The Elephant Tree - part 8

the story continues...

our little group has walked away from the writer and the photographer as they argued over  money..
They have no idea that are about to become the subjects of largest elephant, donkey and confused undertaker hunt in the history of America...or maybe the world...

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The elephant, the donkey and the confused undertaker had walked away from the elm tree while Ichabod Pelosi and Squats Moore argued over how to split the Pulitzer money.

“Just what is a Pulitzer?” the donkey asked.

“Beats me,” the elephant answered.  “What about it Mr. Politician, do you know what a Pulitzer is?”

“In their case, it would be an award for good journalism.  However, I have no ideas what the rules are.”

“If it’s for ‘creative journalism’, they should win,” donkey replied.

“True,” said the elephant. “They are not having any problem creating whatever words they want to.  For some reason I have a very strange feeling about all of this.”

“Your strange feelings come from eating too many peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.  Where are you going to hide us Mr. Politician?”

“I’m sorry but I have decided that I can’t take you to my house.  My wife would have a kitten. You tell me where I can hide a donkey and an elephant?”

“A barn,” they both said in unison. “There’s one just over that little hill.”

“Yes, that barn would be a great place to hide you guys, but the old goat that owns it doesn’t want any company.  He just bought the place and he keeps to himself.
Why don’t you go ask him to hide you and leave me out of it? “

“We don’t know him,” the donkey said.

“You don’t know me either.”

“Yes we do, you’re a politician.  We have no idea who he is.”

“OK, I’ll take you over and introduce you.”

“You don’t think that he works for the law, do you?”

“Why, are you hiding from the law?”

“Sort of!”

“Sort of, what does ‘sort of’ mean?  How can you ‘sort of’ hide from the law?”

“We’re not really hiding from the law.  We’re hiding from the politicians.”

“The politicians?  What politicians?

“That’s right, we are fugitives from the politicians,” the elephant added.

“Fugitives, You never said anything about being fugitives?”

“We’re don't think that we really are fugitives.  The political parties say we belong to them but the circus owner freed us when he took their money and disappeared.”

“I think you need to start again.  Begin with that grand old town of ’Overthere’.”

The donkey looked at the elephant and their eyes met.  They shrugged their shoulders and started telling their story.  They spoke in turns.  First the donkey would speak and then the elephant would follow.  One would say a line and the other would say the next line. Sometimes, one would start a sentence and the other would interrupt and finish it.  They didn’t always agree with how the other one told the story or even the facts of the story.

“Can we begin with ‘Once upon a time’? We like once upon a time stories.”

“Once upon a time stories are made up stories. You’re supposed to be telling me a true story.”

“You mean like testifying at a trial?”

“Yes, Mr. Elephant, tell me the whole truth and nothing but the truth.”

“Do you have a bible?”

“We don’t need a bible.”

“Reading from the bible never hurt anyone,” he answered.

“Bibles and God aren’t allowed in courts of law,” the donkey snickered.

“Just tell your story or I’m going home and you can hide yourselves.”

We started walking towards barn.

“Okay, okay,” Mr. Elephant said.  “Our story began when the circus owner bought me from the Republican Party and then bought this mangy, ugly donkey from the Democratic Party.”

“That’s not right.  Our story began when those lousy politicians wanted to send us to the glue factory because they acquired younger healthier iconic animals.  They did not want to pay for our vet bills when we got old.”

“”That’s right!  I forgot about them dumping us.”

“Well, they did and then some of the older, ornerier cusses decided they should make some money on us.”

“That’s right!  Just think of all we did for them and then they dumped us.”

“Hey, this is my part of the story.  They contacted the circus owner and forced him to buy us. They told him that we would be great for business.  We would bring in a lot of customers and besides if he didn’t buy us, they would take away his license and shut him down.”

“Of course he didn’t want to shut down so he bought us.


“You’re butting in again.  He didn’t buy us.  He came up with a counter offer.”

“That’s right; he came up with a counter offer.  What is a counter offer again?”

“You are really getting on my nerves.  Just keep quiet until we end up in the circus and then you can butt in a gain.  Where was I?  Oh yes, the counter offer!  Yes, he proposed a different bargain.

First, he went to the republicans and said that if they would pay him he would put me out where everyone could see me and they would talk where I could hear them.  I could tell the republicans what the people were saying and they could use that information for their polling data.  Then they wouldn’t have to pay for all the polling data they were paying millions for.  They could save those millions and have an inside track on the democrats.  The republicans bought the plan and gave the circus owner ten million dollars and demanded he sign a non-disclosure agreement.  He signed the agreement the same morning he went over and sold the same deal to the Democrats.”

“Boy he really put one over on them.  He cheated them out of 20 million, didn’t he?”

“Of course not!  He never cheated them, because he never disclosed to either party that he also sold the idea to the other party. 

He cheated them when he closed his circus down three months after he took their money.

They didn’t think to put in a time limit in the deal.  He gave us our freedom as he drove away in his new BMW.”

“That’s right and we were stuck in the awful smelling town of “Overthere”

“What made it smell so awful?”

“Pigs!”

“Pigs?’

/ / / / /

to be continued...come back to find out about the pigs...