The Elephant Of The Exploration

• David Evans, Grade 7
• Short Story
• 2022

The name is Gaja Evans, and I am a famous biologist.
Where am I now? I am in Botswana, camping next to a herd of elephants, that I was told was resting around this area, so that was where I went.
I was up till 11 waiting for the last elephant to fall asleep and the last roaring had ceased so I could then sleep with a sense of security. I fell asleep in my tent with an orange glow from the lantern on the roof.
I woke up with the sun in my face to hear screaming and trumpeting where the Elephants had been last night. I found that I had no tent over me, but a quick glance showed me it was a tiny dot on my belly.
The realisation hit me, as I looked down, I realised I was an elephant! I hurried to my four feet and looked round to the elephant herd. There in the middle of all the elephants was me, well what used to be me, running round in between all the elephants and screaming his head off with the elephants trumpeting around him.
I had switched places with the elephant.
When the elephant that was taking up my body had scampered, I decided to spend the day with the elephants.
The day was a huge success, as they had eaten almost 24/7 and I had learnt a lot about their behaviour, but by the end of the day I was bored and decided to show the elephants something new.
I got up on my hind legs and started doing the Elephant, which after a slight pause had another elephant up and doing it too, then another, then the entire herd was up and dancing.
Then, in a blur of noise a tourist bus came around the corner filled with excited tourists coming out to see the savannah but, instead they saw loads of elephants doing the elephant dance! They all whipped out their cameras and took an awful number of pictures before they drove off round the next bend.
When all the elephants had fallen asleep, I left to find the other “elephant” and return him to his herd. I then fell asleep in the remains of my campsite.
After I had done that and was tucking myself into the tent, I had a dream of a viral video on YouTube of elephants dancing the elephant dance.
The next day, I woke up as myself again, so I then hopped into my jeep and drove away. I had to stay at a hotel for the night as it was a long drive to the airport. When I got inside the room it was full of flies with an exceptionally loud one on the fan, and I fell asleep to their buzzing.
When I woke up, I saw something way above my head, it was a human on the fan screaming and realized, I WAS THE FLY!