Nobody understands elephants. Elephants are too big to understand. Maybe giant people would understand them, but not really. Giant people feel like giants compared to people. Elephants feel normal. They feel really good and not too big at all. Elephants only wish they could afford moisturizer.

Elephants are so dry. They worry about their skin cracking so bad it might bleed. They worry about tusk cavities too. Elephants wish they had dental insurance. Sometimes they wish they had dental insurance, but then they remember how expensive it is. Elephants hate spending money

When an elephant is in a store, he can’t help but feel like he’s getting ripped off. Elephants hate being ripped off.

I know because I watch elephants with my binoculars. If you watch them for a long time and are very perceptive, you will eventually notice the way they flap their ears. You will notice that they do not flap at random or just because of environmental conditions.

Elephants flap their ears in code. It’s actually very similar to Morse Code. Nobody understands elephants because nobody watches their ears. I watch elephant ears. That’s how you know what they’re saying.

That one elephant is cursing a blue streak. He’s the funniest elephant. He tells the funniest jokes. I write them down in my notepad. I’m practicing them so I can turn them into a stand-up routine.

When you watch enough elephant ears, you begin to think like them. I don’t even know what I find attractive anymore. That other elephant breaks so many hearts. So many enormous pachyderm hearts. She makes my binoculars steam up.

Elephants wish they had binoculars. Elephants want a lot of things they can’t have. Elephants shouldn’t be so greedy, but they are. You know the expression “greedy like an elephant”? It’s totally true.

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I’ve never seen this one before. She’s short and blond and chubby. It’s October, too chilly for shorts, but she wears them anyway. Pink basketball sneakers and a St. Bridget’s sweatshirt. Too much makeup and a camouflage backpack.

“Hi, cutie,” she says. “Professor Jannetti around?”

I start to say, No, he was called away on an emergency, when he walks up behind me.

“Come on in, Marie,” he says, all business. “I see you’ve met my daughter Leah.”

My adoptive mom is away. She’s a bookseller, and right now she’s in Utah addressing people from the National Park Service.

“How old are you, Leah?” Marie asks as she closes the front door and unshoulders her backpack.

“Yo tengo diez años,” I say.

“She’s ten,” my father translates.

“She speaks Spanish?” Marie asks.

“Her latest passion,” my adoptive dad tells his student.

Marie bends in close to him to confide. “But she’s Chinese.”

“Es verdad,” I say.

“We’re going to be working in the den,” he tells me. “You can find something to keep you occupied?”

I shrug.

“Only be an hour or two,” he says.

This is not that unusual a thing. My father has been tutoring students on the side ever since I can remember. But when my mom’s away, they’re all girls. When she’s home they come to the door smelling like Fritos and Red Bull. When she’s not, they smell like the soap in the guest bathroom.

It’s a Saturday so I flop on my parents’ bed and watch an old Saved by the Bell. I’ve seen it a million times, but suffer through another half-hour.
Marie comes up looking for the bathroom. Apparently, my dad’s using the one downstairs. She wanders into my parents’ room, sees me stretched across the bed. She smiles and says, “¿Dónde esta la baño?”

“El baño,” I correct her, and point toward the open bathroom door.

When she comes out, I’m watching SpongeBob on Nickelodeon. “This show is awesome,” she says, then stands there waiting for me to make a comment. Eventually, she catches on and leaves. I hear her going down the stairs, but she doesn’t fall and crack her head open. One more wish unfulfilled.

That night my dad - as he usually does under these circumstances - plays Father of the Year. We order pizza and I get to call the toppings. We defrost a Sara Lee pound cake and cover it with strawberries and ReddiWip. We guzzle Pepsi and burp out loud.

The bribes are unnecessary. It’s not as if I’m going to tell my mom. Because what is there to tell? Dad had a student over? She knows this. She encourages it. It pays for the groceries.

He lets me stay up late and watch two hours of Sabado Gigante on Univision. At ten, as I put on my pajamas, he peeks into my room.

“A little privacy?” I say. “¿Un poco de privacidad?”

“Sorry,” he says and closes the door.

Ten minutes later he knocks. I’m already in bed with the light off, but nowhere near asleep.

“Want me to tell you a story?” he whispers.

And I fight back the urge, in both English and Spanish, to say, You’ve already told me on