The Child's Elephant Read Online Free Page A

dusk as he brought his cows in, zigzagging this way and that way across the open spaces, skimming the savannah like a bat skims the night.
    The boy nodded. ‘That’s what my grandmother thinks. She says I suit a world as wide as the sky. That’s why she stopped working in the city and brought me back here. I was still only tiny when she bundled me up in a cloth, knotted me round her shoulders and carried me home to our village.’ Knuckling his fist, Bat leaned forward and rubbed fondly at Kila’s broad brow. ‘I was fed on the same milk as this cow,’ he told Muka. ‘She was born on the same day as me and so we shared her mother’s milk.’
    Kila shifted and kicked at a fly on her underbelly,then, stretching out her neck, she gave his arm a rough lick. She liked the taste of the salt; but it made both children laugh.
    ‘I’ve got to go!’ Muka jumped up suddenly. She hitched at the waistband of her crumpled blue wrap. ‘I’ve already been too long and Auntie will be waiting.’ She pulled a face. ‘She’ll be grumbling away by the time I get back.’
    Bat clambered up too. Hastily they returned to the river, where Bat helped the girl fill her water jar and hoist it on to her head. Then he stood and watched her as she walked away, one crooked arm raised to support the balancing container, the other hanging loosely. Her hips swayed lightly from side to side.
    ‘See you later,’ Bat called when she was a short way off.
    She half turned and, with her free hand, gave a shy little wave. ‘I’ll come back and find you,’ she cried.
    Bat smiled. He hoped that she would. He was still smiling to himself as he turned to check on his cattle. She had had a secret after all, he thought, and that was the secret of her real self.

CHAPTER THREE
    That afternoon, Bat led the cows a little further down the river where the grasses were longer and thick bushes gave shade. He lay down beneath one to shelter. The day was still very hot and he must have fallen asleep because the next thing he knew he was waking, head throbbing, tongue thick. The sun had moved on, pulling with it the shadows that had covered him like a cooling blanket. Jumping hurriedly up, he looked about for his animals. For a few worried seconds he thought they had strayed, until he spotted them shining amid a patch of far scrub. He squinted into the light. They were anxious; he could see them shifting about restlessly, hear the low rumble of Toco as she called out for her calf.
    Grabbing his panga, Bat walked swiftly towards them. Something was moving. He tensed. A shadow slid secretively under a bush. He froze, still as a duiker surprisedon a forest path. Every nerve in his body was trilling. And then, just as suddenly, he relaxed again. It was a skulking hyena, hunting a spurfowl or a perhaps a ground hare . . . nothing larger than a jackal, or it would be with its pack; but even so, Toco’s calf would still have been tempting. Breaking into a run, Bat sprinted towards it, flailing his arms and uttering loud whoops. The hyena tucked in its tufted tail and loped off. Hitching up his too-big shorts, Bat raced in pursuit, bounding so rapidly through the rough scrub that he didn’t see the little creature crouched low among the bushes until he nearly tripped right over it. He stumbled to an abrupt halt and looked down.
    A tiny elephant lay at his feet. Bat stared in astonishment. It couldn’t have been much more than a couple of weeks in age. Its ears were still folded about it like the leaves of a cabbage; its back was still sprinkled with russet-coloured hairs; and it was thin, he now noticed . . . far too thin. Its spine stuck out in knobbles and its skin looked all crumpled. The dust filled its loose folds.
    Bending, Bat reached out one slow gentle hand. The little creature tried to stand, pushing up with its forelegs, its trunk waving about; but it failed and flopped back bewildered, its eyelids opening and closing as its flanks rose and sank. It