The One And Only Ivan

Ruby asks Ivan many questions, including why he loves art. Ivan answers that when he’s creating a picture, he feels “quiet inside” (86). Ruby continues with her endless questions, until Ivan pretends to sleep. He’s “surprise[ed]” by a memory of his father sleeping while Ivan tried “every trick” (87) to awaken him. Now, it occurs to Ivan that his father may not have been “such a sound sleeper after all” (87).

George give Stella—“his favorite” (88)—a treat as he does every night, then tells Mack the elephant’s foot might be infected. Mack responds that with his finances as they are, he can’t pay for a vet “every time she sneezes” (89).

Ruby wakes Ivan and Bob up very early because she’s bored. Ivan tries to tell Ruby a joke, but she doesn’t understand the human words, so he ends up drawing her a picture of a refrigerator as an explanation. Ruby is astonished to discover he made something out of nothing—that this is “art” (94). When he draws her a banana, she says, “It looks good enough to eat!” (94). Her laugh reminds Ivan of a bird he heard every morning when he was still a child in Africa—a memory he’d completely forgotten. By the time Stella wakes up, still struggling with her foot, Ivan has made many pictures for Ruby and she says she “really like[s]” him (95).

Ivan remembers once asking Stella if she had children, and she said she never had the chance. Stella told Ivan the most challenging part of parenting must be “keeping your babies safe from harm” (97), and Ivan responded that silverbacks do the same for their children. Ivan tells Stella she “would have been good at protecting” (98), but she’s not so sure.

Mack observes that business has picked up at the mall since he added Ruby’s picture to the billboard. Ivan agrees that humans love “oohing and ahhing” over the baby elephant—but, feeling forgotten, Ivan “could use a few oohs and ahhs [him]self” (100).

Ruby tells Ivan about the time she wandered away from her family and fell in a gigantic hole dug by humans, with water up to her neck. Bob assumes the humans—with their hearts and souls smaller than a rat’s or a roach’s—took her captive, but Ruby insists the people saved her by pulling her out of the hole with ropes. The villagers even spent an entire day finding Ruby’s family and returning her to them. Stella says she’s heard similar stories and that sometimes, “humans can surprise you” (104). Bob counters that “if humans are so swell” (104), why is Ruby in a cage at a mall? Ruby says that “bad humans” brought her to the circus and killed her family—but the people who saved her from the hole “were good” (105). Bob and Ivan both conclude that humans are impossible to understand. 

During the mall circus’s two o’clock show, Stella’s foot hurts so much she can’t do tricks, and by the four o’clock show she can’t even walk into the circus ring. By seven o’clock, Stella can’t leave her domain, and Ruby must perform alone. On her own, “Ruby is a hit” with the clapping audience, and Ivan isn’t sure “whether to be happy or sad” (107).

Julia brings Ivan “something she calls Magic Markers” (108), but Ivan doesn’t want to make art—he’s too concerned about Stella. Julia also notices how sick Stella is and begs her father to call Mack, who says he’ll call the vet in the morning if she hasn’t improved. Julia sits near Stella until she leaves, without doing her homework or even drawing a picture.

In the middle of the night, Ivan calls out to Stella and asks her to make a promise. Ivan promises before he even knows what Stella is asking, and when she says “never mind,” that she’s too “addled” (112) to think clearly, Ivan responds that he already knows she wants him to watch over Ruby. Stella says Ruby “needs a safe place” to live, somewhere other than a mall, and Ivan gives his “word as a silverback” (113) that he’ll care for the young elephant.

Ivan can sense when Stella has died—he knows “the way you know that summer is over and winter is on its way” (114). He remembers Stella once joking that “gorilla hearts are made of ice,” while elephants feel more with their hearts “of fire” (114). Now that Stella’s gone, Ivan “would give all the yogurt raisins in all the world for a heart made of ice” (114).

A rat—“a reliable sort”—tells Bob Stella was disposed of in a garbage truck, and “it took five men and a forklift” (115) to do it.

Ivan wants to “comfort” Ruby after Stella’s death, but he can’t truly tell her that the older elephant lived happily, the way “she was meant to live” (116). The one true statement he can make is that Stella “died with those who loved her most nearby” (116)—including Ivan himself.

When Julia learns Stella has died, she cries all night and even confronts Mack—Ivan hears the words “should have” and “wrong,” but Mack just walks away with “droop[ing] shoulders [117). Even George has wet cheeks, Ivan notices.

Ivan asks Bob to look in on Ruby, and Bob reports back that he told Ruby Ivan was “going to save her” (118). But Ivan is already regretting his promise—how can he save Stella, when as he puts it, “I can’t even save myself” (118)? In response to Ivan’s lack of confidence, Bob forces Ivan to say aloud that he is the One and Only Ivan—and, Bob tells the gorilla, “don’t you ever forget it” (119).

At night, Ruby cries because she misses her aunt Stella, as well as her family back in Africa. Ruby begs Ivan to tell her a story about when he was little, but he tells her he doesn’t remember his childhood. Then Ruby’s “soft sobs” prompt him to, “slowly and deliberately,” attempt “to remember” (122).

Ivan begins to remember his past and recount his childhood both to Ruby, and the reader. Ivan was born in a rain forest in central Africa, a place “so beautiful, no crayons could ever do it justice” (123). He had a twin sister, whom his parents named Tag because she loved chasing Ivan. Ivan also loved playing with his sister, and he remembers how they would both jump on their father’s “tolerant belly” until he let out “the Grunt,” a sound that told them “Enough!” (123). For Ivan and his sister, the game “never got old” (124)—although their father might have a different opinion.

Ivan’s parents called him “mud” because he was constantly drawing pictures—sometimes with leaf sap or fruit juice, but usually with mud. People might not think mud is worth much, but to Ivan, “it was everything” (125).

Ivan describes his family or “troop,” which included his father, the silverback; four adult women, including Ivan’s mother; three younger gorillas; and Tag and Ivan, the “babies” (126). The family was happy to do what they “were meant to do: to feed and forage and nap and play,” all following the lead of the silverback, who was “guide,” “teacher,” and “protector” (126).

Ivan remembers growing up as a gorilla, learning skills like making nests and traveling from tree to tree by vine, as well as how to be “kind” and “loyal” (127). As Ivan says, growing up is the same no matter what species you are—“You make mistakes. You play. You learn” (127). For a time, as a young gorilla, Ivan experienced “a perfect life” (127).

This chapter states simply that on a day “when the hot air hummed,” the “humans came” (128) into Ivan’s perfect world.

The humans caught Ivan and Tag and placed them in a crate “that smelled of urine and fear” (129). Ivan realized that if he wanted to survive, he had to forget about his “old life” (129)—but his sister couldn’t do the same. The past held her “like a vine,” both “comforting” and “strangling” (129), and she died in the crate.

Mack bought Ivan and treated him “like a human baby” (130), putting him in diapers and feeding him from a bottle. At the time Mack had a wife, Helen, who was “quick to anger” (130) when Ivan broke things—things including a crib, glasses, a couch, a TV, and his own toes. As Ivan grew older, Mack and Helen continued to treat him like a child, taking him to baseball games and the movie theater in what he calls a “glamorous” (132) life. 

Living with Mack, Ivan grew so stuffed with human food that his “belly ballooned” (133)—but he still hungered for what a gorilla needs, to play with and feel safe among fellow gorillas. He constantly reminded himself that if he lost himself in the past, he’d meet the same fate as Tag; yet he couldn’t keep from yearning for “the warmth of another just like me” (133). 

Once Helen brought home a still life painting of fruit in a bowl, and Ivan “marvel[ed] at the colors and shapes” (135). Inspired by the painting, he found a cake in the kitchen and used the frosting—which reminded him of mud—to paint on the refrigerator door. Ivan knew Mack and Helen would be angry, but he wanted, more than anything, “to be an artist again” (137).

After Ivan painted the refrigerator door with frosting, Mack and Helen forbade him from entering the kitchen again. 

When Mack first brought Ivan to the mall circus, “a baby gorilla dressed in a crisp tuxedo,” humans arrived “from far and wide” (139) to see him. Once, Ivan even held a human baby. Worried the baby would fall, he clutched her tight, until “her mother yanked her away” (140).

After many fights with Mack, Helen left, “slamm[ing] the front door” (141), and never returned. That night Ivan slept next to Mack, and Mack’s snoring reminded Ivan of “the rumble my father used to make when all was well” (141).

With Helen gone, Mack became “sullen,” even as Ivan grew “too big for human life” (142). At first, he was happy to move to the mall domain, where he wouldn’t worry about breaking things—but he “didn’t realize [he’d] be here quite so long” (142). Now, Ivan is no longer sure what he’s “supposed to be” (143)—a human, or a gorilla.

Back in the present, Ruby has fallen asleep, but Ivan is still reeling from the fact that he’s finally remembering his past. He decides to use one of Julia’s Magic Markers to write an X on the wall for every day he’s lived with humans. When he’s finished, 9,867 X’s cover his wall “like a parade of ugly insects” (146).

Early in the morning Mack arrives, red-eyed with a “sharp smell” (147)—most likely drunk. Mack tells Ivan, “We’ve been through a lot, you and me” (147).

Mack disappears for two days, and when he comes back, he doesn’t mention Stella, but instead focuses on training Ruby to perform tricks. Ruby grows “exhausted” (149) and stops obeying Mack, but he continues pushing her. He even swipes a claw-stick just in front of the elephant to scare her, but Ruby isn’t cowed: Instead, she “makes a noise that sends the sawdust scattering,” “the most beautiful mad [Ivan has] ever heard” (152). Then she hits Mack below his stomach with her trunk so that he falls and “howls like a baby” (153).

After Mack “hobbles” (153) back to his office, Julia comforts Ruby and asks her father if he thinks Mack could actually harm Ruby. George hopes not, but Julia still wonders if they should “call someone” (154)—but George doesn’t know who they’d call, and with his wife’s medical expenses, he can’t afford to lose his job. 

Ivan watches Julia paint with watercolors, making color “unfurl like morning flowers,” and he’s entranced by her “magical brush” (157). She’s trying to paint Ruby, but she doesn’t think she has it quite right and gives the painting to Ivan. She also gives Ivan some finger paints and shows him how to use them. With the finger paints, Ivan can make handprints that, unlike those on his glass cage, “can’t be so easily wiped away” (160).

Ruby awakens from a nightmare of a painful stick, and then she worries that Mack is angry with her. She fears that she’ll die in her domain like Stella did, but Ivan insists that won’t happen “if [he] can help it” (165). Finally, he tells her that it’s not a domain—“it’s a cage” (165).

Ivan tells Ruby a story that he “hope[s]” is true, about a “smart and brave” (166) young elephant who needs to get to a zoo. Ivan repeats Stella’s words that a zoo “is a place where humans make amends” (166), and he tells Ruby the baby elephant in the story made it to the zoo because she had “a friend who made a promise” (167).

When Ruby goes back to sleep, Bob asks Ivan how he’s going to save Ruby, and Ivan admits he doesn’t know. Bob assures him “you’ll think of something” (168), but Ivan isn’t so confident.

While Bob and Ruby sleep, Ivan thinks about his promise, and he “remember[s] it all” (169).

In terse, emotionless language, Ivan remembers clutching his mother when the humans shot her and his father, then “chopped off their hands, their feet, their heads” (170).

Ivan says that in the store near his “cage” (171)—he no longer calls it his domain—there is an ashtray for sale, “made from the hand of a gorilla” (171).

Ivan sees the picture of him on the mall billboard, where he looks as angry as his “father did, the day the men came” (172). Ivan may mostly be “a peaceful sort,” but within him is “another Ivan,” one who “could tear a grown man’s limbs off his body” (173). Ivan looks at the red finger paint “the color of blood” (173) on his hands, and he realizes how to fulfill his promise to Stella.