Elephant Secret by Eric Walters

Author:Eric Walters
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: PRH Canada Young Readers
Published: 2018-08-27T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER

“COULD YOU REPEAT THAT?” DAD ASKED.

“Yes, please,” I said. “I thought you said that Woolly was a woolly mammoth.”

“I did, and she is,” Jimmy said.

“But that’s impossible,” I said.

“Mammoths have been extinct for over five thousand years,” Dad said, shaking his head.

“That date is generally placed at closer to forty-five hundred years ago, although it was recently discovered that a small population was living on Wrangel Island that died out as recently as thirty-five hundred years ago.”

“Either way, they’ve been extinct for a long time,” I said. “They’re extinct. This can’t be a mammoth.”

Jimmy looked from me to my dad, to Joyce, and back to me again. He started chuckling.

“So you’re joking,” I said.

“I think the joke was on me,” Jimmy said. “You really didn’t know—you just picked a name. I let the cat out of the bag—or really the mammoth out of the elephant—by accident. I was going to break it to you slowly, explain things, before I told you.” He gestured toward Woolly. “Mammoths were extinct. As you can see, they are no longer extinct.”

“This can’t be real,” I said.

“No, it is real; I believe him,” Dad said slowly. “That would explain why Woolly looks different from any baby elephant I’ve ever seen.”

“And also explains why somebody would spend over a million dollars to produce her,” Joyce added.

“Actually, when you throw in all the research, the total is closer to seventy million dollars,” Jimmy said cheerfully. “But it was worth it. Woolly is real. If seeing is believing, what more proof do you need?”

Woolly looked at me quizzically, like she was trying to make sense of all this talk.

“Why didn’t you tell me at the beginning what you were doing?” Dad asked.

“My business interests require me to keep things top secret. We predicted there was around a five percent chance of success, so there was only one chance in twenty that you and I would ever need to have this conversation. Besides, if I had told you, you would have thought I was at least a little bit crazy, right?”

“More than a little bit.”

“I see where she gets her sense of humor. Very funny.”

“I wasn’t trying to be funny,” Dad said. “This is crazy.”

“That would be far from the first time I’ve had that adjective applied to me or my ideas, and it certainly won’t be the last. But really, standing here, looking at Woolly, I would argue that she is the product of a combination of scientific genius and a miracle rather than a defect in my mental stability.”

We all stood there staring at Woolly. She stared back innocently.

“But at such vast expense,” Joyce said.

“Miracles come at a cost, and really, it’s not that much money,” Jimmy said. “I have lots of money, but nobody has a mammoth. How much do you think a woolly mammoth is worth to the world?”

My father shook his head. “I can’t even imagine.”

“That’s because it’s priceless. Woolly is priceless,” Jimmy said. “We are standing beside the most valuable animal in the entire history of the world.

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