Requiescat in Pachyderm

As “Encore for Eleanor” by Bill Peet begins, Eleanor the circus elephant falls off her stilts during a performance. The circus boss, Col. T.J. Tinglehoffer, decides she is too old to perform and the next day she is taken away in a seven-ton truck.

The next thing she knew, Eleanor was caught up in a great rush of traffic, jolting along through a big city, past dreary factory buildings. Since no one had told her where she was going, the elephant could only guess. And all sorts of grizzly ideas popped into her head.

She wondered if she might be heading for a glue factory. Then she wondered if they ever made elephant-skin shoes or elephant-leather jackets. And still worse, she wondered if she might be ground up into seven tons of fertilizer. Eleanor was quaking with fright from her trunk to her toes when the truck finally slowed down to enter a tall gateway.

It was the gateway to the city zoo, which was the only place Colonel Tinglehoffer could think of where a worn-out old circus elephant could live happily ever after. . . .

“I’m lucky to be here,” said Eleanor after taking a look around, “and yet I’ll never be happy unless I can perform a few tricks or do something to earn my keep.”

When people stopped at her pen to stare at her, Eleanor felt silly standing there with nothing to do but stare back at them. And without her fancy circus robe and feathery headdress, she felt like an overgrown wrinkled ugly big bloop of a thing.

“If I can’t look my best,” she grumbled, “then I don’t want to be seen at all.”

So she stayed out of sight as best she could by hiding in her barn all through the day until the zoo was closed. Then when she was sure no one was around to watch, Eleanor came out for her evening meal of alfalfa, cabbage, broccoli, lettuce and carrots.