Dangerous Days of Daniel X

Chapter 71

AFRICAN ONES! Indian ones! Calves! Mothers! Herd upon herd of elephants. There were hundreds, maybe thousands. Definitely thousands.

I thought I was going to need a defibrillator when I saw what was rolling in the mud to my immediate left.

Trunk, check.

Ginormous ears, check.

Woolly brown fur? Check!

Twenty feet away I had spotted a family of cute, short-trunked creatures.

They were mastodons! Had to be.

They were supposed to be extinct, but I guess that was just on Earth.

I stood there feeling electroshocked as a female approached. She was twice as big as the largest elephant I’d ever seen on Earth. Forty, maybe fifty thousand pounds.

Her head came above the ten-foot-high viewing platform. Her trunk was as thick as a telephone pole.

Then-she extended her trunk to me.

How do you do? she said in my mind. My name is Chordata.

For a second, I was unable to think straight, or breathe, actually.

I’d never communicated telepathically with an elephant before. I finally recovered a little and shook her trunk.

My name is… I started to say.

Daniel. Yes, I remember you from when you were a baby. You used to come here every day with your mother. We would communicate like this.

You’re the only two-leg I ever met who was able to. An elephant never forgets, you know. And never ever forgets a friend. I was very sad when you left. But happy now that you have come back. How are you doing, Daniel?

I’m pretty much blown away right this second, Chordata, I thought, smiling as I stared into her beautiful violet eyes. So this was why I loved elephants so much?

I see you’ve met those two little monkeys Bem and Kulay. Cute, aren’t they?

I nodded, then lost my breath as Chordata’s massive knee bowed-and she offered us her back.

Please, come with me and meet the others. You can trust me, Daniel. An elephant never betrays a friend.

Bem, Kulay, and I were all able to ride on her rolling ship of a back, with room to spare.

From all over the grassland, elephants started moving toward us. One of the mastodons trumpeted, and then from everywhere the others started joining in, a happy symphony of welcome.

Soon we were in a crush of them, shaking and high-fiving offered trunks. Feelings of euphoria almost knocked me into the tall blond grass as their life-affirming, warm presence soaked right through me.

“Wow! I never did this before!” Kulay shrieked ecstatically. She was vibrating up and down like a gum machine bouncy ball. “I’m the luckiest kid in the world! I’m the luckiest kid in the world!”

I ruffled her hair as more and more elephants paraded over, their trunks buzzing out note after brilliant note.

“No,” I said. “You’re the luckiest kid in two worlds. Here, and a place called Earth.”