Ellen's Lion, Page 2

  “Your mother wouldn’t like it,” the lion said. “Neither would I.”

  “But you’d be in Africa or someplace,” said Ellen. “You wouldn’t live here any more.”

  “I certainly wouldn’t,” said the lion. “Not with a tiger in the house.”

  “You’re being silly,” Ellen said, frowning at him.

  “Humorous,” said the lion. “After all, this hardly can be called a serious conversation, can it?”

  “Well!” said Ellen indignantly, and she turned her back on him. “I guess it can’t!”

  “Come,” the lion said. “You don’t really believe you can grow up to be a tiger.”

  Ellen’s eyes opened wide and she whirled around to face him.

  She laughed and laughed.

  “Not me!” she shouted. “I’m going to be a lady fireman. We were talking about what you are going to be when you grow up.”

  “Ridiculous,” said the lion.

  “No it isn’t,” Ellen said. “You could be a tiger easily. I could cut off your mane and paint stripes on you and all you’d have to do is grow big, and learn to growl—”

  “I am going to take a nap,” the lion said, and he began to snore.

  Ellen frowned at him.

  “You’re not really asleep,” she said. “Your eyes are open.”

  “I always sleep with my eyes open,” said the lion. “You know they don’t close.”

  “I keep forgetting,” Ellen said. “But why don’t you want to talk about what you’ll be when you grow up? Have you decided already?”

  “I am not going to grow up,” the lion said. “I am grown up.”

  “Oh,” said Ellen.

  For a while she sat looking at the lion, and he began to snore again.

  “Tell me,” she said, poking at him to make sure he was awake and not really asleep.

  “What?” he said.

  “Why did you ever decide to grow up to be a stuffed lion?”

  But the lion definitely had lost interest in the conversation.

  FIVE-POINTED STAR

  A star looked down on the lion. And the star spoke to him.

  “I am your lucky star. How do I look?”

  “Hello, Ellen,” said the lion. “You look fine.”

  “It’s my costume for the nursery school play,” said Ellen, sitting down on the footstool and admiring the sequins on her star suit. “You knew right away that I was a star, didn’t you?”

  “Yes,” said the lion. “I knew as soon as you said ‘I am your lucky star.’ ”

  “That’s what I say when I come on in the play,” Ellen said. “I say it to Gertrude Wilson. She’s the queen of the carrots.”

  “What else do you say?” asked the lion.

  “Nothing. Right after that the queen of the carrots marries Michael Kramer while we all sing ‘God Bless America’ and it’s the end of the play.”

  “Then you don’t come on till the end?” said the lion. “It isn’t much of a part, for a star.”

  “I have to stand with my feet spread and my arms stretched out,” Ellen said, and she got up and demonstrated.

  “It’s very tiring.”

  “Oh, yes,” said the lion sympathetically. “It must be.”

  “Anyway, I have the best costume,” said Ellen. “Michael Kramer is king of the rabbits and he has a kind of bunny suit. But the other kids just stand around with vegetables on their heads. They’re supposed to be vegetables, you see.”

  “It sounds like a very interesting play,” said the lion.

  “It is,” said Ellen. “You ought to see it.”

  “I haven’t been invited,” said the lion.

  Ellen thought.

  “All the seats are for the mothers and fathers,” she said.

  “I understand,” the lion said. “And, anyway, I have something else to do today.”

  “You’re not doing anything,” Ellen said. “You’re just lying on the floor.”

  “That’s something,” said the lion.

  “I’ll invite you,” said Ellen. “I’ll hold you during the play.”

  “But you’re in the play,” said the lion.

  “So will you be,” Ellen said, and she swooped down on him, picked him up, and rushed off with him. “I’ll tell my mother you’re going to be in it.” The door slammed behind her.

  A few minutes later the door opened and Ellen came in again, frowning, and still carrying the lion. She set him down in the big chair.

  “I’m sorry you can’t be in the play,” she said.

  “That’s all right,” said the lion. “Besides, there was one argument your mother didn’t think of.”

  “What was that?” said Ellen.

  “If you held me in one of your arms you’d only have four points.”

  “That’s right,” Ellen said, after thinking about it. “Nobody would know I was a star.”

  “Nobody would know,” the lion said. “And everybody would miss the point of the play.”

  “It starts at three o’clock,” said Ellen. “I have to go now.”

  “Good-bye,” said the lion.

  “I’ll tell you all about it when I get back,” Ellen said from the doorway.

  “I’ll be waiting to hear about it,” said the lion.

  “Good luck.”

  Ellen left, walking with her arms stretched out and with her feet spread, like a star.

  THE TWO STATUES

  “What are you making, Ellen?” asked the lion, suppressing a yawn.

  “Statues,” Ellen told him, without looking up from the modeling clay.

  “Statues of whom?”

  “Just statues.” Ellen pointed at two figures, one tall and thin and the other short and fat, and set them facing the lion. “Don’t they look like statues?”

  “No,” said the lion. “Crude figurines perhaps, not statues.”

  The tall figure let his head fall slightly to one side. He looked at the lion as he spoke.

  “Nevertheless, I am a statue.”

  “See?” said Ellen, making a face at the lion. “He said so himself. He is a statue.”

  “A statue of whom?” the lion said. “A statue has to be a statue of somebody.”

  “That’s right,” said the statue, tossing his head farther to the side. “I am a statue of General Jones.”

  The head of the other statue dropped forward on his fat chest in a nod.

  “And I am a statue of Admiral Smith.”

  Ellen straightened up their heads with her thumbs.

  “The tall one is a statue of General Jones,” she said. “And the short one is a statue of Admiral Smith.”

  “A statue has to be a statue of somebody,” the lion repeated. “Who in the world are General Jones and Admiral Smith?”

  The statue of Admiral Smith bowed from his fat waist.

  “I am General Jones,” he said.

  The tall statue of General Jones bowed lower.

  “I am Admiral Smith.”

  “They are statues of each other,” Ellen explained to the lion. “Admiral Smith is a statue of General Jones and General Jones is a statue of Admiral Smith.”

  At the mention of their names both statues bowed again, so low that Ellen had to grab them to stop them from falling forward. As she straightened them up their legs bent and they broke into a slithering sort of jig. Despite Ellen’s grasp on each of them they continued to dance. They hopped and leapt and bounced all over the place.

  “That’s enough,” said Ellen, whose arms were getting a bit tired trying to hold them. “Statues are not supposed to dance.”

  Both statues kept on dancing and the Admiral began to sing.

  “Oh, I am a statue of General Jones,” he sang, in time to the dancing.

  “Oh, I am a statue of Admiral Smith,” sang the General.

  “And he is a statue of me!” they sang, pointing at each other.

  “Statues are not supposed to sing, either,” said Ellen, turning to the lion. “Are they?”

&n
bsp; “I would prefer it if they didn’t,” said the lion. “I’m thinking.”

  In the middle of their dance the General and the Admiral stopped abruptly and, with a final sagging shrug, they became motionless and silent.

  “What were you thinking about?” Ellen asked the lion.

  For a few moments before he spoke the lion stared at the tall thin Admiral who was a statue of General Jones and at the short fat General who was a statue of Admiral Smith.

  “If they are statues of each other why don’t they look like their statues?”

  “Why don’t their statues look like them, you mean,” Ellen said, wiping clay from her hands.

  “Well, yes,” the lion agreed.

  “Because I’m not a very good modeler,” said Ellen.

  “Oh,” said the lion.

  SAD INTERLUDE

  The lion lay stretched out on the soft arm of the big chair. Ellen sat on the footstool and stared at him silently for several minutes before she spoke, in her saddest voice.

  “You poor thing.”

  “Me?” said the lion.

  “Yes,” Ellen said to him, and she gently stroked his imitation fur. “From now on I’m going to be very kind to you.”

  “Are you?” the lion said. “Why?”

  “Because you’re a poor sad old lion.”

  “I’m not old,” said the lion.

  “You’re not new, either,” said Ellen, looking at two places where the lion’s seams were coming apart and at the stain, that never quite had washed out, from the time he fell off Ellen’s head into her plate of tomato soup.

  “And I certainly am not sad,” said the lion.

  “You don’t look happy,” Ellen said.

  “I’m not,” said the lion.

  “Don’t you have to be one or the other?” said Ellen. “I do. Right now I’m being very sad, in case you didn’t notice.”

  “You’ve made it plain,” the lion said.

  “I’m sympathizing with you. Because you looked so sad—”

  “I’m not sad!” said the lion.

  “You’re angry,” Ellen said. “I’ve upset you—”

  “I am never angry,” said the lion. “I am never upset. For that matter, I am never in a good humor either. All this talk of sympathy for my feelings is silly, Ellen. I’m a stuffed animal.”

  “I know,” said Ellen, sighing. “That’s the saddest part of all.”

  “Sentimental nonsense!” said the lion, and as Ellen stared at him with eyes that were filling with tears, he went on rapidly. “I’m never sad and never happy, never hungry or never full, never foolish or clever, or good or bad, or this or that, or anything else you imagine me to be—”

  “You poor thing,” Ellen said, slowly shaking her head. “You haven’t any mother, either, have you?”

  “What has that got to do with it?” said the lion.

  “It just occurred to me,” said Ellen, with a sob.

  “Now you are being ridiculous,” the lion said. “You know stuffed animals don’t have mothers. We don’t need them.”

  “You’re so brave about everything,” Ellen said, dabbing at her tears with her handkerchief. “I’m neither brave nor cowardly,” said the lion.

  “Your admiration is as foolish as your pity—”

  “All right,” said Ellen, wiping away the last of her tears and opening a picture book. “I won’t sympathize with you any more if you don’t like it.”

  “I neither like it nor dislike it—”

  “Oh, be quiet,” Ellen said, without looking up from her book.

  She was reading a very sad story about a little tree that was lost in the woods. She read it right to the end without saying another word.

  FAIRY TALE

  Once, twice, and thrice the beautiful fairy waved her wand and, before she spoke, she took another bite of muffin covered with raspberry jam.

  “There,” she said. “Now the evil charm the wicked witch put on you can be broken. When the princess gets here you won’t have to be a beast any more.”

  “What did you say?” said the lion. “Don’t talk with your mouth full, Ellen.”

  “Who’s Ellen?” said the beautiful fairy. “I’m your fairy godmother.”

  “I thought you were Ellen pretending to be an Indian,” said the lion. “I saw that arrow in your hand—”

  “It’s a magic wand,” said the fairy, putting the feathered shaft on the floor in front of the lion for him to see it plainly. “I have to disappear now. Good-bye.”

  “Good-bye,” said the lion.

  The beautiful fairy disappeared.

  “Look!” said the invincible knight. “An arrow!”

  “It’s a magic wand,” said the lion.

  “Don’t you know an arrow when you see one?” said the invincible knight, picking it up, tasting its rubber tip and finding it poisoned, and then rushing to the window. “Infidels! Infidels are attacking the castle!”

  “Oh?” said the lion.

  “The wicked witch is leading them,” the knight reported, eating jam and muffin as she surveyed the besieging army across the wide moat. “But I’ll save the castle. Don’t worry, prince.”

  “Prince?” said the lion.

  “You’re the king’s son the witch put the charm on,” the knight explained. “And I’m the invincible knight. I’m on your side.”

  “Good,” said the lion.

  The arrow sailed out of the window, like a spear. And then, with no warning or explanation of any kind, the invincible knight clutched at her throat and fell back dying.

  “The wicked witch is dead,” she gasped. “The arrow I threw at her went right through her mean old heart and the infidels all ran away. The castle is saved.”

  Stuffing the last of the muffin and raspberry jam in her mouth, the knight sprawled out flat on her back and died.

  “But what happened to you?” said the lion.

  “Don’t you remember anything?” said the dead knight, rolling onto her stomach and frowning at the lion. “Don’t you remember when I tasted the arrow to see if it was poisoned?”

  “Oh, yes, of course,” said the lion. “But I’m glad you recovered.”

  “The invincible knight died,” said the lovely princess, clambering to her feet. “I’m the princess. You know, the one who is going to break the evil charm and change you from a beast into a handsome prince.”

  “How?” said the lion.

  “By kissing you, of course,” said the lovely princess, picking up the lion from the floor and holding him out at arm’s length.

  “You have jam on your face,” said the lion.

  “That won’t matter,” the princess said, and she kissed the lion and held him tight against her. “Now you’re a handsome prince and we can be wed and live happily ever after.”

  But when the lovely princess released the handsome prince from her embrace he changed right back into a stuffed beast and fell to the playroom floor, bouncing under a red fire truck.

  “I have to go down to the back yard and get that arrow I threw out of the window,” said Ellen.

  MOUNTAIN CLIMB

  “Are you by any chance a mountain lion?” Ellen asked.

  “No,” said the lion.

  “How do you know?” said Ellen. “Have you ever tried climbing a mountain?”

  “No,” said the lion.

  “Wouldn’t you like to be the first lion to climb the highest mountain in the world?” said Ellen, dragging a skipping rope out from under a pile of toys.

  “No,” said the lion.

  “The trouble with you is you have no ambition,” Ellen said. “You just lie there on the floor, not even moving. You don’t even move your mouth when you talk. Don’t you want to be famous?”

  Before the lion could say “no” again, she wrapped one end of the rope around his stomach and the other end around her waist.

  “Mountain climbers always tie themselves together in case one of them falls,” she explained. “Anything you want to kn
ow about mountain climbing, just ask me. Have you any more questions?”

  “No,” said the lion.

  So he and Ellen set off for the highest mountain in the world. They arrived at the foot of it and Ellen pointed up toward the summit.

  “It doesn’t look so high because the top is in the clouds,” she said. “But be very careful.”

  With the lion behind her Ellen reached the cushioned seat of the mountain and without pausing she began the next part of the climb. Kneeling on top of a broad padded arm she looked over her shoulder at the lion.

  “Are you out of breath?” she called. “We can rest here awhile.”

  She swung around on the top of the arm and, as she sat down, she noticed that the lion suddenly had disappeared. Looking over her shoulder again, she saw him, dangling on the rope over the outside of the arm.

  “You slipped off the edge of the cliff,” she said, pulling him up by the rope and sitting him beside her. “You’d better go first the rest of the way.”

  The lion went first and, with Ellen close behind him to give him a hand when he needed it, he accomplished the long difficult climb. There he was, balanced precariously, on the summit of the highest mountain in the world.

  “Good work,” Ellen said, drawing herself up on her knees beside the lion and giving him a pat on the head.

  Over he went again, off the back of the mountain. This time the rope pulled loose and he landed with a bounce on the playroom floor.

  “I told you to be careful,” Ellen shouted, looking down at him from the top of the mountain. “Are you very dead?”

  “No,” said the lion.

  “Good. Then you’re famous,” said Ellen, and she climbed down the mountain and took the lion by the paw. “Let’s go and see the mayor and get your medal.”

  After the mayor presented him with a gold medal for being the first lion to climb the highest mountain in the world, the lion sat on the table at a banquet where a glass of milk and pieces of a cupcake were served and a thunderous ovation rang out. The handclapping and cheering went on even after the lion fell off the table and lay on the floor again and it continued until everyone forgot who the applause was for or what it was he was famous for having done.