat. Each stone we throw gets thrown right back at us with twice the force; all hopes of triumph are quickly slipping away.
“We have to get out of here. It’s a bloody mutiny!” I scream.
“Get in the truck!” he orders, his voice shaking slightly for the first time.
He covers me with a steady storm of rock-fire, while I sprint to the cab and dive in, narrowly escaping stray pebble fire. Kittibon has seen me. She quickly springs to my side of the truck, surprising me with her agility. Her trunk comes towards my window, which is stuck in the open position, of course. Just as her trunk enters I slide over to the driver’s side, only inches out of her reach. She inhales deeply; it is the familiar sound that’s usually followed by a tantrum. She withdraws her trunk from the window, moves to the front of the cab, and stops. She turns her head, revealing a glaring eye. It’s a standoff, the moment when two enemies come eye to eye just before they try to kill each other.
Selati is at the back of the truck snatching the poles out that we just spent an hour getting in there. The Drill Sergeant tries to hold them in, but he’s no challenge for Selati.
I look back at Kittibon just as she hurls a large rock at me. It hits the windshield right in front of me, cracking the glass. The bitch has broken Harrison’s face.
She moves to the driver’s window and, again, encroaches with her long trunk, reaching closer and closer. Oh God, soon she will have me. I slide as far over to the passenger side as I can, but her trunk is nearly on my throat now. She’s inhaling my fear, relishing the scent of panic. Fight the fear; don’t let her sense your fear. Stand up and fight, you coward!