An Inconvenient Elephant by Judy Reene Singer Page A

light gray suit. “I am like a cat hungry for dinner. I can think of nothing else. Let’s finish this. Forty trillion.”
    â€œThirty-five,” Diamond said.
    He frowned at her. She ran her hand through her hair and shook it loose.
    â€œThirty-five trillion five hundred million,” he said. “My final offer.” He slapped a heavy hand on his mahogany desk, and it sounded like a shot.
    Diamond only smiled. “How much is that in United States dollars?” she asked.
    Joshua Mukomana pulled out a large, ostentatious gold pen and pressed numbers into the calculator on its side.
    â€œThat is about thirty-five thousand American dollars,” he replied. “Cheap!” He grunted and stood up. “But you’d better hurry. Or his price will go up again.” This made him suddenly giggle.
    Diamond stood up, too, and offered her hand. “It’s a deal.”
    They shook hands. “You have one week to pay for him and remove him from the park,” Mukomana said.
    â€œSix months,” said Diamond.
    â€œTwo weeks,” he countered.
    â€œThree and a half months, and that is my final offer,” Diamond said.
    He offered his hand and they shook again, and we turned to leave.
    â€œBy the way, he has a friend with him,” Diamond added. “A young bull. He might cause trouble if we take just the older animal.”
    Joshua Mukomana waved her away. “Take them both. Tusker and his shamwari , but listen, make sure you pay me only. You must send me the check. My name alone must be on it, you understand? You send it by special private messenger. A bank check. An American bank check.”
    Diamond shook her head. She understood very well.
    â€œPay me and you take them both.” He looked at her with a grave expression. “No check and we shoot him, shamwari .” He made a gun with his fingers and fired. Then he gave a loud, hearty laugh.

Chapter 11
    WE WERE FINALLY GOING HOME. I DIDN’T REALLY believe it until the plane raced down the runway and lifted its nose into the clear blue African sky. Until we were weaving in between brilliant white clouds and almost touching the yellow crystal sun. Until we could take off our belts and leave our seats to walk the skies.
    I wanted to feel happy and expectant, but I felt an ache for the land I was leaving and horribly defeated over the price we had negotiated for Tusker. And Shamwari, the young bull, inadvertently named by Joshua Mukomana.
    I chattered nervously to Diamond about the horse and dog I had left behind in New York, and Alley, my cat, and the house I had bought for myself more than a year earlier. I tried to imagine it, but all I could picture was a hut with a thatched roof.
    I babble when I get nervous. I think it’s because it saves me from having to listen, which I never did well, anyway. It took me a whole year filled with orphaned baby ellies to learn to listen. I listened for signs of pneumonia, little lungs filling with fluid, little trunks struggling for air. I learned to focus on elephant sounds and noises and eventually, even human conversation.
    But none of it mattered. Diamond-Rose dozed through most of my soliloquy except to comment that she didn’t care about such mundane things as shelter. I had the feeling she would just as gladly have made camp along some highway and wrung the necks of a few passing sparrows to live on.
    â€œDo you have a place to stay when we arrive?” I worried.
    She just shrugged. “Something will show up. It always does. As they say on safari, home is where you gather firewood.”
    â€œWell, you can’t just land in New York and set up a tent on the tarmac,” I said, shocked. “You know, my house has a spare bedroom. Actually, it’s my office, and it has a daybed. The room’s small, but you’re welcome to it.”
    â€œThank you. I don’t plan on staying in one spot,” Diamond said, giving me a grateful