Middle Grade Feature: The Magician's Elephant

I must be on a poetic, breathtaking wintry-read mood these two weeks. {Have you checked out my feature of the quaint, wordless Fox's Garden last week?}

This week, for my middle-grade recommendation, I have:
an orphan surviving on a fortune teller's words, a mistreated elephant, and a down-and-out magician.

"Speak," said the fortune-teller. "Ask."

"My parents," said Peter.

"That is your question?" said the fortune-teller. "They are dead."

Peter's hands trembled. "That is not my question," he said. "...