The One and Only Ivan

stella’s trunk

Stella’s trunk is a miracle. She can pick up a single peanut with elegant precision, tickle a passing mouse, tap the shoulder of a dozing keeper.

Her trunk is remarkable, but still it can’t unlatch the door of her tumble-down domain.

Circling Stella’s legs are long-ago scars from the chains she wore as a youth: her bracelets, she calls them. When she worked at the famous circus, Stella had to balance on a pedestal for her most difficult trick. One day, she fell off and injured her foot. When she went lame and lagged behind the other elephants, the circus sold her to Mack.

Stella’s foot never healed completely. She limps when she walks, and sometimes her foot gets infected when she stands in one place for too long.

Last winter, Stella’s foot swelled to twice its normal size. She had a fever, and she lay on the damp, cold floor of her domain for five days.

They were very long days.

Even now, I’m not sure she’s completely better. She never complains, though, so it’s hard to know.

At the Big Top Mall, no one bothers with iron shackles. A bristly rope tied to a bolt in the floor is all that’s required.

“They think I’m too old to cause trouble,” Stella says.

“Old age,” she says, “is a powerful disguise.”