The One and Only Ivan

julia

Like the spit-pebble children, Julia is a child, but that, after all, is not her fault.

While her father, George, cleans the mall each night, Julia sits by my domain. She could sit anywhere she wants: by the carousel, in the empty food court, on the bleachers coated in sawdust. But I am not bragging when I say that she always chooses to sit with me.

I think it’s because we both love to draw.

Sara, Julia’s mother, used to help clean the mall. But when she got sick and grew pale and stooped, Sara stopped coming. Every night Julia offers to help George, and every night he says firmly, “Homework, Julia. The floors will just get dirty again.”

Homework, I have discovered, involves a sharp pencil and thick books and long sighs.

I enjoy chewing pencils. I am sure I would excel at homework.

Sometimes Julia dozes off, and sometimes she reads her books, but mostly she draws pictures and talks about her day.

I don’t know why people talk to me, but they often do. Perhaps it’s because they think I can’t understand them.

Or perhaps it’s because I can’t talk back.

Julia likes science and art. She doesn’t like Lila Burpee, who teases her because her clothes are old, and she does like Deshawn Williams, who teases her too, but in a nice way, and she would like to be a famous artist when she grows up.

Sometimes Julia draws me. I am an elegant fellow in her pictures, with my silver back gleaming like moon on moss. I never look angry, the way I do on the fading billboard by the highway.

I always look a bit sad, though.