Tua and the Elephant by R. P. Harris Read Free Book Online Page A

river one more time, hoping for a boat to come to their rescue. There were none to be seen. So she waded into the muddy water, climbed onto Pohn-Pohn’s back, clamped her arms around the elephant’s thick neck, pinched her legs tight, and closed her eyes.
    “Okay, Pohn-Pohn,” she said. “I’m ready.”
    Pohn-Pohn launched herself into the swift current with her trunk rising out of the water like a snorkel.



CHAPTER SIXTEEN
In Pursuit
    No sooner had Tua and Pohn-Pohn slipped over the embankment than the two mahouts came panting up to the intersection behind them. Nak stared up and down both lanes of traffic.
    “Where could they be?”
    “Move on, move on,” said a gravelly voice. “This isn’t a tourist attraction.”
    Nak turned around and glared down at a wrinkled old man sitting on a footstool behind a folding table. He was selling charms, medallions, amulets, and talismans. Bare-chested and wrapped in a faded sarong, he leaned over and spit betel nut juice on the ground between his feet.
    Nak removed the scowl from his face. “Good day to you, grandfather,” he smiled. “You didn’t happen to see a little girl with an elephant go by here recently, did you?”
    “Maybe I did, and maybe I didn’t,” said the old fossil. “What’s it worth to you?”
    “Worth to me?” Nak asked.
    “Maybe you’d like to buy a charm, to change your luck.”
    “I’m not a superstitious man,” Nak assured the old creature and laughed.
    “Of course not. We live in the modern world. An amulet, perhaps, to ward off evil spirits?”
    Nang reached under his shirt, clutched the medallion dangling from his neck, and whispered an incantation.
    “What about your friend there?” The ancient nodded at Nang. “Would he like some … protection?”
    Nang gulped.
    Ignoring the questions, Nak pulled a twenty-
baht
note out of his pocket and waved it in the air.
    “What will this buy me?” he asked.
    “All that you desire,” the old man cackled. He snatched the note out of Nak’s hand, and pointed a bony finger across the street. “They went thataway.”
    Nak darted into the road, waving back the cars and cursing their horns, while Nang scurried after. When they reached the embankment on the other side, Nak scanned the shoreline from the bend in the river above to the bridge below.
    “I don’t see them anywhere,” Nak frowned.
    Nang saw something bobbing up and down in the middle of the river like a capsized boat. There seemed to be someone clinging to the keel. He looked back over his shoulder. The old man had folded up his table and was gone.
    “What’s that there?” Nak pointed to the middle of the river.



CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Crossing the River
    A wave washed over Tua and she lifted her head, gasped for breath, and opened her eyes. A swift current was plunging them downstream. Whirlpools swirled around them in fits. And they were only halfway across the river. She pinched her legs together and locked her arms tighter around Pohn-Pohn.
    When they reached the deepest part of the river, Pohn-Pohn rolled over with the current, and they slowly sank below the surface.
    First Tua’s legs, and then her arms were torn free. She kicked and paddled through the dark, muddy water; popped to the surface and gulpeda mouthful of air; but was quickly sent spinning under the waves again. Just when she thought her lungs would burst, something grasped her ankle and pulled. She lurched through the water, leaving a trail of bubbles behind her. Tua closed her eyes—and was suddenly bathed in sunlight.

    She could breathe! She was floating in air—she was flying! Then she dropped like a coconut and plopped onto Pohn-Pohn’s back. Locking her legs around Pohn-Pohn’s neck, Tua grabbed both of the elephant’s ears. Pohn-Pohn curled her trunk back over her head and hosed Tua down.
    “Cheeky
chang,
” she sputtered. Then she looked back over her shoulder. With the better part of the crossing behind them, the river wasn’t as scary