An Inconvenient Elephant by Judy Reene Singer Read Free Book Online Page B

and—shoosh!” Grisha made a swooping motion with his hand, implying that we would just lift the elephant and take him away. “But Mr. Thomas having heavy problems too much getting plane in.” He gave me a dark look. “We must keep fingers twisted.”
    â€œMr. Thomas ?” I repeated breathlessly. “Thomas—Tom Pennington? Tom—is he with you?”
    â€œSo.” Diamond was piecing it together as fast as I was. “This Tom Pennington, the man with the plane is”—she turned to me—“Thomas Princeton Pennington? I know the name!” Her voice dropped reverentially. “Used to get the newspapers flown in from Nairobi. He was always in the business section. Kind of an entrepreneur. He’s your Tom?”
    I looked at Grisha, but he didn’t have to confirm it. He just made a helpless gesture with his hands. “Mr. Thomas is only disclosed last night that he has peoples here to bring ellie to Chizarira. He is not disclosed that it is you .”
    â€œNo,” I said. “He didn’t know I was coming here.” I gave Grisha a rueful smile. “In fact, I didn’t know I was coming here.”
    He nodded gravely. “Mr. Thomas will not be joyed-over for this, Plain-Neelie,” he replied, wagging his finger at me. “Grisha is seeing heavy agitation ahead.” He rolled his blue eyes at me and took a very long drag on his cigarette before expelling a cloud of thick gray smoke. “ Heavy agitation.”

Chapter 7
    GRISHA’S PLAN WAS SO LUDICROUSLY SIMPLE, SO laughably naive that for a few minutes I didn’t believe it. He had driven a ten-seater safari Rover to us, and the next morning, he said, it would be filled with his secret weapon. He had determined, and correctly so, that we couldn’t just lead a wild animal through a jungle and expect him to follow along complacently like someone’s pet poodle. Nor could we drive him ahead of us like cattle in a scene out of an old cowboy movie, whoopee ti-yi-ellie. The elephant would have to be lured . Grisha’s plan was for us to drive ahead of him and lay a sporadic path of oranges.
    Oranges.
    Elephants cannot resist citrus. They love citrus. They adore it to the point that it had to be banned in all the wilderness parks for fear of attracting them to the campsites.Grisha’s plan would take advantage of this peculiarity of the elephantine palate by having us throw the oranges in a zigzag fashion to keep Tusker from directly following the truck. Hopefully, he would find the oranges, eat them, and keep moving on for more. We would be working a fine line between luring him and preventing him from figuring out we were the source.
    In the meantime, Grisha said, Charlotte Pope would be waiting for us just outside of Chizarira, on a savannah that lay between the two parks. Once we met up, she would help drive Tusker deeper into Chizarira, where the appropriate tranquilizer dart guns and Tom leading several helpers would be waiting to load him into a large cargo plane.
    Comical as the plan sounded, it was very dangerous. And our part was the most dangerous of all.
    â€œI have citrus,” Grisha declared. “Grisha buys many kilos citrus. Enough for several cows of driving.”
    â€œCows?” Diamond repeated.
    â€œHours,” I translated.
    â€œHow did you manage to sneak oranges into the park?” Diamond asked.
    â€œNot yet. It comes early in the morning cows.” Grisha stood up and stretched. “So we sleep now. Tomorrow citrus comes and we commence.”
    â€œWow,” I said. “Like the Pied Piper!”
    â€œNo, Plain-Neelie,” Grisha replied sternly. “No French champagne for celebration. We will drink only good Russian Sovetskoye Shampanskoye.”
    Â 
    We were up before dawn to help unload an outside truckwhose driver first bribed the guards and then drove in with the oranges under cover, in boxes marked as