Small as an Elephant

The driver gets out of the van and starts yelling Jack’s name, indicating that he knows who he is. He lets Jack know that he’s Sylvie’s cousin and is here to help, and Jack’s mind whirls, but he decides to trust him and reveal himself. Sylvie’s cousin, Wyatt, offers to drive Jack to York to see the elephant, and along the drive he asks Jack endless questions about how he’s been surviving. When Jack admits that the police are looking for him, Wyatt’s demeanor seems to change. He eventually asks Jack if his grandmother is rich, which seems odd to Jack. Jack asks Wyatt if he can borrow some money to eat, and they stop at a convenience store. After Jack uses the washroom, he comes out into the store and the clerks seem to recognize him. He can also hear Wyatt talking to someone about him on the phone. Jack darts out of the store and down the street but decides to go back and see if he was wrong about Wyatt. When he gets back to the store, Jack sees a police car and two police officers inside talking to Wyatt and the store clerks. Jack hides in a nearby dumpster to wait it out, and before they leave, the police officers toss their half-drunk coffee cups into the dumpster and onto Jack.

Climbing out of the dumpster, Jack sleeps in an old, broken-down car for the night. The next morning, he walks down the road and eventually reaches a town. There, an officer recognizes him and tricks him into admitting who he is. Jack manages to escape, hiding in the basement of a pharmacy. He hears the police officer talking to people above him and stays still for a while. He thinks about what it would be like to wait in his apartment alone, wondering when his mother or the police would find him, and how horrible that would be. When he hears someone mention a fire escape, Jack looks at his toy elephant and asks it what to do. He decides to look for it and risk going back upstairs, and when he finds the fire escape, he dashes down the stairs and jumps off. Moments later, he’s grabbed by someone and begins flaying but can’t overpower the man. He turns around and sees that it’s Big Jack. Although Big Jack says he wants to help, Jack doesn’t believe him. Big Jack informs Jack that his mother is safe and wants to talk to him, and Jack begins to cry. Big Jack hugs him as everything that Jack has been through suddenly spills out of Jack. He feels ashamed for the things he has done, and most of all, for the fact that his own mother left him.

Big Jack helps Jack into his truck, and Jack tells him he was trying to get to York to see Lydia the elephant. Big Jack grew up around there and knows all about Lydia but is pretty sure she has already left to go back to Florida for the winter. Jack is heartbroken, but Big Jack calls the park and learns that there’s a small chance Lydia hasn’t left yet. They start heading for York with the stipulation that Big Jack will call the police when they get there. On the drive, Big Jack asks Jack about his grandmother, and Jack confesses that he thinks his grandmother hates his mother. Big Jack explains that Jack’s grandmother spoke highly of Becky, and Jack suddenly realizes that he was seeing his grandmother through the eyes of his mother’s illness. It occurs to him that his grandmother might actually care. When they arrive at the park, Jack runs and finds Lydia still in her pen. She stands tall over him, beautiful and majestic. Then, Jack notices that beside Lydia’s pen, his grandmother sits on a bench.

Jack doesn’t know what to do, so he runs. Big Jack chases him and urges him to sit down and talk. He tells Jack that he grew up in foster care and knows how it feels to have a parent who can’t take care of a kid. He encourages Jack to open up to the people who want to help him, like his grandmother, and he understands that Jack feels like he’s betraying his own mother by allowing himself to live with someone else.

When Jack is finally ready to talk to his grandmother, he walks over to her cautiously, afraid that she’ll be angry with him. She expresses only immense relief and explains that she has been waiting there for a week, hoping he would eventually show up. Jack’s grandmother tells him that she took him to see an elephant when he was little, and Jack realizes that it was she, not his mother, who took him to the zoo that day. His grandmother tells him about how he loved elephants from the time he was very young. They talk about what will happen now and Grandma’s decision to move closer to Boston so that Jack can see his mother often, even living with her part time eventually. Jack is happy to hear that his mother will temporarily be in a hospital, not in jail. Before Big Jack leaves, Jack gives him the toy elephant and asks him to find Sylvie and give it to her. He names the elephant “Mudo” (“thank you”), indicating his gratitude to Sylvie and everyone else along the way for helping him.

In the novel’s final scene, Jack meets Lydia. He gazes at her and is offered a chance to ride her but knows his mother would disapprove and decides against it, realizing how much she has shaped him as a person. Jack climbs up the steps and looks right into Lydia’s eyes as she pats him with her trunk. Before he goes, Jack blows into Lydia’s trunk, knowing that doing so will ensure that she never forgets him.