Bark by Lee Hadar Kirschner {Inklings Book Contest 2024 Finalist}

Today, we are featuring Inklings Book Contest 2024 finalist Lee Hadar Kirschner! Lee finished 7th grade this past school year and wrote a tragic story of loss and endurance titled, “Bark.” Their story is a reminder that even in a dark place, one can find light. Continue below to enjoy Lee’s work in digital book or plain text form.

“I’m going to get you for that!” Bark shrieked.

“You’ll have to catch me first!” Tree responded, scampering away. 

It was a warm day in the dense rainforest where Tree, his family, and the rest of the herd lived. The sun warmed their skin and burned their eyes if they looked in the wrong direction. It was exceptionally humid, so Tree and his little sister Bark were having a mud fight to cool down.  

Tree ran for a while, then gave up and began rolling around in the mud. Bark pulled on his trunk with her own. 

Suddenly a loud bang echoed through the forest, leaving Bark’s and Tree’s ears ringing. 

Bark froze on the spot. Tree got up and nudged closer to his sister. 

Neither said a word but pressed their warm bodies together, waiting. 

A second bang hurtled through their home, and Tree began to run, urging Bark to do the same. 

“Mama and Papa! The herd! They might be in danger!” Tree told her. 

Bark followed him through the forest at top speed, and they ran until a third sound, much closer this time, met their ears. 

The siblings stopped. 

Slowly they began to move again, toward the sound. 

They stopped in a clearing.

A strange pink creature—a human?—lay, heaving on the ground. Another similar creature held a long pointy black thing.

And Papa…Papa was dead on the ground. 

His thick gray skin had been punctured deeply in his side, blood spilling onto the rainforest floor. 

The pointy black thing that Tree had realized must have been Papa’s downfall turned on Mama. 

“NO!” Bark trumpeted, clinging to Mama’s leg. 

The pink thing sighed and placed down the pointy black thing, replacing it with an almost as scary weapon. 

Plink! Plink! Plink! 

In quick succession, he shot each of the remaining elephants. Tree was the last one to go down. 

His body crashed to the forest floor, and he slowly lost his senses, one by one.

Goodbye, forest, he thought as his last sense left him. 

Tree awoke in a trunk. 

Bark wasn’t there. Mama was awake. 

“Mama,” Tree whimpered to her. 

It was so dark. 

All his memories came back to him and he clung to his mother’s leg. 

“Where’s Bark?” he asked. 

“I…I don’t know.”

Tree’s toes dug into the floor. 

“It’s going to be okay,” Mama whispered. 

He knew she knew it wasn’t. 

Seemingly hours later, the thing they were in stopped moving. 

Tree was dozing, and only awoke in time to feel himself, in a cage, dropped to the ground next to his mother in the same cage. 

He did not say a word. Nor did she. 

Tree closed his eyes, and when he opened them again, he was in a clearing.

“What’s happening?” the young elephant asked. “Where’s Bark? And Pap—”

He stopped. 

“No.” 

His voice sounded strange and distant to his ears. 

“Tree, it’s—it’s okay. It’ll be an adjustment, but we’ll be okay. Bark….I don’t know where she is. And Papa…well…yes, it is t-true.” 

That was the first time Tree ever saw his mother cry. She always would say that although elephants could cry, it was a human thing and she did not feel like sadness would make her cry. 

She’d been wrong, apparently.

“We’ll be okay.” 

She wasn’t entirely correct, though.

The days, then weeks, then months, wore on by. Same routine. Not enough room to really have fun, but Tree was okay…for now. 

His mother, though? 

She was distressed and, not only that, but genuinely seemed unwell. 

“No room to stretch my legs,” she kept muttering, looking as if she was in physical pain. 

One morning, two months after they’d been “relocated”, Tree’s mother didn’t seem up to doing anything. 

“You go play,” she said wanly. 

Tree surveyed her thinner, weaker body with concern, his eyes taking in the change in his mother. 

“I’m okay,” she said, “but I’d rather rest a bit today. Go on…play with Rain.” 

So Tree reluctantly obeyed, going off to play with his new friend Rain, who had lived in the Bobblebrook Zoo her entire life. Tree couldn’t help but notice that she wasn’t as strong and happy as the elephants he’d known before. 

“Hi, Tree!” she said, her usual cheerful self…besides the way her face fell. 

“What’s wrong, Rain?” 

“My mom’s being relocated.” Rain ducked her head. 

“Oh no! I’m so sorry, Rain.” 

Rain didn’t know her biological family, but she had kind of been “adopted” by an older female elephant—since she was a baby. Though elephants naturally lived in herds, they still sometimes had intimate families—like Tree, whose family lived in a herd but were closest with each other.

“I’m so sorry,” Tree repeated. 

Rain forced a smile. “It’s okay.” She nudged a fallen newsletter at Tree with her trunk. 

“It’s this place.” She pointed at a clipping. 

Tree peered at the photo—it was the elephant’s area that was featured. 

The elephants looked even unhealthier than the Bobblebrook Zoo, but Tree decided against pointing this out. 

“Wait!” He stole another glance. “It’s….is that….” 

And he was right. 

It was Bark. 

Tree wrapped the news clipping in his trunk and raced across the grass, running, running, until he arrived with his mother.

“Mama?” 

She was on her side, which was not a good sign. 

“Fine…just…really tired,” Mama groaned.

No, no, no. 

Tree caressed her with his trunk, waiting for a human—hopefully Gretchen—to come and tend to her as she did with Mud. 

But this wouldn’t end like Mud. It wouldn’t. 

Tree trumpeted as loudly as he could, hoping someone—human or elephant—would arrive. 

Only Grass, the elderly male who’d been there a very long time, came over.

“Why’s she so sick?” Tree asked. 

“You and I, and her…we all remember the world outside of this place. Elephants, particularly females, thrive less in these walls. It may seem like a big zoo to humans, but really, elephants need space enough to run around and get food for themselves. The lack of this sometimes can make them feel ill.”ֶ 

“….Oh. So how do we help her?” 

Grass gave the younger elephant a small smile. “Gretchen will be here soon. She knows what to do.” 

Once the humans of the Bobblebrook Zoo realized something was wrong with Mama, they called on Gretchen for help. 

The humans forced Tree and Grass to leave as Gretchen tended to Mama, something Tree did not take kindly. 

“Nonono!” Tree trumpeted. 

“Don’t fight it, child,” Grass soothed. “They need space to tend to her.”

Tree reluctantly walked away with Grass. 

“Want to listen to the news?” Grass asked.

Tree’s eyes popped with excitement. “Really, really?”

There was a section in the elephant zoo where you could listen to the humans watching the news. It was entertaining and forbidden, so it was unbelievably exciting that Grass was voluntarily taking Tree there. 

“So, on weather news…calm on the front near here, but we narrowly missed a tornado that is supposed to tear through Renontown,” said a high-pitched human voice. Tree had learned to understand human words thanks to his new friends, and these ones sent his heart plummeting. 

Renontown? 

He looked down at the newspaper clipping still clutched in his trunk. 

Renontown Zoo. 

Papa was dead, Mama was sick…and now Bark was in danger, too?

This just kept getting worse and worse. 

Days swept by. Mama was barely clinging to life. Grief battled against any fun Tree tried to have, because his devotion to his mother was burning stronger than ever, and he knew he couldn’t just watch her die. 

But he also might have to. 

He listened to the news now every day, not caring about being caught. 

One day, five days after Mama got really sick, he heard the news he’d been dreading. 

“Renontown Zoo destroyed. Thousands of animal lives lost.” 

Bark. 

She…

Was most likely dead. 

The next morning, Tree nudged his mother. “Morning!” 

He had not told her anything about Bark…she had enough to worry about, being sick. It might take another toll if she found out her other daughter was….

Tree couldn’t think it, couldn’t say it. 

Mama didn’t open her eyes. 

“Mama? Mama, Mama?” 

Mama wasn’t breathing. 

“Mama.” 

Tree knelt to her side and wept. 

He was alone. 

His mother was gone. His sister, his father, his herd. 

Now, it was just him against the world. 

Mama was declared dead by the doctors by the end of the morning. 

Tree remained clinging to her tail, trying to breathe life into her body. The strongest elephant he knew had been torn down. 

Forced into illness, then death, by a world that couldn’t bear to let her stay in her home with her family and herd. 

Tree wished he could have fought against the piercing thing that had sunk into his body and forced him to sleep. g

Maybe he could have fought, then. 

Made them let his family stay.

Then Bark, and Mama would be alive, and they would all be with the herd, and they would be…

They would be happy. 

And Tree wouldn’t be alone. 

He pictured that last day in the forest, prancing in the mud with his sister. 

“She’s gone;” were the first words Tree spoke after Mama’s death, almost twenty-four hours later. 

His eyes leaked salt water, just like Mama’s that day when they were taken into captivity. 

Captivity. 

Tree was a captive. 

Of a world that stole away his family. 

His freedom. 

His mother’s ability to “stretch her legs”. 

They’d killed her. 

Indirectly, yes, but it definitely felt like murder. 

If they hadn’t taken her forest, her daughter, her mate, she would still be alive. 

Tree wanted to feel the burn of anger, but bleakness overtook him. He wished for any sort of feeling, even if it was anger, but he had gone numb. 

“I know,” Grass said. 

I know. 

Tree leaned into Grass, feeling a barrage of different emotions. 

They’d taken his family…but maybe if he fought, they didn’t have to take away his happiness. 

“Grass…they took her, they killed her,” Tree said raspily. 

They had. That was what they’d done. 

“They killed my dad, too. Because he fought. They killed him.” 

Grass didn’t say a word but looked at Tree with deep understanding in his giant brown eyes. 

Somehow, this was what Tree needed.

Rain came to Tree later to give him her condolences. 

“I’m sorry, Tree,” she said, her eyes plunging to the ground. 

“It’s okay,” he said, knowing his voice betrayed the lie.

He saw her mother coming up behind her.

“Oh, is she staying because of the tornado?” Tree asked, trying and failing to look happy. 

“Yeah, but I’m just…I’m so sorry, Tree.” Rain scampered off, and Tree blinked back tears. 

The next day, Tree awoke to a surprise. 

Bark. 

“I’m dreaming,” he said. “There’s no way this is real.”

“Tree,” Bark said, nudging him. “I’m real. I survived the tornado, so…they relocated me here.” 

“Really?” Tree’s eyes bulged. Then, as he remembered the terrible events of the day before, he came to Bark’s side and told her, “Mama’s dead, she’s gone.” 

Bark nodded. “I heard when I first came earlier today.” Her eyes spilled tears onto the ground. 

Tree knew this was the universe’s way of giving him back something after he’d lost everything. He thought he’d lost his whole family. 

He’d come very close. 

But Bark was here…she was alive…and finally, they could get through this together. 

The End!