Read Online Did Not Survive by Ann Littlewood - Free Book Online Page B

still touching the elephant.
    Ian ignored him.
    I kept my eyes on Damrey, trying not to feel the tension between the men, trying to conceal my uneasiness.
    Sam stepped back out of her reach, and I relaxed a little. After a few more moments of watching the swaying and tail swinging, he commanded, “Enough. Drop it. We need to get this place cleaned up.” He was talking to us, not Damrey.
    Ian didn’t move. I glanced nervously at Sam and, while I focused elsewhere, Damrey swung her rear toward us and unleashed a flood of pee. Ian stuck the stick through the bars into the deluge and pulled it back. He blew a toot on the whistle he had on a string around his neck and handed the raisins to me. Damrey stepped away from the puddle and stuck her trunk in the bottom of the hay rack, fishing around. “Toss them in,” he said. I calculated the trajectory through the bars and tossed. And missed. The clot of raisins hit the floor. Damrey searched the hay rack thoroughly while I winced. She gave up on that, swept her trunk over the floor beneath it, and soon sucked them up. She stuffed the lump in her mouth and chewed it with huge teeth.
    Sam said, “If Nakri gives you any trouble, cut it short. I mean it. This has got to be quick or not at all.”
    Ian carried the stick and cup to the work area, put a standard plastic coffee lid on the cup, pulled it out of the wire loop, wiped it off with a paper towel, and pressed a piece of tape over the sippy opening. He handed me a pen. I wrote “Damrey” and the date on the cup. He nodded and pointed with his chin toward the fridge.
    On to Nakri. I pushed a fresh cup into the wire loop. “Dried mango slices,” Ian said. “You use the pole.” We walked through the work area to come up on her stall from the back. The hay rack in the back stall was similar, also with closely-spaced bars, and Nakri seemed ready for business.
    â€œNakri, pee time,” Ian said.
    Nakri didn’t waste any time checking me out or working through performance anxiety. She swung her rear around and let go. I wasn’t expecting such rapid production and was lucky to catch the last of it. Ian tooted and handed me a big sticky slice of dried mango. I flicked it into her hay rack, spilling some of the urine in the process. About an inch was left in the cup. We looked at it and shrugged. Nakri chewed her treat and scratched an eyelid with her trunk tip.
    â€œAs good as we’re going to get,” I said, and carried the cup into the kitchen to process like Damrey’s.
    I heard the squeal and grate of the big doors operating. Sam was opening Nakri’s door so that she could join Damrey and also opening the outside door. The two buddies greeted one another and ambled outside. Sam shut the door to lock them out so the keepers could clean the stalls.
    â€œBe consistent with Damrey,” Ian said quietly. “Routine-bound. May take a week to get used to you, like with Kayla. Faster if you do everything the exact way I do. Nakri’s not so fussy.”
    â€œWill you walk me through it again tomorrow?”
    Ian nodded. “They’ll be together.”
    That should make my task even more interesting. I was late to my real job, stressed out from close contact with an animal I’d seen almost kill someone, and tomorrow I’d need to avoid getting swatted by both elephants at the same time. “Why back together?” I asked.
    Ian looked surprised. “Nakri had an abscess on her hip. Damrey messed with it at night. Healed up now.”
    Of course. The elephants would want to be together. They were herd animals, social, and were separated only for a medical reason. That was why the door between was left a little ajar at night, so they could visit with one another.
    Sam caught me as I was on my way out. “Iris, this situation with Wallace is a misunderstanding as far as Damrey goes. You’ll see when the committee gets here, and we have