“What kind of a snake are you?” I said.
“I’m not a snake! I’m an elephant!” it said despairingly.
Elephants that talked now! I thought. But I’d already met a panther that I could understand, so why not? It was all one long, mad dream.
“It’s more like a nightmare, I think,” the elephant objected. “And I’m not exactly talking. You must be good at picking up four-legged thoughts. Please help me!”
I could hear its huge feet shuffling and grinding about just in front of me. It was in a bad state, and it probably couldn’t see me any more than I could see it. I was likely to be trodden on any second. I got up quickly. “Okay, okay,” I said out loud. “I’m supposed to help you anyway. Where do you want to go?”
“Not this way!” it said. “It’s all so dark, and I can’t turn round!”
It began trumpeting then, earsplitting squeals, and trampling in panic. I was terrified, too. I thought it was going mad.
“Stop it!” I bellowed. “Shut up this moment or I won’t help you!”
It shut up almost at once. I got the feeling it was used to humans yelling at it. “Sorry,” it said meekly.
“That’s better,” I said. “Getting in a panic in this place just makes it worse. Where are you from? How did you get here?”
“I was in the circus, outside the big top,” it said, “waiting for my turn to go on, when all of a sudden there was this great whirling wind. All the tents came down or blew away, and people were screaming. I’m afraid I screamed, too, and ran away. I found a path that looked safe, and I ran and ran, until it all got too narrow and …” It was starting to trample and puff.
“Steady, steady!” I said. “What did they call you in your circus?”
The trampling stopped. “Mini,” the elephant admitted, sounding ashamed.
I couldn’t help laughing.
“Short for Pudmini,” the elephant said haughtily. “I’m a lady elephant.”
“And I’m a gentleman human,” I said, “and how I got here’s a long story. My name’s Nick—short for Nichothodes, if you want to know—and I’m on my way to see someone called Romanov. He’ll be able to help both of us. So, if you just let me help you turn round …”
“I can’t turn round!” Mini protested. “It’s not wide enough!”
“Yes, it is,” I said before she got too hysterical again. “Or I can guide you backward—”
“I’m not good at going backward!” she said frantically.
“Then we’ll go forward,” I said, “very steadily and carefully.” I managed to reach up, find her waving trunk, and grab it. “Come along,” I said. I made myself sound really firm, to disguise from both of us that I’d never handled an elephant before and hadn’t a clue how you did it. “Forward carefully,” I said, just as if I knew.
Have you ever tried to turn a panic-stricken elephant round in the dark, in a space that is probably too small, which you never saw before anyway? Don’t try it. It’s awful. I’d never have tried it if I’d seen anything else to do. You end up weak at the knees and ready to give up. I kept making soothing noises. Mini shook like an earthquake and squealed that she couldn’t and I was hurting her trunk. I fumbled about and found one of her great thick tusks, but she didn’t like that either.
“I’ve still got my harness on. Why don’t you take hold of that?” she said.
I felt about again and found jingly leather somewhere on her huge face. It was all thick and wet and slimy in the rain, but I took hold of it and pulled her confidently sideways. This caused her to stick slantwise across the path. She nearly did go mad then. The noise was horrible. I was going, “Stop it, stop it, stop it! Or I’ll go away and leave you here! Calm down!” and she was going, “Oh, I can’t, I can’t!”
“Stand still!” I screamed at her. “Where’s the back of you?”
“Jammed right up against the cliff. I want to kick!”
“Well, don’t,” I said. “It won’t help. What you need to do now is walk your front feet up the cliff this side until you’re reared up, and then walk your back feet forward away from the cliff behind you. After that, you walk your front feet round to the left, so you come down facing the other way. Can you do that?”
“I don’t know!” she said.
“You can,” I said.
I’d never have got her to do it if she hadn’t been brought up to trust humans. She’d been trained to stand on her hind legs, and that helped, too. But she kept losing her sense of direction halfway. I got her reared up twice with no end of rasping and elephant grunting, and twice she came down facing the wrong way. I only just dodged in time. In the end I had to go right up to her and lean hard against her and then keep her going the right way by walking my feet up and round on the cliff beside hers.
She went round sideways like a house tearing open. There was such a scraping and rending that I was sure she’d broken a tusk at least. Then there was a horrible moment when I was being ground against the cliff by her big, warm side. I was curled into a crouch with my face on my thighs and my knees crunching against rock. I felt her going the wrong way again and tried to uncurl to push her. And then uncurled again as if my life depended on it. Perhaps it did. And she went round at last. She came down quite lightly. Elephants can be pretty nimble when they want. And Mini did want. She was so glad to be loose that she went away down the path at a thundering gallop, while I slid down the cliff and sat in another puddle, quite sure that I’d lost both kneecaps and at least one big toe.