Small as an Elephant (2 page)

Where was she? Why had she taken off when they already had more things on their list than they could possibly do? He could imagine her going off to get something — some last-minute thing they needed to make this trip
absolutely perfect
— and then meeting someone interesting. Someone who made art out of sea sponges, or wrote the messages in juice-bottle caps. She would be unable to pull herself away. “Can you believe it, Jack?” she’d say. “He sits in an office all day, thinking up what to write inside the tops of bottles.”

Yeah, OK. But why take the tent?

She would have some train of reasoning, no doubt: first she thought
this,
and then
that
occurred to her, but then . . . It would be one thought sparking another, until all the ideas burst into flames — or so it seemed to Jack. It didn’t even make sense to try and figure it out; he knew that by now. Sometimes he couldn’t even follow the thoughts
after
she explained.

And now a whole morning was shot. Well, he wasn’t going to just sit around and wait, not this time, dang it. She could go off and have her amazing time — he was going to have his own adventure. He was on Mount Desert Island, and he hadn’t even put his toes in the ocean yet. He’d change that.

He cleared off his table — leaving the newspaper for someone else to read — and walked across the street to where lots of people had pulled over to escape their cars and teeter along the tumbling, rocky shore.

The day was growing steamy, and the ocean air smelled like warm olives. Jack bounced from the dry, sea-worn stones down to the darker, seaweed-covered boulders below. As he did, he couldn’t help examining each group of tourists — the large family with the grandfather holding on to the shoulders of twin boys to balance himself; two girls in green camp T-shirts who stood outside their camp group, uninterested in the wildlife in a tidal pool; a bunch of older women sitting around a flat rock as if it were a table and sipping something from a thermos — all the while searching for his tall, willowy mother, her cropped blond hair. He didn’t bother to search the more remote edges of the beach; she hated being alone.

A boy about Jack’s age, eleven, but with shorter hair and a wide smile of bright white teeth, was tossing a Frisbee with his little sister. The girl’s long blond hair whipped across her face as she flung the disk into the air. Neither had much of a throw; the Frisbee kept smacking nearby rocks, sometimes getting wedged between them. It didn’t matter. It was impossible to run on this treacherous beach, and both of them laughed at the senselessness of the game. So did their parents, who were watching from stone chairs.

Jack wished he could be that boy, a kid who had nothing more to worry about than where his Frisbee landed. A boy who could make his parents happy just by playing a silly game.

Then he immediately took it back. His mom was cool. Real cool. Cooler than a lot of other moms. He promised himself he’d tell her that when she returned.

She definitely wasn’t on this beach. Should he go back to the campsite in case she was there?
Nah,
he thought.
She’d know to look for me here.
He’d stay, give her time to come down. He imagined her sneaking up behind him, surprising him here.

He took off his sneakers and socks, then peeled off his shirt and carefully wrapped his phone inside it. He tucked the bundle in a dry crevice of a fairly large boulder. Maybe once he got down to where the tide had receded, he’d even be brave enough to swim. (Though it didn’t look as if anyone else was even thinking about going near the foamy, churning water.)

At the first bright algae-green tidal pool he came to, Jack picked up a snail and examined its shell. Then he crouched, preparing to pick up a crab.

“It’ll pinch you.”

Jack looked up. The Frisbee kid and his sister had come up beside him.

“Not if I pick it up from behind,” said Jack. He carefully positioned his fingers on the back of the crab’s shell.

The boy’s sister squealed as Jack lifted the crab into the air. It waved its pincers frantically.

“He’s so big!” said the girl. “Isn’t he, Aiden?”

Used to be huge until the Elephant Child shrank it,
thought Jack, remembering a story his mother had told him.

Eventually, Jack let the crab go, and without saying a word, he and Aiden leaped from one slippery rock to the next toward the water, while Aiden’s sister wandered back toward her parents. They dipped their feet into the freezing-cold sea until Aiden’s parents called them away from the dangerous surf, and then they whipped seaweed at each other’s legs instead.

Jack imagined his mother standing on the shore, watching, smiling at their foolishness.

He started to ask Aiden if he wanted to build a castle out of the rocks, when Aiden’s father called down to say they were leaving.

“Are you staying at the campground?” he asked instead.

Aiden nodded.

“Me too,” Jack said.

“Maybe we’ll see you at the ranger’s talk tonight,” Aiden replied, then ran to catch up with his parents.

Jack watched Aiden’s family gather their things and walk away together. Aiden’s mom draped her arm over Aiden’s shoulder. Jack walked over to his shirt and checked his phone, praying for a message.

Nothing.

He scanned the beach one more time, hoping to see her face.

No such luck.

It’s OK,
he told himself, tucking his phone back into his pocket.
It hasn’t been
that
long.
He looked down at the rocks on the beach, the rocks that only an hour or so ago had been almost completely underwater. As he looked at them now, he saw something: a bird’s-eye view of elephants, a whole herd of them. The smooth, darker rocks were grayish brown, some with speckles. One particularly rounded rock looked just like the back of the leader. That rock called to him.

Jack climbed back down and lay upon its warm surface.

He remembered the first time his mother had taken him to see an elephant. He had been really little, no older than four. They’d been at a circus, and he’d hated it — hated the chaotic music, the sudden snap of the ringmaster’s whip, the diamond-eyed clowns. So she’d carried him away from all that and into another tent, a tent where the most enormous animal he’d ever seen stood only a few feet away. Jack had whimpered and buried his face in his mother’s neck, but he couldn’t resist peeking at the huge creature. And then the elephant had reached toward him with her trunk, reached toward him and tapped him on the shoulder. He’d squealed and plunged back under the cover of his mother’s chin. But the elephant had tapped him again, and kept on tapping him till he lifted his head and looked over at her. Slowly, slowly, she’d reached out her trunk again and touched his cheek. Jack remembered giggling, remembered feeling as if the elephant tent were the safest place in the world.

Jack lay facedown on that rock until he’d pulled every last bit of heat from it, and then he meandered back to the campground. He strolled past the wooden registration hut, with its pointy roof and welcoming porch (no Prius in the parking lot), past the signs below towering trees that directed drivers to the proper loop in the thick, scrubby woods, past the entrance to the outdoor amphitheater, to A-loop. He decided to take the long way around the circle. He told himself that if he was extra patient, if he remained calm and hopeful, if he walked slowly enough around the shady A-loop, checking each and every site for the car, his mom would be back.

As he turned to the right, he heard Aiden’s voice and his little sister’s, too — Julie, he remembered Aiden calling her — and realized that they were the family that had hung an enormous blue tarp over their entire campsite, protecting it from rain. He was tempted to pop through the brush that made their site particularly private and say hi, but didn’t want to draw too much attention to himself, didn’t want Aiden’s parents to start wondering who this kid was, anyway, and why he was just hanging out, all alone.

Plus, he didn’t want to break the spell.

But it wasn’t to be. His Hubba was still the only thing on his site.

“Anything wrong?”

Jack jumped. He’d been so intent on seeing his mom — willing her to appear right there at the picnic table, waiting for his return — that he hadn’t heard the park ranger come up behind him.

She was dressed in a gray uniform with a badge and carried a clipboard. Her face was slightly wrinkled; her eyes were kind.

At this point, any other kid would tell the ranger that his mother was missing, that he had no idea what had happened to her. Then the adults would take over. They’d ask questions and put out a missing-person report. Someone would take him in and feed him dinner while they looked for her. And they’d probably find her. If not tonight, then soon.

But Jack wasn’t any kid. And his mom wasn’t just any mom.

“Nope,” said Jack, placing his hands in his pockets. “Everything’s good.”

It wasn’t much past six, and the sun was already setting. Jack needed a plan. He figured he could eat at the camping supply store again, but maybe it would be smarter if he bought a few groceries and brought them back instead.

And a fire would be sweet. A fire would add light (although he did have his flashlight, he reminded himself) and warmth. And he could cook something on it . . . or he could if he had some pots and pans. Which he didn’t.

Marshmallows. A stick was all you needed to cook those. He’d buy one or two healthy things, something to drink, and marshmallows for toasting. Wouldn’t his mom be surprised when she rolled in and saw him sitting there in front of the fire, popping a perfectly browned marshmallow into his mouth! He might just turn to her and say, “Want one?”

“Smell you!” she’d say, which was her way of saying,
You are one cool kid, Jack Martel.

Jack liked imagining these scenes, even though he knew, in truth, he’d leap up and demand that she tell him where she’d been. And then she’d say something like, “I knew you’d be fine, Jackie,” to make him feel better, but it wouldn’t. Just the opposite. And then he’d be so mad, and at the same time so relieved, that he’d start to cry. So instead of being all OK and independent, he’d look like some helpless little kid.

This time he jogged out of the campground. He was nervous about bumping into the same ranger — not sure if he could keep his voice steady, keep his eyes conveying cheerfulness. As soon as he got onto the beat-up island road, he tried calling his mother again. Still no answer.

This time it was a guy with a mustache and a baseball cap behind the counter at Seawall Camping Supplies.
Be natural,
Jack told himself.
Kids probably come in here by themselves all the time. No big deal, right?
He gave the guy a quick nod (which felt more nerdy than cool) and checked out his options. He decided on salami, cheese, marshmallows, and orange juice, but when he added them up, they came to more than ten dollars. He had a little over nine. What to give up?

He was still trying to decide when he looked over at the coffee station and saw paper cups. Maybe they’d be willing to give him a cup, or sell it to him for ten cents or something, and he could get water out of the tap at the campground. Then he wouldn’t need to buy the orange juice.

“Hey, OK if I take a cup?”

“No problem,” the guy said. “Take one. Heck, take two.”

So he put the orange juice back, then walked to the counter with the rest of his supplies. As the guy was ringing him up, Jack saw a display of matchbooks on the counter. He’d need something to light a fire with if he planned on roasting marshmallows. “Do those cost anything?” he asked, pointing to the matchbooks.

“Twelve dollars,” said the guy.

Jack’s mouth fell open.

“Nah, just kidding. Free — free to people who buy butts — but you can have one.”

Jack used all but a few coins to pay for his groceries and then started out the door.

“Hey!” shouted the guy.

Jack’s heart pounded. Did he do something wrong? Take something by accident?

“You won’t burn anything down with those, right?”

Jack stopped and held up the marshmallows from his bag.

“Oh, yeah,” said the guy. “Cool.”

As he walked back past the registration hut, thinking about toasting his Jet Puffs, Jack suddenly remembered the sign he’d read inside when he and his mother had registered last night:
COLLECTING FIREWOOD IN PARK PROHIBITED
. It was hard to believe they meant it; the woods along the campground road were full of dead wood, low branches on trees that had died, sticks covering the ground. It was all right there for the taking. Wouldn’t it be helping them to gather some of this brush? The woods would look neater. . . . Did he dare?

Maybe he’d just hunt around his own campsite, where he wouldn’t be so obvious.

He glanced toward the site where Aiden’s family was staying. He could hear Julie talking in a hyper, squeaky way and the others laughing. Jack thought about walking over and just saying, “Hey, you’re going to the talk tonight, right? The schedule at the gate says it’s about owls. . . .” but he knew Aiden’s parents would start asking the usual questions, which he’d have to answer carefully: