An Elephant in the Garden: Inspired by a True Story

by Michael Morpurgo

“There isn’t any elephant, Karl,” I told him. “She imagines things. Old people often do that.

If she says she had an elephant in her garden, then she did.”

But I can tell you for certain and for sure, that my mind is as sound as a bell, sharp as a razor. So when I say there was an elephant in the garden, there really was.

I did not know it at the time, of course, but this elephant in our garden was going to change my life forever, change all our lives in my family.

That was the longest night of my life. I had never before witnessed human misery on such a scale. It is the sound of a people in despair that I shall never forget: the weeping, the sobbing, the screaming and the praying.

As the growl of the bombers at last died away, the air was filled with whimpering. It was as if the whole world were in mourning.

Tanks! Twenty or thirty of them, and they kept on coming. “Americans!” Peter shouted. “They are Americans!”

“What happened afterwards?” Lizzie replied. “Oh, a lot happened, a whole lifetime of happenings. But I think I shall keep it short. I am suddenly rather tired. And you must be too. Well, here is how the story ends…”