Of all the things to happen on Memorial Day, Stinky Stanley lost his memory---not just a little bit, but a lotta bit.

“Stanley, pay attention!” The man with the stick yelled.

But Stanley couldn’t remember what he was supposed to pay attention to.  His head was splitting from all of the noise. “Who are these people?”  Stanley said to himself. “And why are they laughing at me?”

The man swatted Stanley’s behind with his long stick, and the people laughed louder.  Stanley was mad at the man with the stick. It made him dizzy, and he leaned against the closest thing, a big round pole.

“No, Stanley—not the tent pole!”

Stanley stumbled and saw the canvas roof of the tent coming at him fast. Then again, Stanley had no one to blame but himself. The night before, the rest of the elephants were sound asleep--resting up for the big show. But not Stanley. Over and over, he snuck his trunk through the window of the neighborhood bar, stealing peanuts until closing time. Everyone had warned him about the dangers of peanut abuse, but Stanley had told himself, “That’ll never happen to me.”

© 2007 Ron Chalice. Original for CCF (Chalice grants CCF first electronic rights for one month; CCF may archive the material indefinitely and include it in an eBook anthology).