The smile kept spreading in complete understanding of the look on the
elephant's face and he probably would have laughed aloud had not the
picture somehow made him think of something, he couldn't just remember
what. A dim idea seemed to be trying to break into his mind but couldn't
find the right door. In his effort to puzzle out what it was the
elephant made him think of, Jerry entirely forgot the large red apple
and the perfidy of Danny.

"What're you lookin' at?" called Danny, who had stopped half a block
farther on when he no longer heard Jerry's pursuing footsteps.

Jerry did not answer. Instead, he squatted down on the grassy bank
between the sidewalk and the billboard and feasted his eyes on that
delightfully extravagant elephant which seemed almost to wink at him.
Jerry half expected to see the elephant grab the moon and balance it on
the end of his trunk, or toss it up into the sky and catch it again as
it fell.

"Come on, Jerry, if you want the core," called Danny again. "That's all
that's left."

"Don't want the core," said Jerry. "It was my apple. The lady gave it to
me." He didn't even look at Danny but kept staring at the very purple
elephant and the very red moon almost on the tip-end of his trunk. He
just wouldn't let Danny Mullarkey know that it made any difference to
him whether Danny and Chris and Nora and Celia Jane liked him very much
or not.

No, and he wouldn't feel so terribly bad if Mother 'Larkey and little
Kathleen didn't like him, either.