THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, April 4, 1996 TAG: 9604040334
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Column
SOURCE: Guy Friddell
LENGTH: Medium: 60 lines
April 1, early, the phone rang and the 6-year-old yelled in my ear: ``The house is on fire!''
My mind was getting in gear when he shouted: ``APRIL FOOL!''
In the background the 4-year-old, screaming with laughter, was also announcing April Fool.
Foxy Grandpa, outfoxed.
``You got me,'' I said, ``but I'm glad you called. There's an elephant in the back yard.''
He refused to believe it. Where would it come from, for one thing.
From the zoo, which has two elephants, Mona and Lisa, I said. It must be Mona, the dominant one.
She's pushing through vines and brushing against trees til their tops tremble. She hasn't seen that much jungle since she left India.
How'd she get out?
She and Lisa were eating breakfast and Mona noticed the gate wasn't secure. She lifted the latch with her trunk. And tiptoed out.
Didn't anybody see her?
A few. Up to mischief, she was swift and stealthy as a shadow; but the two striped tigers, stretching their necks, saw the gray moving wall slide by. Ducks on the pond set up a quacking at her swaying, noiseless bulk. The monkeys nearly went ape. Bison stared, stupefied , at the apparition mingling with the morning mist, fan-like ears flapping to catch the tiniest sound, up-raised snout testing the air.
Mona paused by the Lafayette River, drank, then turned left, wading along the shore. Reaching the Granby Street Bridge, she swam beneath it. When she came from under the bridge on the other side, a fisherman, seeing her domed head emerge beneath him, dropped his line in the water.
Did he run or what?
He ran to the French Bakery to report he saw an elephant. Not even his wife believed him.
Mona swam to the shoreline and moved along the edge of Talbot Park, resting in marshes, waving her trunk, ruminating. She climbed onto the broad field at Talbot Hall, moseying across it onto the sand spit reaching into Crab Creek.
What was she looking for?
She wasn't sure. It felt good to drift where she listed. She wished Lisa were with her. She swam the wide creek, came ashore at a slip, walked a winding road until she reached this house which, embraced in trees, pleased her.
What's she doing now?
Foraging, throwing leaves on her back. All you see, here and there, is a patch of gray hide, a trunk poking, exploring, a tail twitching, a pendulous, droll underlip, brown eye, peering. She seems at home.
As the boy hung up the phone, he was shouting to his mother. If he and his brother showed up, there'd be no catcall of April Fool. We'd go to the zoo to see if Mona had rejoined anxious Lisa. And when we found them, heads together, I'd say, ``See there, it happened.'' by CNB