Bendy Elephant
BENDY ELEPHANT
First extract from Chapter One
The clanging of the phone goads my fourteen year old body from the depths of sleep. The ringing and ringing in the lounge and its echo in the kitchen goes on and on. I squeeze one eye open. Left eye up against the pillow. Wrong eye. Open right eye. Squint at my digital bedside clock. 06.23! On a Saturday morning! A ball of flame starts an immediate burning in my guts. Who’s dead or injured? Where’s Ma and Papa?
“What? Never! Oh My God! Oh My God! Frederick! Frederick! The President’s been murdered! Assassinated. Oh! My! God!”
My mother’s shouting from the lounge makes my heart thump right up to my throat. Keeps on thumping there. I sprint to the lounge, grabbing a T shirt as I go and beating my father by a whisker. Ma has switched on the television. BBC News 24.
“…….President Jameson Welter’s death at 10pm last night. Whilst most Juxonese are still in shock, there are reports of early signs of unrest here in Queenville, the capital of Juxon, a previous colony of Great Britain. The growing tension between the Conservative Cartons and the Liberal Frees has been escalating ever since the election three months ago. The Cartons are accusing the Frees of assassinating the Conservative President. President Jameson Welter has been in office for less than three months. He leaves behind his wife Ermilinia and five young children.
The Frees have consistently accused the Cartons of rigging the election that brought President Welter to power. Since their independence from Great Britain more than sixty years ago, the Cartons have been in office only three times, totalling less than eleven months.
The Cartons are mistrustful of the Frees’ continuing connections with the British. This is aggravated by the chronic tension between the two sides regarding land ownership. Put simply, the Cartons are demanding that the land ‘stolen’ from them last century during British rule be returned to them as the rightful owners. The Frees deny the Carton’s right of ownership and argue that they have papers to prove legal ownership.
Speaking to people on the street this morning, the angry Cartons vow to take every inch of land back and avenge their president’s death. They say they have militarily support from neighbouring Shenroth in the north where many Carton supporters have lived in exile for decades…..”
Behind the reporter the camera is showing hordes of shouting people; men, women and children, smashing car windows, smashing shop windows and looting from the sports shop. Others are laughingly running from the few on duty police with their stolen electrical fans, microwave ovens, raincoats, anything and everything. My mouth dries; I can feel my rough pre-breakfast tongue sticking to my palate. I struggle to swallow. Phew! My heart is thumping and booming under my T shirt like when Mark next door plays his heavy metal music ultra loud. I’ve seen scenes like these before, but this is Queenville, my capital, not some far away place! I know that street! We had lunch at The Gravy Boat! This is near! This is here! Oh My God!
“Papa, what’s going on?” I ask my great supporter. He merely puts his fingers to his lips whilst nodding to whomever on his mobile phone, his grey eyes glued to the screen, the furrows in his forehead deepening into giant ridges. Normally cool and collected, leaving passionate outbursts to my flamboyant mother, I watch sweat dribbling from his forehead down to his black and grey stubbled cheeks. His usually neat hair is all awry from his constant raking through it. He cannot sit still; tut-tutting, shaking his left leg, juggling the telephone and the remote control, changing channels so often and so quickly it becomes a blur. I stare at the vein in his neck, pulsing like mad. I’ve never seen him like this before, ever. His panic is making me panic. I don’t like it one bit. My heart starts to thump even harder and faster, right against my chest wall. I feel sweaty, panicky, weak. I plop down on the sofa next to Sapphira, my twelve year old sister. I feel a deep sense of doom as my father settles on the BBC News 24 again.
