Kathryn Lipsch

One Last Promise: the Friendship of a Boy and an Elephant Kathryn Lipsch

An unforgettable story of 7-year-old Howdy Spires who needs a friend and finds a lost elephant. Frightened at first, he runs for cover. The elephant doesn't. Howdy talks to it. Are you lost? Will you be my friend? The elephant pulls up a tuft of grass, tossing it at Howdy. He giggles, and the friendship begins. They swim the river, play bagpipes, conduct a dead-bug funeral, sleep in the barn. He names the elephant Mimi. He discovered a secret which he never told anyone. He and Mimi could communicate through mental telepathy. --His Uncle Tony finds the elephant, calls the police, and leg irons go on Mimi . Howdy defends the elephant with a slingshot, but the old elephant is weak and dies through the night. It was a night he never forgot. It was a night he lost his only friend --Howdy grows up, goes to college. Time passes. Now 81, he is dying but Mimi will come to get him when it's his time. He knows this for certain . Because so many years ago, it was her last promise.