Free The Child's Elephant by Rachel Campbell-Johnston Page A

his chair to inspect her. Even though he was inside, he still wore a peaked cap. It was pulled low on his forehead so that half his face was hidden, and his sunshades had mirrors instead of smoked glass in their lenses. She couldn’t see past them to tell what he was thinking as he looked. He took a puff on a cigarette that had been bought ready-made rather than rolled.
    ‘Want one?’ he offered, holding out the packet.
    She was silent.
    He shrugged. ‘A drink for the young lady,’ he called to a man behind the bar. A waiter returned a moment later with a bottle of orange liquid. Tiny bubbles were blinking and bursting at the top.
    Muka didn’t move to take it. She watched herself scowl in the mirror of his glasses. She was wary of this stranger. His skin had a sharp oily tang that made her nose wrinkle. It gleamed almost purple in the gloomy light.
    ‘It’s nice,’ encouraged Lobo. ‘Take a sip,’ and picking up the bottle, he thrust it towards her.
    She shied away.
    ‘Muka and I are alike: we neither of us really belong to the village,’ explained Lobo.
    The man nodded. ‘So you like the town?’ he asked, reaching for an empty chair and dragging it across. He motioned to Muka to sit down. She ignored him, but he didn’t seem to notice. ‘I expect the market seems exciting to a lively girl like you. You are far too pretty for dull village life.’
    ‘Or a boring old elephant,’ Lobo added.
    ‘Elephant?’ The man’s voice rose in quick enquiry.
    Muka sensed the sudden fine-tuning of his attention. She turned instinctively to go. Quick as a snake, the man darted. A hand encircled her wrist. ‘Don’t leave just yet,’ he persuaded; but though his mouth was smiling, there was no mistaking the tenacity of his grip. ‘Tell me about this elephant.’
    Muka hung her head and remained stubbornly mute but Lobo, despite a passing frown of puzzlement,was now sprawling splay-legged, looking pleased with himself. He took a long slug at the bottle from the table in front of him, then, smacking his lips in satisfaction, said: ‘There’s this boy in the village with an elephant. He’s had it for ages.’
    ‘How long?’
    Lobo shrugged. ‘I don’t know. I only saw it a few weeks ago.’
    The man looked at Muka.
    Still she didn’t speak.
    The man gave her wrist a sharp rousing shake.
    ‘She’s nearly three,’ the girl mumbled.
    ‘A three-year-old elephant . . . and where did you get it?’
    Muka shifted uncomfortably. ‘My friend found her,’ she murmured.
    But Lobo was eager to go on with the story again. ‘Its mother was shot by poachers,’ he said, ‘and so the villagers reared it.’ He smiled, a single boyish dimple popping into each cheek. ‘And the boy’s learned to speak elephant, so the villagers say.’
    ‘Speak elephant?’ From behind his mirrored glasses, the man was scanning Muka’s face.
    Shrinking, she cast her eyes quickly around the shack. Another man was slumped in the corner, head down on the table, while his drinking companion, legs stretched out in front of him, leaned a cheek on one hand and stared emptily out through the open door. Outside, a man wobbled by on a bicycle. A child bowled the rim of a car wheel along with a stick. The waiter, arms folded, stared impassively from behind his wooden counter. A hard-shelledbeetle dashed itself hopelessly, again and again, against a dusty strip light. This is not a good place to be, thought the girl. She could feel her anxiety pulling like a hot wire through her blood, tweaking at secret fears.
    ‘Just sit down,’ Lobo was saying, tipping his head back to take another pull at his bottle. For the first time, she noticed the scars on his neck: two shiny nubs at the base of his throat.
    ‘I’ve got to go now,’ she mumbled. ‘I’ve got stuff to do.’
    ‘Let us persuade you?’ A smile slid from the man as he at last loosened his grip.
    Muka gave a sharp tug and, shaking her head, slipped rapidly away. She could feel their