Tua and the Elephant (9 page)

The two fishermen looked at one another and shrugged.

“What about a reward, then?” Prasong wiped his bald head.

“That’s more like it,” said Nak. “I’m sure we can come to some arrangement.”

Leaping to her feet, Tua shouted: “Nine thousand
baht.
”

Pohn-Pohn cried out at the sound of Tua’s voice.

The four men swung their heads to the embankment and squinted into the sun.

The elder fisherman turned to Nak and said, “That’s ten thousand to you, I think.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Nak snorted. “Where would a ragamuffin like that get nine thousand
baht
?”

“My auntie will give it to me,” Tua said, not knowing where these ideas were coming from. “She’s Lady Orchid, the actress.”

“I think I’ve heard of her,” said Krit.

“Have you got the money on you?” Prasong nodded at Nak.

“It’s as close as the nearest cash machine,” Nak assured him.

“The first one back with the money gets the elephant,” he declared.

Tua hopped over the embankment and down the other side. She had bought herself some time. But where was she going to get nine thousand
baht
?

At the rubbish dump, Tua found everything she needed: two plastic bags—a red one and a white one—and a stack of newspapers bound with plastic twine. She sat down on a biscuit tin and began tearing off strips of newspaper, stacking them in two piles.

“What are you doing that for?” asked a voice.

Tua looked up at a sooty-faced girl who was peering at her through a gap in a chest of drawers where a drawer used to be.

“I’m making a ransom,” she said.

“What’s a ransom?” asked another voice. This one belonged to a small boy, also covered in soot,
who was lying on a tattered mattress with his chin cupped in his hands.

“It’s money you pay to get something back that’s been taken away from you.”

“What’s it for?” asked a third voice.

Tua turned around to find another boy standing on a tire with his arms folded across his bare chest. He wore short, baggy trousers that were knotted around his waist with a tie. He was older than the other two children, and Tua hesitated before answering him.

“An elephant,” she said at last. “It’s a ransom for an elephant.” Realizing how ridiculous this must sound, she added: “Her name’s Pohn-Pohn.”

“Can we help?” asked the sooty-faced girl.

And just like that, the four of them were sitting in a circle tearing newspaper into strips the size of banknotes, while Tua told them her story.

“I’m back, Pohn-Pohn,” Tua called out from a distance down the beach. “And I’ve got the money.”

Panting, the fishermen lifted their drooping heads and shaded their eyes. Prasong had wrapped his T-shirt around his head, while Krit had coated his bare neck and shoulders with mud.

“Bring it here to me,” Prasong looked up and beckoned with a limp hand.

“You have to let Pohn-Pohn go first.”

Tua dropped the bags in the sand, a few yards apart from one another, and stepped away from them.

“The white bag has four thousand
baht
in it,” she said, “and the red bag has five. You can choose who gets the red bag.”

“I do,” Prasong said.

“No, me,” said Krit.

After trading glances, the fishermen were on their feet and tearing across the beach after the red bag. And while they were writhing in the sand,
biting, punching, and scratching each other, Tua pulled the net off Pohn-Pohn and helped push her to her feet.

“Hurry, Pohn-Pohn! Follow me.”

They ran up the path, over the embankment, and down the other side. When they had reached the dry creek bed below the rubbish dump, they heard a whoop and a whistle from the top of the hill. Tua looked up and saw the three children who had helped her with the ransom waving from the roof of an abandoned car.

After waving and whooping back to them, she bowed a
wai.

“What a despicable child,” growled Nak. He dropped a ten-
baht
coin into the cup of a limbless beggar with one hand and, just as swiftly, swiped up the cup with the other.

“She tasks me,” he continued, ignoring the beggar’s protests and stepping into a waiting
tuk-tuk.
Nang tumbled in after him. “To the train station. And don’t spare the pistons.”

After paying the driver, Nak gave Nang an extra-extra-large T-shirt to wear, carried him into the station on his back, and sat him on the floor with his arms and legs concealed under the garment. Then he stuck the cup between Nang’s
teeth and crept off in search of unattended luggage to rifle and pockets to pick.

Nang was content to hum his gratitude for the few coins dropped in his cup. But when a tall
farang
donated fifty
baht
to his charity, he opened his mouth to speak:

“
Khrap
—”

As the cup dropped from his mouth, Nang snapped his teeth—then his arm shot out to catch it. When it hit the floor, scattering coins and bills in every direction, he sprang into the air after them like a toad. The
farang
gaped, then frowned at this scoundrel’s newly restored arms and legs.

While Nang gathered up his ill-gotten gains, all eyes—save for one pair—turned on him. Nak was lifting a wallet from the purse of a ginger-haired
farang.
He pulled out the bills and credit cards and tossed the rest in a trash can.

Two policemen appeared in the crowd as Nang beat a hasty retreat. They hadn’t gotten far in their pursuit when a voice cried out in English:

“I’ve been robbed! Pickpocket! Somebody stole my wallet!”

A
tuk-tuk
was awaiting Nang on the road outside the train station. Nak’s long arm reached out and dragged him into it.

“To the riverside,” Nak ordered the driver.

Back at the beach, Nak surveyed the empty scene, then bent down and picked up a strip of newspaper the size of a banknote. The beach was littered with them.

“She’s clever, I’ll give her that,” he hissed. “And all the worse for it. Cleverness in children is an abomination.”

“It’s only newspaper.” Nang held up a fistful of the fake notes.

“An abomination,” Nak repeated.

Tua and Pohn-Pohn followed a dirt path alongside vegetable gardens, orchards, and rice paddies. Some women planting shoots in knee-deep water rose up from their work to wave straw hats over their heads.

“They’re planting rice.” Tua waved back. “Rice paddies are not good places for elephants to take baths in,” she added, in case Pohn-Pohn might be tempted.

They met a family of water buffaloes on the path. Tua bowed to the barefoot boy following them, then asked if he knew the
wat
they were looking for.

“It’s over there,
chang,
” the boy said to Pohn-Pohn. He didn’t seem to notice Tua at all.

“
Khawp khun kha,
” Tua thanked the boy.

“
Khawp khun khrap, chang,
” the boy said to Pohn-Pohn again, bowed her a wai, and ran off to catch up with his buffaloes.

In the distance, a glittering building loomed up from behind a whitewashed wall. A golden bell-shaped tower gleamed in the sun beside the temple.

“That’s the
chedi
where the monks keep their sacred relics,” Tua explained to Pohn-Pohn. “When we get inside we’ll make three turns around it for luck. And to show our respect, of course,” she added.

As they drew near the
wat
they could hear bells, chants, and chimes. Then a procession of saffron-robed boys with shiny shaved heads marched out of the
wat
toward them. Some were carrying workbooks and pens as if they’d just been dismissed from school.

“Look, Pohn-Pohn,” Tua said. “Those boys are learning how to be good. All boys shave their heads and come to study at the temple—sometimes for
three whole months! Girls don’t have to, so we must be good already.”

The monks poured around them like a stream, their heads shimmering in the sun, and guided them inside the walls in a protective embrace.

Tua made three turns around the chedi with Pohn-Pohn following behind her. After they’d finished this ritual, a tall, slim monk in his teens approached them from across the courtyard. He was wearing sunglasses and talking into a cell phone.

“
Sawatdee khrap,
Tua,” he said, bowing a wai. “I’m Chi Chi.”

Tua bowed back a greeting.

“Your auntie’s on the phone.”

“
Kha,
” Tua said, and put the phone to her ear.

“Hello?”

“Tua, darling, is that you? Are you all right? I’ve been so worried. Where have you been? What adventures have you had? How’s my honey, Pohn? Is she behaving herself? Isn’t Chi Chi handsome? Tell me everything.”

With Pohn-Pohn beside her and lending a large ear, Tua recounted their adventures after leaving her auntie’s house.