The Last Elephant Read online

  In memory of baiji river dolphins, bluebucks, dodos, golden toads, Japanese sea lions, passenger pigeons, thylacines and all the other species that are lost forever.

  ‘They’ve got horses!’ gasped Kristin.

  Colt glanced sideways at his mother. A big tear rolled down her cheek. He couldn’t believe it.

  ‘We just saw a giant South American anteater, real live kangaroos and an actual bear!’ he whispered. ‘None of them made you cry . . .’

  Kristin found his hand and squeezed it. But not for a second did her eyes leave the amazing spectacle before them. Two men in hard hats had walked into the circus ring, leading a pair of huge, brown horses.

  ‘I used to ride one of those when I was your age, Colt.’

  ‘You’ve told me a thousand times, Mum.’

  He was sick of hearing about the Animal Days. They ended twelve years ago, when rat flu swept across the world, killing all the wild animals and most domesticated animals, too. Colt had only been a baby; he couldn’t remember the Animal Days at all. It was a different world then – one you only saw now in movies and old books.

  Or at Captain Noah’s Lost World Circus.

  Colt and his mother had front-row seats. He drew back as the horses clomped past. Their strange, iron-shod feet shook the ground. He couldn’t imagine his mother – or anyone – riding one of those.

  They were so big!

  But big didn’t even begin to describe what slowly came into the caged arena after the horses were led out.

  ‘No way!’ gasped a boy behind Colt.

  Similar cries came from all around the tent. Nobody in the Big Top could believe what they were seeing.

  ‘LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, BOYS AND GIRLS . . .’

  The ringmaster had entered the ring unnoticed through a small side gate. Wearing a bright red coat and a shiny black top-hat, he strutted importantly into the centre spotlight, speaking into a hand-held microphone.

  ‘. . . I WOULD LIKE YOU TO MEET LUCY, THE WORLD’S LAST LIVING ELEPHANT!’

  An enormous, prehistoric-looking creature emerged slowly from the shadows. Its huge flat feet stepped soundlessly across the sawdust. Colt and a thousand other people held their breath as it loomed over the tiny human figure in the centre of the arena. It looked like it was about to trample him. But at a quiet word from the ringmaster, Lucy the elephant stopped right next to him and he calmly patted her trunk.

  ‘It’s not real!’ called the boy behind Colt.

  For a moment there was silence, then other people began shouting, too.

  ‘It’s a trick!’

  ‘There are no elephants left!’

  ‘It’s a holovid!’

  The ringmaster held up a white-gloved hand for silence. ‘Would everyone kindly act like civilised people?’ he said into the microphone. ‘This isn’t a football match.’

  His voice was patient, almost gentle – like a grandparent explaining something to his grandchildren – and everyone shut up.

  ‘Thank you very much,’ said the ringmaster. He kept patting the elephant, but his eyes travelled slowly around the steep rows of seats that surrounded the partially floodlit arena. When they reached Colt, they stopped.

  ‘So you think Lucy isn’t real, young sir?’

  Oh brother! Colt thought. He sank down in his seat. The boy behind him – the one who had started all the shouting – sank down, too.

  Leaving Lucy in the centre of the ring, the ringmaster came walking directly towards Colt. The bright spotlight followed him.

  ‘ARE YOU CALLING ME, CAPTAIN PHILIP NOAH, PROTECTOR OF LOST WORLD ANIMALS, A FRAUD?’ the ringmaster demanded, his voice so loud that it rattled the circle of speakers mounted on tent poles high above everyone’s heads.

  Colt felt his face turn red. Everyone in the tent was watching him. Half the town was there, including nearly all the kids from his school. He shook his head.

  Captain Noah peered through the high, cage-like fence that separated the circus ring and the audience. He was only two metres from Colt.

  ‘Cat got your tongue?’ he asked. His voice was softer now, but because of the microphone everyone under the Big Top heard the question.

  ‘It wasn’t me,’ whispered Colt.

  Only the ringmaster heard that. With a tiny shake of his head, he stepped back from the fence and looked up into the crowd. ‘The lad seems to have lost his voice,’ he said sadly. ‘Too much shouting, I suppose.’

  A few people laughed.

  ‘HOW ABOUT THE REST OF YOU?’ he called up into the stands. ‘DOES ANYONE ELSE THINK THAT LUCY ISN’T A GENUINE, FLESH-AND-BLOOD ELEPHANT?’

  When nobody spoke up, Captain Noah clucked his tongue in disappointment. ‘This happens everywhere the circus goes. People accuse me of fraud. Yet when I offer them proof, nobody takes up the challenge.’

  ‘We do want proof,’ the boy behind Colt muttered under his breath.

  ‘Ahh – did I hear something?’ asked Captain Noah, his twinkling eyes once again focused on Colt. ‘Can the bashful young lad speak, after all?’

  ‘My son didn’t say anything!’ Kristin snapped. ‘It was someone behind us.’

  But Colt had had enough. He was sick of this silly old man, with his mocking voice and ridiculous clothes, making fun of him. And he did wonder if Lucy was real or just a holovid.

  ‘Okay, PROVE IT!’ he said, loud enough for his last two words to be picked up by the microphone.

  The ringmaster removed his top-hat and bowed. ‘Very well, young sir. Would you kindly step this way.’

  Uh oh! thought Colt. But it was too late to back out now. Everyone had heard him. And already Captain Noah was striding along the fence towards the small gate where he had entered the arena. It was guarded by a man with animal tattoos all over his arms, hands and neck. At a nod from the ringmaster, the assistant unlatched the gate and beckoned for Colt to come through.

  Kristin touched Colt’s arm. ‘You don’t have to do it,’ she whispered.

  ‘I want to,’ he lied, rising nervously to his feet.

  When Colt stepped into the circus ring, Captain Noah thrust the microphone at him and asked his name.

  ‘Colt Lawless, sir.’

  ‘LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, GIRLS AND BOYS,’ boomed the ringmaster, ‘PLEASE GIVE COLT-LAWLESS-SIR A BIG HAND!’

  Once the clapping and laughter had all died down, Captain Noah placed a grandfatherly hand on Colt’s shoulder and turned him towards the centre of the ring. Towards the huge storybook creature that stood there.

  ‘Have you ever touched a real, live animal, Master Lawless?’

  ‘Y-yes, sir,’ stammered Colt, staring hard at Lucy. Shashlik! he thought. She looked like a mountain. ‘But not a Lost World animal.’

  The ringmaster seemed surprised. ‘So what kind of animal have you touched?’ he asked.

  ‘The other kind,’ Colt said. ‘Farm animals.’

  ‘You hardly look old enough.’

  Some farm animals had been saved when government scientists developed a special vaccine called RatVax, which protected them from getting sick. But now they were kept in enormous, high-security compounds run by the government that looked like prisons. The public wasn’t allowed in. Lucky for Colt, he wasn’t just the public.

  ‘My mum’s a vet,’ he explained. ‘She works at a GovFarm. Sometimes I’m allowed to go with her.’

  ‘Well, aren’t you a fortunate young man!’ said the ringmaster.

  Colt was fortunate, all right. But not just because he was allowed to see real live cows and goats. In fact, he might have been the most fortunate person on the planet. ‘Once I got bitten by a ghost rat,’ he said.

  Captain Noah’s eyebrows shot up. ‘YOU WERE BITTEN BY A GHOST RAT!!?’

  There were g
asps of shock from all around the stands. Ghost rats had got their name because they were white all over. Even their eyes were white. Nobody knew where they came from, and like all rats they carried rat flu. But unlike other rats, which couldn’t transfer the disease to humans, if a ghost rat bit you, you died.

  Unless you had a quick-thinking mother who was a vet, that is.

  ‘Mum gave me a cow-strength RatVax and it saved me.’ Colt was the only human ever to have survived the bite of a ghost rat. He’d been too young to remember, but he still had two dimpled white tooth-marks on his right thumb to prove it. They itched sometimes.

  ‘What an extraordinary tale!’ Captain Noah said. He hesitated. ‘Your mother isn’t looking for a job, is she?’

  There was a ripple of laughter.

  Colt lowered his voice so the microphone wouldn’t catch his next words. ‘I don’t know, sir. You can ask her. That’s Mum over there – the lady with black curly hair.’

  ‘Maybe I will, later on,’ the ringmaster said, speaking quietly, too.

  Then he used the microphone again. ‘BUT FIRST, LET’S GO AND MEET LUCY, THE WORLD’S LAST ELEPHANT!’

  It felt like a dream. Colt could hardly believe he was touching an elephant. Lucy’s trunk was hard and dry and felt like sandpaper. But its tip wasn’t dry at all – as Colt discovered when she sniffed his face and head.

  ‘YUK!’ he cried, wiping something damp off his ear.

  ‘She likes you,’ said Captain Noah. ‘That’s an elephant’s way of kissing.’

  Everyone under the Big Top laughed.

  Colt reached up and patted Lucy’s leg. It was like patting a tree. A large brown eye looked down at him. She had thick black eyelashes like a cow’s, only longer. Colt was no longer scared.

  ‘You’re beautiful!’ he said, forgetting all about the microphone that Captain Noah was holding.

  Lucy rumbled and began nuzzling him all over with the damp tip of her trunk.

  ‘Hey, stop doing that! Haven’t you heard of tissues?’

  Everybody laughed again.

  ‘I hate to interrupt this private moment,’ Captain Noah said. ‘But we have a tent-full of doubting Thomases awaiting your verdict, Master Lawless. Can you tell us, please – is this a real elephant, or is it merely an elephant-sized holovid?’

  Colt gave Lucy another pat. ‘She’s real, all right.’

  Captain Noah brought the microphone closer. ‘ONCE AGAIN, IF YOU PLEASE,’ he boomed, giving Colt a wink. ‘I WANT EVERYONE TO HEAR – EVEN THAT RATHER ILL-MANNERED YOUNG MAN WHO WAS SEATED BEHIND YOU AND YOUR LOVELY MOTHER.’

  So he had known all along about the shouting boy!

  ‘LUCY ISN’T A HOLOVID,’ Colt said into the microphone. ‘SHE’S A FAIR DINKUM, REAL LIVE ELEPHANT!’

  A thunder of applause erupted from the circle of stands around them.

  Even though a lot of them had suspected a trick, Colt was sure that everyone in the audience had secretly wanted Lucy and all the other Lost World animals in Captain Noah’s circus to be real.

  And they had got their wish.

  Just for one night, in a big tent pitched on the town’s cricket oval, the Animal Days had returned.

  But then someone screamed . . .

  The spotlights shone in Colt’s eyes. He couldn’t see what was happening up in the stands. There were terrified screams. There was shouting. It sounded like people were running.

  Colt started running, too. Back towards the place where he and his mother had been sitting. He still didn’t know what was going on, only that it must be something bad. He had to find her.

  ‘MASTER LAWLESS! STOP RIGHT WHERE YOU ARE!’

  Colt skidded to a halt. Not because of the ringmaster’s command, but because of what he saw in front of him.

  A ghost rat!

  It must have sneaked into the tent scavenging for popcorn and other food scraps under the seats. But someone had seen it and screamed, starting a mass panic.

  Now it was trying to escape. The big white rat had slipped into the circus ring, away from all the noise and confusion behind it, and come face-to-face with Colt.

  For a couple of seconds, the boy and the animal stared at each other. Its blank white eyes seemed to bore right into him.

  ‘Scram!’ Colt said. ‘I’m not scared of you.’

  He should have been scared. His mother had saved him once from the deadly bite of a ghost rat, but what were the chances of it happening twice? Tonight she didn’t even have her vet’s bag with her.

  ‘Stand clear, kid!’ someone yelled.

  It was the man with animal tattoos all over him, who had been guarding the gate. He came stalking across the ring with a can of rat spray held at arm’s length.

  ‘No!’ Colt stepped into his path. ‘Don’t kill it.’

  ‘Colt, for heaven’s sake get out of the way!’ cried Captain Noah. He had dropped the microphone and was trying to lead Lucy away from the danger. ‘It’s a ghost rat!’

  Colt felt strange. He had goosebumps all over, and the sleeves of his T-shirt suddenly seemed too tight. The scar on his right thumb had begun itching. Perhaps he wasn’t thinking straight, either, because he heard himself say, ‘It doesn’t mean any harm.’

  What happened then was so quick that nobody was sure afterwards what really did happen.

  But here’s what Colt remembered (or thought he remembered): the tattooed man lunged past him to get a clear shot at the rat. Colt made a grab for the little red can of deadly rat spray , but he was too slow. He caught a tattooed arm instead. The man’s feet left the ground. He seemed to be flying in circles. Three times he flew around Colt before the can fell from his splayed fingers and Colt let him go. Then the tattooed man sailed away through the air, hit the ground in an explosion of sawdust and rolled into the fence, hard enough to rattle the bars.

  That was all Colt remembered.

  He didn’t see the ghost rat go scampering off across the circus ring towards Lucy, or what happened next.

  Colt opened his eyes. He was in bed, but not in his own bed. This wasn’t his room. It wasn’t anywhere he’d been before. He blinked up at the ceiling, trying to figure out what was going on. Trying to wake up properly.

  There was the sound of a page turning.

  Colt rolled his head on the pillow and saw his mother sitting in a chair reading a magazine.

  ‘Mum.’

  Kristin’s head snapped up. The magazine slipped from her fingers. Her eyes brimmed with tears, as if she’d just seen more horses.

  ‘Darling, you’re awake!’

  ‘Where am I?’ he asked.

  ‘In hospital.’

  ‘Hospital! What happened?’

  ‘Nobody’s quite sure,’ Kristin said. She leaned closer to gently brush a strand of silver-blond hair away from his eyes. ‘Do you remember the ghost rat?’

  Colt nodded. He was fully awake now. ‘A guy tried to spray it.’

  ‘It sent everyone into a panic,’ his mother said. ‘It’s incredible that nobody else ended up in hospital. They thought you must have inhaled some rat spray.’

  ‘I don’t think it went off,’ he said.

  ‘Apparently not.’ Kristin shook her head and frowned. ‘The doctors have run every test they can think of, and you seem to be in perfect health.’

  ‘So why am I here?’

  ‘Because you wouldn’t wake up.’

  For the first time Colt noticed a strip of pink plaster on his arm, with a tube running out of it. The tube was connected to a bag of clear liquid hanging from a metal hook next to his bed.

  ‘How long have I been here?’

  ‘Three days.’

  Colt’s ice-blue eyes opened very wide. ‘You’re kidding!’

  ‘I’m not kidding,’ his mother said, straight-faced. ‘You’ve been asleep for three nights and three days. Nobody could wake you.’

  ‘Well, I’m awake now.’ Colt stretched, causing the bag of liquid to wobble on its stand. His stomach rumbled. He had never felt
so hungry. ‘When can I go home?’

  ‘We’ll have to . . .’

  Kristin’s wrist-phone buzzed. She looked down at it and frowned.

  ‘Sorry, darling, I’d better take this,’ she said, switching it to privacy mode. ‘Hello, Department of Dairy and Beef Production, Dr Lawless speaking.’

  Kristin listened for a few moments, deep worry lines forming between her eyes.

  ‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘The symptoms do sound like rat flu. But I haven’t had any experience with elephants.’

  That made Colt sit up. He nearly knocked over the drip-stand.

  ‘Is it . . .?’ he whispered.

  His mother made a shushing motion with her free hand. ‘Keep her isolated,’ she told the caller. ‘I’ll be there as soon as I can.’

  ‘Has Lucy got rat flu?’ Colt asked as soon as Kristin had finished the call.

  ‘It’s too early to tell,’ his mother said, busily getting her things together. She bent over and touched his cheek. ‘Is it okay if I rush off, darling? I know you’ve just woken up, but this is an emergency.’

  Colt kicked off his bed covers. ‘I’ll come with you.’

  ‘Don’t be silly. You’re not well.’

  ‘The doctors said I’m okay.’

  Kristin shook her head. ‘Lie back down. Nobody knows what’s wrong with you.’

  ‘Nothing’s wrong with me!’ he said, wriggling his toes and fingers to show her. ‘Except I’m dying of hunger! Can you help me get this thing out of my arm?’

  ‘No,’ said Kristin.

  Tears filled Colt’s eyes. It was embarrassing. But if his mother could go all gooey over horses, wasn’t it okay to be sad about a sick elephant?

  ‘Mum, I want to go with you to see Lucy. Pleeeease!’

  Five minutes later they were in the car. It must have been the fastest hospital check-out in history. The nurses hadn’t been very happy about letting Colt leave without a doctor saying he could go, but Kristin told them she was a doctor.

  She didn’t say she was an animal doctor.

  ‘Will Lucy die if she’s got rat flu?’ Colt asked.

  His mother stopped at a red light. ‘I don’t know. It depends whether her shots are up-to-date.’