The Elephant That Played the Violin (Children's Radio Comp)

Once upon a time…well actually I shouldn’t begin like that. That opening is usually reserved for fairy tales and this is no fairy tale; no, in fact this is a true story and I know that because my grandma told me it was so.
My grandma’s name was Jenny. She was born in Kenya, a country in the African continent and she lived there until she was 18. Her parents were wealthy and lived in a large house. Her father was a hunter and he used to organise safaris for people from all over the world. Unlike today’s safaris, where people come and look or photograph the wild animals, in those days they used to shoot and kill the animals.
Lions, wildebeest, and elephants would be stalked on these safaris and their killers would take home their skins or other parts of their bodies as trophies. My grandma could never understand why and she asked her mummy one night to explain.
“They pay a lot of money Jenny” she’d say
“But there’s no contest” Jenny answered
“What do you mean” said her mother a little confused with her daughter’s inquisitiveness.
“In school I won the music trophy didn’t I?”
“Last year - for playing your violin - yes sweetheart, I remember”
“And I beat Lisa and John and Rebekka”
“We were very proud of you. They were all so very good on their own instruments”
“I didn’t cheat did I?”
“How could you?”
“But if I did you would be angry”
“Of course, cheating is wrong –we’ve always told you that”
“Why do you let them cheat then?”
“Who”
“The people who come and shoot the animals”
“Why is that cheating?”
“I don’t see any lions carrying guns”
Her mother smiled, as she finally understood up which path her precocious daughter was leading her, but as she had no logical answer to Jenny’s perceptive enquiry she could only pat her head softly and send her to bed.
One particularly hot day, and for Africa hot means boiling! Jenny looked out of her bedroom window and saw another safari getting ready. The ‘hunters’, or as Jenny called them, bullies, stayed in lodges adjoining her house. They were loading up her father’s jeeps with a macabre combination of packed lunches and rifles.
She was never allowed to accompany her father on these ‘slaughter trips’ but decided on a whim, as children do sometimes, to sneak onto the back of one of the jeeps and see for herself why adults found it fun to hurt defenceless animals.
It was a tradition for the hunters to drink a toast before they left. Her father insisted it was a family tradition from the ‘old country.’ While they did this she snuck under the flap of a large canvass holdall in the rear of the last jeep in the convoy. It was very hot but she’d been clever enough to bring a canteen of water and a sandwich she’d made the night before.
Jenny fell asleep after they’d driven for half an hour but was shaken awake by the sound of half a dozen brakes being applied and a cacophony of excited voices. She peeled back the flap carefully and looked out onto the plain. Within seconds a troupe of elephants entered the periphery of her vision.
There were several adults and three small babies and they walked trunk to tail. Jenny was at once both awed by their majesty and in fear for their safety. No sooner had she experienced these conflicting emotions than a large boom cracked the air above her head and she instinctively buried her head. She recovered her nerve just long enough to look back out onto the plain and see one of the elephants collapse. She began to sob. Above her cheers and celebrations broke out.
The rest of the herd scattered but one of the babies was left behind. It lingered by the body of the dead elephant. Jenny heard guns being loaded. She knew she had to act and threw herself out from the back of the jeep.
“No! No! No!” she cried waving her arms and running toward the baby elephant. Behind her guns were lowered in shock and a certain parent was bewildered as to what his daughter was doing fifty miles from home.
Her father leapt out of the truck but Jenny refused to come back until he promised to bring the baby elephant home. Impatiently he agreed and they captured and tethered the animal to the back of the jeep with Jenny sitting upright this time, as sentry, ensuring that nobody would let loose the elephant and that no harm came to it. She did not want to look at what they did to its mother.
Back home her father tied the elephant to a tree next to Jenny’s bedroom window and his daughter went straight to her room to continue her sojourn whilst her mother and father engaged in an argument blaming each other for Jenny’s escapade.
The baby elephant stood there all day its trunk lolling, as if in shock or incomprehension. Jenny waited until the sun set behind the lone acacia tree which sat on the trail that ran from the farm onto the plain, and went to sleep.
She was awoken by the sound of crying and wondered if she’d been weeping in her sleep. But no, the noise was coming from outside. Se went to the window. The night sky was a myriad of stars – she always remembered that because it was the one thing she missed when her parents moved to London.
It was the baby elephant that was crying. It sounding like a dog whimpering and Jenny was heartbroken because she could not bring its mother back.
“I know what I’ll do” Jenny said and went to fetch her violin. She perched herself on the window sill and played a melancholy tune she’d learnt the year before. The baby stopped mewing and turned toward her. It was the first time she’d moved since being tied up.
“That’s beautiful” the elephant said
“Gosh!” gasped Jenny “Can you talk?” and stopped playing immediately.
“Please carry on” the elephant insisted and Jenny did so feeling obliged
You play a different instrument than your father” said the elephant “It has a sweeter sound”
“I never heard an animal talk before”
“Perhaps it’s not the talking but the listening. You play very well”
“I’ve won trophies at school” Jenny beamed, showing off to her new friend like we all do.
“Am I another trophy like my mother?”
“You’re safe with me” Jenny promised
“Does your father play that?” the baby enquired
“No – he’s not very musical”
“Perhaps he should learn?”
“He’s too busy”
“I’m aware of that. Are you busy?”
“No”
“Then teach me, will you?”
Jenny laughed. “How could you play?”
“How could I talk?” the elephant retorted
Convinced Jenny showed the elephant how to bow, pluck and performed some simple tunes that required less complex fingering. Nevertheless she doubted that the animal could hold the bow never mind pluck a string. But the elephant watched her intensely, taking in every detail of her delicate instrumentation. She rounded off her recitation with Air on a G String.
“Who wrote that?” it asked
“Bach, I believe” said Jenny
“I would like to play that”
“Here” Jenny said handing over the violin and bow
The elephant sat back on its haunches and gathered the instrument into its chest.
Whilst Jenny waited and wondered how on earth the animal would accomplish this feat a guttural noise came from the darkness.
Jenny gazed out into the blackness and saw three pairs of glowing eyes knowing they almost certainly were attached to the heads of three Hyenas.
“Look out” she cried to the elephant but it grasped the violin even closer to its chest and closed its eyes as if it were anticipating its own death.
Out of the night strolled the three parasites looking for an easy kill. They didn’t snarl as much as snigger: they knew that in the hierarchy of killing they outranked the elephant. However they came forward slowly, even reticently, despite there being three of them to one.
Jenny was transfixed. She knew that she couldn’t fight them off and by the time she ran to her parent’s room the Hyenas would have carried off the baby elephant’s carcass.
In a panic she searched her room for anything she could throw at the Hyenas but could see nothing useful there but a succession of dolls. Unselfishly she grabbed her favourite and largest doll in the vain hope that it may distract the hunters long enough for her to scream and get her parents.
She turned back toward the window again to hear the most extraordinary thing. Outside in the dark blue night the most exquisite melody she’d ever heard was being played on a violin. She ran to see who the player was and was so astonished she had to hold onto the sill to stop herself collapsing.
The elephant had Jenny’s violin pressed against his heart. The bow was on the ground untouched. Although the instrument appeared to be singing itself the composer could only be the baby elephant. What was even more magical was that the hyenas had sat down to listen. They had put their teeth and claws away and when the elephant had finished playing they padded off like three dogs that’d been given three very large bones.
“Thank you for teaching me” the Elephant said to Jenny
“But how did I?”
“One day you’ll know” and handed back the violin to Jenny and walked off back into the dark plain. Jenny fell back into bed overcome with the magic of the events that had just unfolded and slipped into a deep sleep. When she woke in the morning there was no sign of the baby elephant.
Her parents assumed it had either slipped the noose or had been dragged away by scavengers but they ensured that Jenny never managed to stowaway on a safari again.
Years later after her mum died her father moved them both to England where Jenny became a teacher of music. She never attained the prestige of being a virtuoso or a valuable member of a world famous orchestra. It was as if she understood that she would never replicate the music that the baby elephant played that night. Her father could not disguise his disappointment and for many years they never saw each other.
But Jenny pioneered a love of music to all her pupils and her school was exemplary in the field of education and good manners. Many of her pupils became leaders in their field, including me because she taught me how to play the violin like a baby elephant. I became the virtuoso instead and now I travel the world playing this music.
One June evening when I was sixteen years old I was giving a concert at the Sydney Opera house in Australia and my grandma was in the audience. After the concert we were in my dressing room when a knock came on the door. When I opened it my great-grandfather walked in. He was very ill. They embraced as if they had never been apart.
Three weeks later after his funeral I asked her why she thought he’d come back to her.
“His put an elephant in his heart, and took out the elephant gun”
And the moral of this true story is…well, actually I don’t need to spell that out to you because as this is a children’s story and no adults are reading you know that already don’t you?

END