A recent clean-out of my parents’ basement uncovered a great lost
manuscript, a so-called Great Canadian Novel that scholars thought had
vanished forever.
The book in question, of course, was "The Runaway Elephant," by yours truly. Many literary critics considered it to be the finest novella written by any first-grader in the month of April 1988, though as the author himself, perhaps I’m simply a bit harder on my work.
I will reprint the material here, in flagrant disregard of the copyright laws set by my publishing company, the Edwards Press (Mrs. Edwards was my first-grade teacher). It’s been over 30 years, surely any copyright claims have long since evaporated, and my writings can now be let free into the public domain. While this may cut into book sales, I suspect that many audiences will still feel compelled to buy the print version due to its unique shape.
Yes, the book itself is shaped like an elephant. The tracing was, in a word, immaculate. The covers were even laminated, which I’m guessing was handled by my teac….uh, ahem, by the Edwards Press rather than me, since a six-year-old with a laminating device just seems like a recipe for disaster.
We begin with the obligatory "about the author" quote on the makeshift dust jacket. It reads as follows: "Mark is six years old. He is in Grade 1. Mark likes Ghostbusters." I mean, minus the grade and with an updated age, this basically still sums me up right now.
The dedication page! "This book is dedicated to my friend Matthew McConnell." I barely have any memory of this guy, who I’m pretty sure only got the dedication since he was my "big buddy." In my grade school, we had a system where older students were paired off with younger students as "big and little buddies" for various activities and play-day type things. In my later years as a sixth-grade big buddy myself, I tried to game the system by selecting one third-grader as my little buddy solely because he was best friends with another kid whose big buddy was the girl in my grade who I had a big crush on — my logic was that since the little buddies would naturally team up in play-day activities, my crush and I would then be obligated to spend that time together. Did my strategy work? No, of course not, it was very lame.
The library card! That’s right, there was actually a card envelope inside the front cover, so I guess The Runaway Elephant was actually stored in our public school’s library at one point. If you’re wondering how many people signed this novella out, the card was blank. Genius is never appreciated in its own time.
Enough of this preamble, on with the story itself.
And that’s it. That’s the story.
I won’t lie to you….the premise is thin. While blowing water out of one’s trunk is natural elephant behaviour, I somewhat doubt that failure to do so (or refusal to do so?) would make an elephant into a figure of public derision. But then again, perhaps that’s why the elephant was so upset. He couldn’t understand why a simple sidestep of a public norm would be such a big deal. My central elephant character may have essentially been Larry David.
Clowns, naturally, know a thing or two about being laughed at, so it makes sense that they were the ones who were the first to try and bring the elephant back. Their methods of doing this, however, were flawed at best. Catching a runaway and distraught elephant is no easy feat, but simply running after it isn’t going to do the trick. What was the plan when you caught up to him, clowns? And what am I saying, "when"? An African elephant has a max speed of around 25 mph, so unless one of these clowns is an Olympian in their spare time,* running is a fool’s errand. Why not at least drive after it? Cram 40 or 50 clowns in a car and put the pedal to the metal.
* = from a three-ring circus to a five-ring circus! Rim shot!
The story’s denouement teaches us nothing about the elephant’s plight, unless the tale is meant to be read as tragedy. The elephant cannot resist the lure of show business, despite the public mockery he must endure just be part of the circus. It really is a grim parable about the dangers of fame. Man, I was a smart six-year-old.
I mentioned earlier that my story received critical acclaim. Just read these raves!
"I’m so glad the elephant came back for the show! It wouldn’t be much of a circus without an elephant!" — Mrs. Edwards, who ENTIRELY misinterpreted my story’s tragic underpinnings.
"The book is okay" — my brother, as passive-aggressive as ever
"Elephants are so smart, they always do the right thing!" — my father, whose comment isn’t actually praise of my story. My dad knows what’s up, he’s not going to B.S. his six-year-old by pretending that this mediocrity is actually good. His statement, however, is far from accurate itself, since the Simpsons taught us that some elephants are just jerks.
"I enjoyed your book, Mark. I wish it could have been even longer. Keep up the story-writing" — my mother, who goes in for the Oreo cookie style of criticism in mixing in some initial praise with questioning the brevity. I mean, brevity is the soul of wit, Mom. ‘Keep up the story-writing’ could also be interpreted as her being interested in reading more of my future work, or her implying that I can certainly do better than this.
It occurs to me that I should have taken some screenshots from the book, so you could all bask in both the excellent elephant-shaped tome and my incredible artwork. If you want to know what my drawings of elephants look like, imagine a grey shape that is somehow both a rhombus and a starfish at the same time. So on top of being a great writer in my youth, I was also a burgeoning impressionist artist.
There will be no sequel.
The book in question, of course, was "The Runaway Elephant," by yours truly. Many literary critics considered it to be the finest novella written by any first-grader in the month of April 1988, though as the author himself, perhaps I’m simply a bit harder on my work.
I will reprint the material here, in flagrant disregard of the copyright laws set by my publishing company, the Edwards Press (Mrs. Edwards was my first-grade teacher). It’s been over 30 years, surely any copyright claims have long since evaporated, and my writings can now be let free into the public domain. While this may cut into book sales, I suspect that many audiences will still feel compelled to buy the print version due to its unique shape.
Yes, the book itself is shaped like an elephant. The tracing was, in a word, immaculate. The covers were even laminated, which I’m guessing was handled by my teac….uh, ahem, by the Edwards Press rather than me, since a six-year-old with a laminating device just seems like a recipe for disaster.
We begin with the obligatory "about the author" quote on the makeshift dust jacket. It reads as follows: "Mark is six years old. He is in Grade 1. Mark likes Ghostbusters." I mean, minus the grade and with an updated age, this basically still sums me up right now.
The dedication page! "This book is dedicated to my friend Matthew McConnell." I barely have any memory of this guy, who I’m pretty sure only got the dedication since he was my "big buddy." In my grade school, we had a system where older students were paired off with younger students as "big and little buddies" for various activities and play-day type things. In my later years as a sixth-grade big buddy myself, I tried to game the system by selecting one third-grader as my little buddy solely because he was best friends with another kid whose big buddy was the girl in my grade who I had a big crush on — my logic was that since the little buddies would naturally team up in play-day activities, my crush and I would then be obligated to spend that time together. Did my strategy work? No, of course not, it was very lame.
The library card! That’s right, there was actually a card envelope inside the front cover, so I guess The Runaway Elephant was actually stored in our public school’s library at one point. If you’re wondering how many people signed this novella out, the card was blank. Genius is never appreciated in its own time.
Enough of this preamble, on with the story itself.
Once there was an elephant. Everybody laughed at him. They thought he was silly because he didn’t blow water out of his trunk.
The elephant was mad. He ran away, into the forest.
The clowns tried to stop him. They ran after him, but they could not stop him.
But the elephant came back. There was a show, and he wanted to be in it.
And that’s it. That’s the story.
I won’t lie to you….the premise is thin. While blowing water out of one’s trunk is natural elephant behaviour, I somewhat doubt that failure to do so (or refusal to do so?) would make an elephant into a figure of public derision. But then again, perhaps that’s why the elephant was so upset. He couldn’t understand why a simple sidestep of a public norm would be such a big deal. My central elephant character may have essentially been Larry David.
Clowns, naturally, know a thing or two about being laughed at, so it makes sense that they were the ones who were the first to try and bring the elephant back. Their methods of doing this, however, were flawed at best. Catching a runaway and distraught elephant is no easy feat, but simply running after it isn’t going to do the trick. What was the plan when you caught up to him, clowns? And what am I saying, "when"? An African elephant has a max speed of around 25 mph, so unless one of these clowns is an Olympian in their spare time,* running is a fool’s errand. Why not at least drive after it? Cram 40 or 50 clowns in a car and put the pedal to the metal.
* = from a three-ring circus to a five-ring circus! Rim shot!
The story’s denouement teaches us nothing about the elephant’s plight, unless the tale is meant to be read as tragedy. The elephant cannot resist the lure of show business, despite the public mockery he must endure just be part of the circus. It really is a grim parable about the dangers of fame. Man, I was a smart six-year-old.
I mentioned earlier that my story received critical acclaim. Just read these raves!
"I’m so glad the elephant came back for the show! It wouldn’t be much of a circus without an elephant!" — Mrs. Edwards, who ENTIRELY misinterpreted my story’s tragic underpinnings.
"The book is okay" — my brother, as passive-aggressive as ever
"Elephants are so smart, they always do the right thing!" — my father, whose comment isn’t actually praise of my story. My dad knows what’s up, he’s not going to B.S. his six-year-old by pretending that this mediocrity is actually good. His statement, however, is far from accurate itself, since the Simpsons taught us that some elephants are just jerks.
"I enjoyed your book, Mark. I wish it could have been even longer. Keep up the story-writing" — my mother, who goes in for the Oreo cookie style of criticism in mixing in some initial praise with questioning the brevity. I mean, brevity is the soul of wit, Mom. ‘Keep up the story-writing’ could also be interpreted as her being interested in reading more of my future work, or her implying that I can certainly do better than this.
It occurs to me that I should have taken some screenshots from the book, so you could all bask in both the excellent elephant-shaped tome and my incredible artwork. If you want to know what my drawings of elephants look like, imagine a grey shape that is somehow both a rhombus and a starfish at the same time. So on top of being a great writer in my youth, I was also a burgeoning impressionist artist.
There will be no sequel.
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