Whispers of a Million Elephants: A Little Yellow Plane Adventure, #2

By Jane Thomas

"There are often good reasons people do bad things. Remember that."

Lizzie and Bobby may be escaping a freezing winter and heading to the tropical heat of Thailand but, as they've been firmly told, it's not a vacation. They've been promised schoolwork and a personal tutor and little chance of seeing much else.

But a schoolfriend has asked them to deliver two little silver bars to her great-grandmother in Bangkok - and Lizzie did swear she'd do it. Giving their minder the slip, the pair end up taking a night train to Laos and starting an epic quest to get the bars back to their rightful owners.

A simple promise suddenly turns deadly serious. Are the secrets the bars hold really worth dying for?

Based on true stories of Laos' Secret War, this is a tale of determination, inner strength, and the secrets that bind us.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Books and Bicycles Press
• Release date: Aug 28, 2023
• ISBN: 9781838181383

Book preview

1

AN ADVENTURE BEGINS

June 1973

They hid deep in the jungle, waiting for the new moon and the safety of darkness. Npaim clutched her baby, willing the child to stay asleep and silent. When the time came she followed the others towards the waiting rafts, the piercing shriek of cicadas sounding a warning; she felt the relentless rumble of the river as it pounded along its path. At the last moment her sister leapt back – too scared of the unknown, scrambling for a hold along the muddy bank. The bamboo raft was quickly caught and whisked to the middle of the Mekong. Npaim’s husband was the first to fall into the water, pulled away before anyone had a chance to reach out a hand. A rough jolt announced their arrival on the far side and Npaim found strangers dragging her away from the water, protective arms shielding her and her baby from angry shouts and punches that rained down. Three days later they were on a plane bound for America: Npaim, her baby, and two silver bars.

Today

It was on days like this that Lizzie wished the driveway to home wasn’t quite as long. She pulled her hat down over her ears, lifted her scarf an inch higher so her eyes looked out at the world through the smallest possible gap, and picked up the shovel.

Ready? Dad asked.

She nodded in response – a sort of whole body nod because that’s all you can do when wearing eight layers of clothing. Together, they headed outside and started the long task of shoveling snow. The house threw squares of orange light onto the white, a promise of warmth when the task was done.

Slide. Lift. Throw. Return. The only sound was the slicing of the shovel into snow, followed by a muffled thud as a load landed to the side. Slide. Lift. Throw. Return. Lizzie ignored the ache in her arms and thought about what Dad had said the night before.

I’m afraid I need to go to Thailand for a bit. A few weeks. Bangkok. He’d looked apologetically at her and, by way of explanation, simply said, Work.

Lizzie had felt a pang of jealousy. She knew nothing about Thailand but she’d like to guess it was warmer than Littleton right now.

And I can’t come with you? Of course she couldn’t; he’d have told her already if she could.

You’d just be bored, sitting in a hotel all day. I’ll be working. I’ll take you another time, I promise. When we can see it properly. If that wasn’t a runner-up prize, she didn’t know what was. So she would have to stay at home, shoveling snow, spending the evenings with Mrs Dabble and the click-clack of knitting needles.

Slide. Lift. Throw. Return. Maybe she could go and stay with Bobby. Slide, lift, throw, return. Yes, she’d ask Dad if she could do that. Slide, lift, throw, return. She was at his house half the time anyway. Slide, lift, throw, return. Mrs Bingle would barely notice the extra person. Slide-lift-throw-return. And she could help out with baby Time. Slideliftthrowreturn.

By the time they’d reached the end of the driveway, Lizzie had it all planned. They trudged back towards the house, shovels over their shoulders. Inside, there was the awkward process of removing layers one at a time with stiff arms and numb fingers. Lizzie had just taken off her hat – grab the bobble, tug, and hope that for once her hair hadn’t started a party while it had been trapped – when she heard a strange sputtering sound.

What the…? Dad rubbed at the condensation on the front door’s little window and peered out.

What is it, Dad?

I… you know, I think it might be Mrs Dabble. On a motorbike.

Lizzie’s eyebrows shot up. Let me see! On tiptoe, she could peer out of the glass and watch the slow, wandering progress of a dark shape on what was indeed a motorbike – albeit a very old one that seemed reluctant to move at all. A purple scarf fluttering around the person’s neck did suggest it must be Mrs Dabble.

She came to an abrupt stop a few feet away and, with the stiff movements of someone who wasn’t used to motorbikes and had the added disadvantage of wearing almost an entire wardrobe’s worth of clothes, removed herself from the bike with as much dignity as she could muster. Lizzie and Dad quite forgot to open the door, both being so caught up in watching this unexpected spectacle, and it took Mrs Dabble’s face glaring at them from the other side to remember their manners and usher her inside.

A motorbike, Mrs Dabble?

She threw him a withering look, the sort of look she gave Lizzie when she caught her lying about taking cookies from the jar. The sort of look that made Lizzie feel about six inches tall and wish the floor would be kind enough to open up and swallow her.

The car’s packed in. And I wasn’t going to let you down.

Mrs Dabble started unwinding the endless yards of purple scarf.

Oh I see. Yes. Well, I’m sorry to hear that. Dad’s best efforts at being polite were interrupted by a laugh that insisted on coming out.

You do look awfully funny, Mrs D! Lizzie added, and started laughing too. Small, apologetic sounds squeaking out before she gave in and laughed.

Mrs Dabble ignored them both, climbed out of her boots and reached for Lizzie’s slippers. I’m borrowing these, she said with a look that suggested nobody should argue with her. The three went into the kitchen, Lizzie and Dad still chuckling at the sight of Mrs Dabble sitting stoically on a motorbike bouncing and weaving its way up the road.

If Lizzie had learned anything over the years it was that you didn’t ask someone a favor when you’d just laughed at them. This rule could especially be applied to Mrs Dabble, a lady who was full of kindness and common sense but definitely lacking in the sense of humor department. With this knowledge, Lizzie was secretly pleased when Dad made the momentous error of asking for Mrs Dabble’s help over the next few weeks.

So you see, he trailed off, I really don’t have much of a choice. I have to go. And it would be so wonderful if you would stay here with Lizzie.

The answer, after a lengthy silence during which Lizzie’s Dad began to shrink into the cabinets, was a determined, unchangeable No.

You know I like to help, Mrs Dabble continued, you know I’ll do almost anything for you – including (and here she threw in a meaningful look) using a motorbike to get through the snow if I must. But asking me to move here for a couple of weeks and leave my poor husband all by himself in the depths of winter? No. I won’t do it. I’m sorry, that’s my final answer.

Turning to the stove and warming up a pan for the eggs was her firm indication that the conversation was over. Lizzie and Dad retreated to the living room.

Dad stared gloomily at the fire and gave it an unnecessarily vigorous poke. The fire bristled and spat in return, coughing a few flickering sparks onto the rug. He slapped at them.

There is another option, Lizzie ventured. What if I stayed at Bobby’s?

And so they went through the process of climbing back into their clothes – annoying Mrs Dabble even more by announcing they were off and wouldn’t need the eggs after all – and heading over to the farmhouse that Lizzie had come to see as a second home. Lizzie saw tracks in the snow and stayed close to her father: perfectly formed wolf paws followed a line of hoof prints left behind by a deer running for its life.

Mrs Bingle hauled them off the doorstep and threw them, snow and all, into the kitchen where she fluttered and fussed her eldest sons out of their chairs by the fire and pressed my dear Lizzie and Edward, dear Edward, how are you Edward into them. Mugs of tea were presented and boots removed by the whirlwind of a woman.

Morning, Lizzie. Up for some sledding? Bobby appeared, grinning and brandishing a red tea tray. This goes seriously fast. Charlie had to leap off before he hit a tree!

A small boy, invisible up until now behind Bobby, poked his head out and nodded to confirm that yes, he had indeed made the bold but wise decision to de-sled rather than become embedded in an oak.

My cousin, said Bobby by way of explanation, correcting himself as two more boys appeared: Cousins. Meet Lizzie. The one I told you about. The one with the yellow plane.

Three pairs of eyes stretched wide.

You’re the one who went all the way to Canada? With Bobby? You weren’t scared of bears?

Lizzie confirmed it with a nod and glared at Bobby over their heads. Bears were still a sore point.

I’ll take that, thank you. Mrs Bingle plucked the tray from Bobby’s hands and returned it to its rightful spot beside the toaster, piling it with jams and a dish with a thick pat of yellow butter and a clatter of knives.

Lizzie always loved the chaos of the farmhouse but today was even wilder than usual. The addition of the three boys meant there was barely room for baby Time’s basket, something that Mrs Bingle had somehow managed to keep rocking with one foot throughout the entire episode.

We’ve come to stay, announced Charlie. Nobody had asked. Daddy’s sick and Mommy says we’re a Bit Much. Since nobody responded he added some more information. I’m staying in Bobby’s room. It’s a nice room. Too many Michael Jordan posters, though. LeBron James is way better. Bobby gets to stay in there, too, but I get his bed. ‘Cos I’m visiting. He folded his arms in defiance against anyone who dared to challenge him.

So you have a bit of a full house then, Sheila, said Dad.

You know how it is! Mrs Bingle grabbed the toast mid-air as it leapt up and popped the tray down between Lizzie and her father. The two exchanged a look. Dad sighed.

Bobby, he said, do you know where Bangkok is?

Bobby swallowed his toast so hard he nearly choked. "Of