In the distance she hears a MOTORCYCLE climbing a mountain road. She puts down her brush and puts a COFFEE POT on a grill over the fire. She adds a couple of pieces of wood to make the fire hotter.

INTERCUT:

Bop, now standing, hungrily suckles Mimi’s milk, as the other females reassuringly caress her with their trunks. Mimi makes a soft rumbling sound.

INTERCUT:

RAPHAEL TORRES, a handsome mustached man in his early forties, wearing a bandanna and leather, climbs off his Harley, and, grinning, brings her a BAG with the Burger King logo. He flips it to Shirley as he plants a kiss on her forehead.

                                    SHIRLEY
                        Oh, god! That is so romantic!

                                    RAPHAEL
                        Hey, what can I say? I know you don’t like me to
                        spoil you. Only medium fries. (Looking at her latest work):
                        What’s with the elephants?

She pours him a coffee.

                                    SHIRLEY
                        I’m expanding my line.

INTERCUT:

Bop sleeps on the jungle floor curled up against Mimi. Mimi listens to the night sounds and rests her trunk protectively over the baby.

                                                                                                CUT TO:

3. EXT. – THAI JUNGLE – MORNING                                                         3.

A misty gray dawn overlays the jungle. Mimi, trailed almost on her feet by Bop, silently emerges like a huge phantom. Using her trunk she rips some palm fruit off a tree, dropping it in front of her hungry baby. Bop doesn’t know how to use his trunk to get the fruit into his mouth, so Mimi demonstrates the procedure with her own trunk. The baby unsuccessfully attempts again to make his trunk work and bellows in frustration when he fails to get the food into his mouth. Patiently, Mimi picks up the fruit and deposits it in Bop’s mouth.

Mimi’s attention immediately switches to something she hears in the jungle. Her ears turn slightly. Protectively she encircles Bop with her trunk and squeezes the baby against her. Momentarily WE HEAR someone walking in the jungle, coming closer.

A Thai man in his mid-thirties, MAITRI, dark skinned, wiry, slight of build, but muscular, sights them without surprise.

                                  MAITRI
                           (In subtitled Thai)
                        Hi, Mimi. Well, you got it done. Good work. Looks
                        like a boy.

He holds out for Mimi a branch with four clumps of bananas, each bunch containing about ten bananas. Eagerly she reaches out her trunk and takes the whole branch from her mahout. She holds the bananas in front of Bop. The smell excites the baby, but he is confused regarding what to do to do with the fruit. Mimi lowers the bananas to the ground, where she uses her trunk to tear off one fruit which she puts in Bop’s mouth.

Maitri watches, laughing while the baby tries to figure out how to grasp another banana with his trunk. Clearly the newborn requires much practice operating his proboscis.

                                      MAITRI
                               (In subtitled Thai)
                        You have a couple of days to train him, Mimi. We
                        need you back at work.

He chains Mimi’s right hind leg loosely to her right front leg. She can move around without great difficulty, but cannot easily travel far. Suddenly afraid, Bop stumbles as he tries to back away from Maitri. The mahout just laughs and pats the baby on the head as he passes by him.

                                      MAITRI
                               (In subtitled Thai)
                        Listen to your mother, little boy. Then I’ll teach you
                        the rest.

He strides off through the jungle, headed in the direction from which he came. Bop stumbles on Mimi’s chain and squeals as he tries to get to his mother’s milk.