“What do we do now?” Violet asked.
“It’s getting late,” Cousin Alice said. “I think we should find a hotel.”
Jessie agreed. “We can go to the elephant reserve in the morning. We can find out what’s happening once we get there.”
“Can we take a tuk-tuk there?” Benny asked. “I liked them.”
“I looked up information about the elephant reserve,” Henry said. “It’s miles outside the city. Without a car and a driver, we could take a taxi or a train. I’m sorry, Benny. Tuk-tuks don’t go fast enough.”
“Trains are good too!” Benny said. “I vote for a train instead of a taxi.” They all decided a train would be fun. Cousin Joe found a hotel close by. After a quick dinner in the hotel restaurant, everyone agreed they would go straight to bed so they could get an early start in the morning right after breakfast.
The next morning, Benny woke up early and made sure everyone else got up too. He was very excited to see the elephants.
A taxi got them to the train station on time. Once they were seated, Benny said, “Now we can forget about that man who chased us.”
“I hope so,” Jessie said. She didn’t point out that the man might realize they had gone on to the elephant reserve. She knew he might try to find them there.
The train passed through some smaller towns and went by farms. “It’s all so green and pretty,” Violet said as she looked out the window.
The time went by fast. When the train pulled into their station, Benny cried, “There are tuk-tuks here too!” A row of tuk-tuks were lined up next to some regular taxis.
“We can’t pass up a chance to ride in tuk-tuks again,” Jessie said, smiling at Benny. They piled in and were soon on their way. The reserve wasn’t far from the train station.
“I see a sign with an elephant on it!” Violet said. And soon they could see some of the reserve’s buildings ahead. They could also see part of a big fenced-in grassy area, where several elephants stood together by a clump of trees.
“I see them!” Benny cried.
After they parked and paid for their ride, a young man wearing a khaki uniform with an elephant logo on his shirt came out of the nearest building.
He came over to them and said, “Welcome to the reserve. The next tour is in ten minutes. I’ll be your guide today. My name is Chakrit Banthao.”
“We’re not here for a tour,” Henry said.
“I’m sorry, I misunderstood. Are you here to stay in one of our lodges?” Chakrit waved at some buildings they hadn’t noticed. There were large cabins built up on posts right next to a fence enclosing a large grassy area.
“No, not that either,” Henry said. “We’d like to take a tour if we had time, but we’re here because someone might be expecting us. We’re the Aldens.”
The young man raised his eyebrows in surprise. “I hadn’t heard of any special visitors coming today, but I will check in the office to see who is expecting you. Please wait here.”
Before he could walk away, Jessie said, “Maybe someone is waiting for us who doesn’t know our names but knows that we like owls.”
“Oh, so you are naturalists?” the man asked. “You study owls?” he asked Cousin Alice.
“No, we don’t study them officially or anything, though we certainly like owls,” Cousin Alice said. She looked over at Jessie.
“That’s right,” Jessie said. “We like owls.”
“I see,” Chakrit said, though his face wore a confused expression. “I’ll check in the office,” he said again.
He came back a few minutes later. “I’m sorry. No one is expecting anyone named Alden or anyone who works with owls. But you are more than welcome to tour the reserve.”
“What do we do now?” Violet asked.
“Thank you,” Henry said to Chakrit. “We need a few minutes to figure out what we’re doing.”
“That’s fine. If you’d like to take a tour, meet over at the sign for the elephant kitchen, where we prepare food for the elephants that need special diets.” Chakrit went over to a delivery truck that had just pulled into the parking lot.
“If no one here is expecting us, does that mean we weren’t supposed to come to Thailand at all?” Violet said.
“No, we weren’t. Somehow the Argents tricked us,” Henry said.
“How do they know so much about what we are doing?” Jessie asked. “Someone called Mary. How did they know who she was and how to call her?”
Henry was quiet for a few moments and then he said, “I think either Emilio or Mr. Ganert is working for the Argents.”
Violet let out a gasp.
“It can’t be Emilio!” Benny cried. “He’s too nice. And he tells good jokes.”
“I hope it is not Emilio,” Henry said. “But he could be very good at pretending to be nice.”
“I think Henry is right,” Jessie said. “Emilio and Mr. Ganert have always known where we would be when the Argents found us. They are the only ones besides Trudy, and we know Trudy wouldn’t be working with the Argents. I think Tricia suspects one of them. That’s why she is leaving us all these riddles and messages to not tell anyone. When we solve the riddles, only members of the Reddimus Society should know where we are going. If the Argents know too, that means either Emilio or Mr. Ganert is giving them information.”
“But which one is it?” Violet asked.
“We’ll have to figure that out,” Henry said.
“And we’ll have to do it while we keep the rest of the artifacts safe,” Jessie said.
“It’s getting late,” Cousin Alice said. “We need to figure out what to do for tonight.”
“If they have room in the lodge, I think we should stay here,” Cousin Joe added.
“So we’ll get to see the elephants after all?” Benny asked.
“Yes, let’s do that,” Jessie said. “That’s a good plan.”
They went to find Chakrit and asked him about space in the lodge. He made a telephone call and reported there was a cabin available. “Since it is getting late in the day, I can take you on a tour first,” he offered. “After that you can check in.”
Everyone was eager to see the elephants, so they followed him to a gate that led into a smaller fenced area. Chakrit said, “There are thousands of elephants in Thailand. Some live in the wild and some are in captivity. Elephants used to work in the logging industry. They moved heavy logs that were cut down in areas where there weren’t many roads. Now we are trying to preserve our forests and not cut down so many trees. That means there are so many elephants that do not need to work. They can’t be released back into the wild though. They can’t take care of themselves after living in captivity, so now many of them are in elephant reserves like this. We also rescue elephants that were used in small traveling circuses or for tourist rides in places where they were mistreated.”
“Do you have any baby elephants here?” Violet asked.
“We do. We have three calves right now. That’s what baby elephants are called.”
“Just like baby cows,” Benny said. “Except these babies are bigger, aren’t they?”
“Yes, elephant calves are much bigger. They weigh about two hundred pounds when they are born. That’s as much as some adult humans.” Chakrit looked into the fenced-in area. “One of our calves should be right over here.” He called, “Saree!”
A little elephant came trotting out from behind some of the bushes.
“It’s playing with a soccer ball!” Violet said. The elephant pushed the soccer ball toward them with its trunk. As the calf came closer to them, two adult elephants followed at a distance. The young elephant seemed very happy, trotting and swinging its trunk. It came up to the gate of the smaller enclosure, which opened into the bigger area. Chakrit opened the gate and the elephant came through pushing the soccer ball. Walking right up to Chakrit, it raised its trunk up so it was resting on his shoulder.
One of the older elephants made a very loud bellowing sound. Benny and Soo Lee jumped at the nois
e. “What was that?” Soo Lee asked.
“That’s called trumpeting,” Chakrit explained. “It’s okay, Navann,” he called out to the big elephant who was watching them. “Elephants trumpet when they are warning of danger or they are excited. She is warning little Saree here not to go too far away from her,” he said, petting the smaller animal. “Saree loves her soccer ball, but she loves people too.”
“Saree is a pretty name,” Jessie said.
“She is named Saree because it means freedom,” Chakrit explained. “She is happy now, but she was very sad when she was rescued because she had been taken away from her mother when she was still too young and made to work in a circus. Some of the older elephants in the reserve help care for her. They are like her grandmothers, aunts, and nannies. In the wild, elephants live in groups and the older elephants take care of the younger ones. It’s somewhat like big extended human families.”
“That’s nice,” Violet said. “Just like us. We have a lot of people taking care of us.”
“You can pet her if you want,” Chakrit said. “She likes attention.”
The sound of some voices came from the elephant kitchen. A woman came out the door. “Chakrit, I need some advice,” she said.
“If you don’t mind waiting here with Saree, I won’t be long,” Chakrit told the Aldens.
“We don’t mind at all,” Jessie said. “Getting to pet elephants is terrific.”
As soon as Chakrit went inside the building, Jessie’s phone rang. It was Trudy. Jessie put the phone on speaker so everyone could hear.
“Trudy, we aren’t sure what is going on,” Jessie said. “There is no one here to meet us.”
The connection wasn’t very good. They could barely hear Trudy. “Where are you?” Trudy cried. “We’ve been worried sick.”
“We’re in Thailand,” Henry told her. “We got a message we were supposed to get on a flight to Bangkok. And once we arrived, we thought we had to go to an elephant reserve, but we are here at the reserve, and they don’t know anything about us. We think we’ve been tricked.”
“It sounds as if you have. We all have been tricked. Is everyone all right?”
“We’re fine.” Jessie told her about the red-haired man at the airport and how they’d gotten away from him. “I don’t think he intended to take us to the reserve at all.”
“Say that again. I didn’t hear all of that,” Trudy said. Jessie repeated herself.
“He probably didn’t,” Trudy said. “I think he was just going to take you somewhere and demand you hand over the artifacts, then leave you in Thailand while he got away.”
“The driver in China told us the message said we didn’t have to call Emilio. Was the plane really broken?” Henry asked.
There was silence on the other end. “We lost the connection,” Jessie said. “I’ll try to call her back.” Before Jessie could dial, the phone rang again.
“This is a terrible connection,” Trudy said. “I may lose you again. Henry, the plane is in perfect shape. As soon as we get off the phone, I’ll call Mr. Ganert and tell him they need to come get you. We can’t find your driver in Beijing. That’s why we had no idea where you’d gone. Her husband told us she’d been hired to drive someone to another city in China. We tried to call her, but she didn’t answer her cell phone.”
“I hope she’s all right,” Jessie said. “She was very nice. I’m sure she didn’t know we’d been tricked either.”
“We’ll find her. Are your cousins still with you?”
“Yes, we’re all together,” Cousin Alice said.
“That’s good. I’ll make arrangements for somewhere for you to stay tonight until the Reddimus plane can get to you.”
“We think we’ll stay at the elephant reserve,” Jessie said. “They have rooms here and the people who run the place are very nice.”
“That’s fine, if that’s where you’d like to stay.”
“We would.” Henry was just about to tell her their suspicions about Emilio and Mr. Ganert when they got cut off again. Jessie tried to call her back but there was no answer.
“We’ll tell her when we get back to Bangkok,” Jessie said. “Maybe we can figure out a way to know which one is working for the Argents before then.”
“I hope so.” Violet gave a shudder. “We have to get back on the plane with them. I don’t want to be flown around by someone working for the Argents.”
The Detour of the Elephants
They petted the little elephant while they talked about ideas, but no one could come up with a good plan.
Chakrit came back just as one of the adult elephants walked over to a branch that lay on the ground. The elephant picked it up with her trunk and then used it to shoo some flies away that were swarming around her shoulder.
“That’s funny!” Soo Lee said. “She made her own flyswatter.”
“Elephants are very intelligent,” Chakrit said. “Even young elephants can be very clever. I heard a story about a group of young elephants who had to wear bells around their necks so their keepers knew if they wandered off. Some of the young elephants learned how to stuff mud into the bells each night so they could sneak away and eat bananas at a neighboring farm. Elephants love bananas.”
“That was very smart,” Henry said.
“It was. The keepers could hear the other elephants moving around their own area, but since there wasn’t any sound of elephants moving out of the area, they didn’t suspect anything was amiss. The next morning the farmer came over to complain, and that’s when they noticed the young elephants’ bells weren’t making any noise.”
Chakrit pointed at a wooden box up in one of the trees. It had two ropes attached to it. “There aren’t many animal species that will figure out how to work together to complete a task. Chimps and dolphins are some that do, and we’ve now learned that elephants do as well. A researcher designed an experiment where elephants could get at a treat in a box only if two worked together to pull on a rope. We’ve tried it here, and our elephants figured it out very quickly. I’m sure in the wild they work together in other ways we haven’t learned yet.” He patted the little elephant again and said, “Enough attention for you.” Chakrit led Saree back into the main area. She pushed her ball over to the bigger elephants, and then three of them moved away.
When Chakrit returned to where the Aldens stood, he smiled and said, “Many of our visitors like to help out with some chores around the reserve. Are you interested?”
Everyone was very excited to help. They spent the rest of the day preparing food and then taking it to the elephants. Chakrit took them to watch some elephants bathing in a river and then they helped plant some small shrubs along one of the fences.
Late in the afternoon, Chakrit looked at his watch. “We are about to close up this part of the reserve for the night, but you will be able to see elephants from your rooms. There are big decks on all of them that are right outside the fence. That’s why we’ve raised up the cabins on posts.”
The Aldens followed Chakrit to the lodge’s lobby to check in, and then outside to go to their cabin. As they went, Soo Lee, Benny, and Violet talked excitedly about Saree and the other elephants. But Henry was distracted by something across the road from the reserve’s entrance. There, in the parking lot of an old gas station, was the red-haired man. Henry watched him get into the rusty van, where he pulled out a drink and a bag of chips and settled back in the seat. Henry took Jessie’s arm and pointed across the road.
When she saw the man her face fell. “He came here after all,” she whispered. “I think he’s waiting for us to leave, and then he’s going to follow us.”
“Yes,” Henry said. “I don’t like this.”
After a little while, they arrived at their cabin and couldn’t talk more. “This is amazing!” Benny cried as Chakrit opened the door for them. Benny and Soo Lee ran around into each of the rooms exploring. There were three bedrooms that opened onto a central living room. All the rooms had lots of windows. From the li
ving room, they could walk out through sliding glass doors to a big deck. Elephants were only a few feet away from them on the other side of the fence.
Chakrit said, “Call the main lodge or come back to the front desk if you need anything. I’ll be here a few more hours doing some paperwork, but anyone else here will help you too.”
Everyone went out on the deck to watch the elephants. “I have an idea about Mr. Ganert and Emilio,” Jessie said. “But it’s complicated, and it depends on our cell phones working.”
“Let’s hear it,” Henry said.
She explained how they had seen the red-haired man across the road. No one was happy with that news.
“We should call the police and have him arrested,” Cousin Alice declared.
“He hasn’t done anything yet,” Cousin Joe pointed out. “No one would arrest him for offering to give us a ride. We can’t prove he intended to steal the artifacts.”
“We can’t prove that, but we can see if he does try to steal something,” Jessie said. “My plan is that we pretend we are going back to Bangkok. He’ll follow us, but somehow along the way we will turn around or get another taxi back here. Then we’ll call Emilio and Mr. Ganert and tell them we are here. If the man comes back here to find us, we’ll know one of them called him.”
Henry thought for a moment. “That’s a good plan,” he said. “We are going to need some help though. We can ask Chakrit. I think we can trust him. He can help us figure out how to switch taxis and get back here.”
They went to find Chakrit. Jessie said, “We need some help.”
“Of course,” Chakrit said. “What can I do?”
“This will sound strange, but there is a man trying to steal something from us. He followed us here from Bangkok, and he’s in a van across the road. We’d like him to think we are going back into Bangkok instead of spending the night here. We’d like to have a taxi take us partway back to Bangkok, but let us off somewhere halfway. Then we can come back here and spend the night. We’ll pay for the taxi to keep going into the city so if someone is following it, they won’t know where we’ve gone. That means the taxi will have to pull over someplace where we can jump out and hide until we can arrange for another taxi to pick us up. Can you think of how we can do that?”