She has to coax the tiny baby out of the truck when she arrives, and she hurts her foot in the process. Stella is incensed by this turn of events. So the owner, Mack, purchases a baby elephant to attract more people to the mall. The Big Top Mall is experiencing financial difficulties, since Ivan “isn’t cute anymore.” He’s not attracting as many visitors as he used to. Her foot often bothers her and gets reinfected. She used to work in a circus and only came to the mall after sustaining an injury to her foot. Stella has also told Ivan that she believes he’ll see a real gorilla again someday, and Ivan believes her because she’s old and wise.

Though they mostly watch Westerns, Ivan once saw a gorilla on a nature program-and that’s the only reason he knows he’s not the only gorilla on earth. Ivan also watches TV with Bob, a small stray dog who sleeps on Ivan’s belly every night. She’s an artist too, so they understand each other. In the evenings he listens to Julia, the custodian George’s daughter, talk to him. Ivan spends his days eating and drawing pictures for the gift shop. He lives in his “domain,” a cage made of glass and concrete so that people can look at him all the time. However, Ivan isn’t totally sure who he is-the depiction of him on the billboard by the freeway shows Ivan as an angry, dangerous beast. While the other animals at the mall (like Ivan’s best friend, an elephant named Stella) perform in three shows per day every day of the year, Ivan doesn’t have to. Ivan introduces himself: he’s a gorilla, and he’s lived at the Big Top Mall and Video Arcade for the last 27 years-fortunately, like all gorillas, Ivan is patient.

Ivan by Katherine Applegate