The Elephant in the house

There used to be an elephant in Sebastian’s house.
Sometimes the elephant was under the carpet and sometimes the elephant was in the chest of drawers.

Sometimes he hid in the cupboard and sometimes he hid in a jar in the kitchen. But he was always there.

Sebastian’s parents did not seem to notice and the elephant was growing bigger!

WHEN had the elephant got in? HOW- since it was so large – did it manage through the door?
Sebastian did not know. But he could not remember a time when the elephant had not been there.
Even after it became so big that Sebastian and his parents had to whisper to each other and hold their breath to squeeze past, did anybody ever mention it.

When it was around - and sometimes its presence would fill the whole place! - Sebastian’s parents looked sad and silent. The house echoed like an empty tin and if a door banged in the wind, nobody jumped; if Sebastian talked, nobody listened. If he dropped an apple, his mother would slowly get off her chair, grab the fruit, wipe it distractedly on her hip and give it back to him with a faint smile.

There were terrible days when the elephant rampaged through the house with loud thumping noises and made a frightening racket in the upstairs bedroom.

There were good, restful days, when the elephant was nowhere to be seen. When Sebastian could boisterously play around the front room without stepping on a huge toe! And what a relief it was!..

Sebastian had made himself a little den at the bottom of the garden. He built it with broken planks and bits of cardboard. It was covered in a loose grey tarpaulin and tied around with old ropes. When Grandad was still around, he used to come to tend the vegetable patch next to the den. Sebastian would sit in the little cabin and watch him work. Grandad was very good at gardening and he could grow any plant or flower. The garden was lovely, then.

It was a while since Grandad had stopped coming round but Sebastian could not ask his mother about him because she clearly became upset every time he tried. Nevertheless, Sebastian still went into the den every evening and gazed at the tangled tomato plants and at the rotting rhubarb with leaves so big you could sit in them and pretend you were in a longboat, going down the Amazon.
Grandad always had time for you. He would stop and sit next to you when you felt angry or sad.

- What’s up, monkey? He would ask in a soft and weary voice, taking off his hat and wiping his brow with a big brown hand.
- Nothing.
- Well… A brave soldier like you doesn’t cry for nothing… Your eyes are all watery, like my pansies when I overdo it with the hose… There, wipe it with that hanky. You chuckle? That’s good. I like when you laugh: I can see the white tips of your front teeth growing back! They are taking their time, aren’t they? Mind you, it’s hardly springtime yet: nothing grows at this time of year.

Sebastian went to school everyday but he never invited any school friend round. He was worried they might say something about the elephant. And as he did not know how the elephant got there in the first place, how would he explain?
People always ask questions… That’s what Mum said, anyway.

Sebastian was asking himself questions: Will the elephant get bigger if I’m naughty? Will it, if I do wrong? And will it disappear when I grow up?
He made bets with himself: If I walk home without touching the cracks in between the paving stones… If I manage those sums without Miss Button screaming at me… the elephant will be gone, when I get home!
If I can balance this ball on my head for 10 seconds, the elephant won’t be there, when I get home.

Some days, school felt like a welcome haven. And some days Sebastian felt angry and gasping for air, in the noisy classroom. He was often punished. He called these his “elephant-days” : when he thumped and hit out like a wild animal on a rampage.

Today had been like that. Sebastian came back from school and went straight into the garden and inside his den. He was angry and started shouting at the mute house in front of him:
- You’re not scaring ME, Mister Elephant! I will be bigger than you one day and knock out your front teeth just like I did today to Toby in the schoolyard! Try and catch me then! I will be even faster than I am and I am pretty fast now, believe me.
I’ll make a hammock with your skin and a rope with your silly trunk, you toothless moron!
It felt good to shout. Nobody seemed to hear him but a strange power was leaking out of his words and into his heart… Sebastian felt as invincible as he had felt earlier when Toby the bully had called his dad a “tramp” and retreated into the school lavatory.
-You scumbag, you dimwit, you half-brain!…
Sebastian chuckled and retreated into the den.
- Are you talking to me?
- Yes I am! You’re not scaring ME … Not EVER…
You rotting “veggy” bag, you oversized pumpkin! You inflated peanut!

-I’ve just seen a shooting star, said Sebastian to his Dad one evening.
-Make a wish, said Dad. So he did.
But bets and wishes never worked: There was still an elephant in the room.
Until one day…

That morning, a small boy knocked at the door with a lovely young woman by his side. He was carrying a metal pencil case under his arm. Bright blue.
Sebastian opened the door and they all stared at each other for a while.
-Will you let us in? Asked the woman in a gentle voice, like a gust of warm wind: This is your cousin Theo.

Sebastian followed them in the lounge. Surely, a snout or the large stump of a foot would give IT away any moment now…

Sebastian’s mum walked in and greeted them. They all sat and looked at each other. Sebastian was staring at the floor. His heart felt heavy and hard like a stone ; his chest, tight. And then it happened…
The elephant’s trunk was slowly appearing from under the coffee table. Inch by inch, its feet grew out from the sides and its grey skin inflated itself like a huge bouncy castle. Sebastian’s mother and her sister were whispering and they did not look up.

But Theo looked on and he gasped:
-My, what a big elephant!
Sebastian chuckled:
-So you’ve noticed! Nobody else but me seemed to see it before you!
Sebastian was smiling broadly and Theo smiled back:
-Let’s chuck it out of the house! Proposed Theo.

And so they did. While their mothers spoke in hushed, muted tones, they pulled and dragged and rolled and pushed the heavy pachyderm out into the street… Where it “wizzed” like a punctured tyre and laid there as flat as a pancake.

-It’s not so big now… said Sebastian.
They held hands and looked at the deflated grey tarpaulin-like shape. They looked until it melted right into the rough tarmac of the road and disappeared completely.

Only one little bit of hair remained trapped in the asphalt. Theo bent down and pulled it out. It was a thick, shiny, bendy thing, not unlike a guitar string and about the length of a pencil. He put it gravely in his pencil-case and gave it to his cousin.
Sebastian took the long blue box in his hands and said in a firm voice:
-I think I will keep this forever.
He held it up like a victorious knight receiving the keys to the town.
He smiled proudly at his small cousin.
Theo smiled back.