The One and Only Ivan (11 page)

A perfect square.

“What are you up to?” Bob demands. “I'm guessing it doesn't involve sleep.”

“It has to do with the billboard.”

“That sign's a monstrosity. Particularly since I'm not featured.”

I grab my bucket of red paint. “You're not on the billboard because you're not in the show,” I point out.

“Technically, I don't even live here,” Bob says with a sniff. “I am homeless by choice.”

“I know. I'm just saying.”

I study the billboard. Then I make two fat lines, like broom handles. Another fat line connects them.

I stand back. “What do you think?”

“What is it? No, wait: let me guess. A ladder?”

“Not a ladder,” I say. “A
letter
. At least I think that's what they're called. I have to make three more.”

Bob cuddles up next to Not-Tag. “Why?” he asks, yawning.

“Because then I'll have a word. A very important word.” I dip my fingers into the paint.

“What word?” Bob asks.

“Home.”

Bob closes his eyes. “That's not so important,” he says quietly.

All day long I knuckle walk circles around my cage.

I'm so nervous I can't nap. I can't even eat.

Well, not very much, anyway.

I'm ready to show Julia what I've made.

It has to be Julia. She's an artist. Surely she'll look, truly look, at my painting. She won't notice the smudges and tears. She won't care if the pieces don't quite fit together. She'll see past all of that.

Surely Julia will see what I've imagined.

I watch Ruby trudge sullenly through the four-o'clock show, and I wonder: What will happen if I fail? What if I can't make Julia understand?

But of course I know the answer. Nothing. Nothing will happen.

Ruby will remain the main attraction at the Exit 8 Big Top Mall and Video Arcade, conveniently located off I-95, with shows at two, four, and seven, 365 days a year, year after year after year.

It's time to show my work.

The mall is silent, except for Thelma the macaw, who is practicing a new phrase: “Uh-oh!”

Julia is finishing her homework. George is sweeping outside. Mack has gone home for the night.

I grab Not-Tag and carefully pull out the folded papers. So many paintings! Page after page. Piece after piece of my giant puzzle.

I pound on my glass, and Julia glances over.

Fingers trembling, I hold up one of my paintings. It's brown and green, a corner piece.

Julia smiles.

I display another picture, and then another and another and another, each one a tiny part of the whole.

Julia looks confused. “But … what is it?” she asks. She shrugs. “It doesn't matter. It's pretty just as it is.”

“Uh-oh,” says Thelma.

No, I think.
No
.

It does matter.

George calls out to Julia. He's done for the night. “Grab your backpack,” he says. “And hurry. It's late.”

“Gotta go, Ivan,” Julia says.

Julia doesn't understand.

I have to find the right pieces. I dig through the pile. They're here somewhere. I know they are.

I find one, another one, another. I try to hold four of them up against the glass.

“Bob,” I say, “help me. Hurry!”

Bob grabs paintings with his teeth and drags them to me.

One by one, I shove pictures through the window crack. They crumple and tear.

There are too many pieces. My puzzle is too big.

“Careful, Ivan,” Julia says. “Those might be worth millions someday. You never know.” She arranges the paintings into a neat stack. “I suppose Mack's going to want to sell these in the gift shop.”

She still doesn't understand.

I shove more out the hole and more and more, all of them, one after another.

“So Ivan's been painting, has he?” George says as he puts on his coat.

“A lot,” says Julia with a laugh. “A
whole
lot.”

“You're not taking all those home with you, are you?” George asks. “I mean, no offense to Ivan, but they're just blobs.”

Julia thumbs through the towering stack of paintings. “They might not be blobs to Ivan.”

“Let's leave those by the office,” George suggests. “Mack'll want to try selling them. Although why anyone would pay forty bucks for a finger painting a two-year-old could do, I don't know.”

“
I
like Ivan's work,” Julia says. “He puts his feelings into them.”

“He puts his hair into them,” George says.

Julia waves good-bye. “Night, Ivan. Night, Bob.”

I press my nose against the glass and watch her walk away. All my work, all my planning, wasted.

I look at Ruby, sleeping soundly, and suddenly I know she'll never leave the Big Top Mall. She'll be here forever, just like Stella.

I can't let Ruby be another One and Only.

Often, when visitors come to see me, they beat their hands against their puny chests, pretending to be me.

They pound away, soundless as the wet wings of a new butterfly.

The chest beating of a mad gorilla is not something you ever want to hear. Not even if you're wearing earplugs.

Not even if you're three miles away, wearing earplugs.

A real chest beating sends the whole jungle running, as if the sky has broken open, as if men with guns are near.

Thump
.

The sound—my sound—echoes through the mall.

George and Julia spin around.

Julia drops her backpack. George drops his keys. The pile of pictures goes flying.

Thump. Thump. Thump
.

I bounce off the walls. I screech and bellow. I beat and beat and beat my chest.

Bob hides under Not-Tag, his paws over his ears.

I'm angry, at last.

I have someone to protect.

After a long while, I grow quiet. I sit. It's hard work, being angry.

Julia looks at me with wide, disbelieving eyes.

I'm panting. I'm a little out of shape.

“What the heck was that?” George demands.

“Something's really wrong,” Julia says. “I've never seen Ivan act this way.”

“He seems to be calming down, thank goodness,” George says.

Julia shakes her head. “He's still upset, Dad. Look at his eyes.”

My pictures are scattered all over the floor like huge autumn leaves.

“What a mess,” George says, sighing. “Wish I hadn't bothered sweeping tonight.”

“Do you think Ivan's okay?” Julia asks.

“Probably just a temper tantrum,” George says. He reaches under a chair to retrieve a brown and red picture. “Can't say I blame the guy, stuck in that tiny cage all these years.”

Julia starts to answer, but then she freezes. She cocks her head.

She stares at her feet, where my pictures lie in disarray.

“Dad,” she whispers. “Come see this.”

“I'm sure he's another Rembrandt,” George says. “Let's pick these up and get going, Jules. I'm exhausted.”

“Dad,” she says again. “Seriously. Look at this.”

George follows her gaze. “I see blobs. Many, many blobs, along with the occasional swirl. Please, can we go home now?”

“That's an
H
, Dad.” Julia kneels down, straightening one picture, then another. “That's an
H
, and here”—she grabs more pictures—“put this one here, and, I don't know, maybe that one. You have an
E
.”

George rubs his eyes. I hold my breath.

Julia is running now. She picks up one picture, sets down another. “It's like a puzzle, Dad! This is
something
. It's a word, maybe words. And a picture of something. A giant picture.”

“Jules,” George says, “this is crazy.” But he's looking at the floor too, wandering from picture to picture and scratching his head.

“H,”
Julia says.
“E. O.”

“Hoe?”

Julia chews her lower lip. “
H, E, O
. And that looks a lot like an eye.”

“H, E, O, I.”
George writes in the air with his finger.
“I, E, O, H.”

“Not the letter. An actual eye. And that's a foot. Or maybe a tree. And a trunk. Dad, I think that's a trunk!”

Julia runs to my window. “Ivan,” she whispers, “what did you make?”

I stare back. I cross my arms.

This is taking much longer than I'd thought it would.

Humans.

Sometimes they make chimps look smart.

Julia and George take the pictures to the ring, where there's room to see them all.

An hour passes as they try to assemble my puzzle. Ruby's awake now, and she and Bob and I watch.

“Ivan,” Ruby says, “is that a picture of me?”

“Yes,” I say proudly.

“Where am I supposed to be?”

“That's a zoo, Ruby. See the walls and the grass and the people looking at you?”

Ruby squints. “Who are all those other elephants?”

“You haven't met them,” I say. “Yet.”

“It's a very nice zoo,” Ruby says with an approving nod.

Bob nudges me with his cold nose. “It is indeed.”

In the ring, Julia pumps her fist in the air. “Yes!” she cries. “I told you, Dad! There it is: H-O-M-E.
Home
.”

George gazes at the letters. He spins around to look at me. “Maybe it's just a coincidence, Jules. You know, a once-in-a-trillion kind of thing, like that old saying about the chimp and the typewriter. Give him long enough and he'll write a novel.”

I make a grumbling noise. As if a chimp could write a letter, let alone a book.

“Then how do you explain the rest of it?” Julia demands. “The picture of Ruby in the zoo?”

“How do you know it's a zoo?” George asks.

“See the circle on the gate? There's a red giraffe in it.”

George squints and tilts his head. “Are you sure that's a giraffe? I was thinking more along the lines of a deformed cat.”

“It's the logo for the zoo, Dad. It's on all their signs. Explain that.”

George gives her a helpless smile. “I can't. I can't begin to. I'm just saying there has to be a logical explanation.”

“Look how big this is.” Julia puts the last piece of Ruby's right ear into place. “It's huge.”

“It is definitely large,” George agrees.

Julia watches me. She chews on her thumbnail. I see the question in her eyes.

She turns back to the paintings and stares at them, looking, truly looking.

A slow smile dawns on Julia's face.

“Dad,” she says, “I have an idea. A big idea.” Julia races around the edge of my painting, her arms spread wide. “
Billboard
big.”

“I'm not following you.”

“I think this is meant to be on a billboard. That's what Ivan wants.”

George crosses his arms over his chest. “What Ivan wants,” he repeats slowly. “And you know this because … you two have been chatting?”

“Because I'm an artist, and he's an artist.”

“Uh-huh,” says George.

Julia clasps her hands together. “Come on, Dad. I'm begging you.”

George shakes his head. “No. I'm not doing that. No billboard, no way.”

“I'll get the ladder,” Julia says. “You get the glue. I know it's dark out, but the billboard's lit.”

“Mack'll fire me, Jules.”

Julia considers. “But think of the publicity, Dad! Everybody would know about Ruby.”

“You want me to put up a sign that shows Ruby in a zoo with the word
home
on it in giant letters?” George gestures toward my pictures. “A sign, incidentally, that just happens to have been made by a
gorilla
?”