Ruby is initially hesitant to go, as she insists that the mall is her home and Ivan and Bob are her family. Weeks after George and Julia put Ivan’s painting on the billboard, a woman from the zoo named Maya comes to take Ruby and Ivan to the zoo. To try to save her, Ivan paints a huge painting of Ruby at the local zoo with other elephants. It’s not until Ivan sees Mack using a claw-stick to train Ruby that he grasps how essential it is that he follow through on his promise to Stella. Ivan does his best to comfort Ruby and try to entertain her-and he promises Stella right before her death that he’ll do what he can to give Ruby a better life. While she was at the circus, trainers kept Ruby chained to the floor for 23 hours per day, which Stella explains to Ivan was intended to break Ruby’s spirit. She explains that “bad humans” captured her and killed her family-but she also tells Ivan and Bob about a time when she fell into a deep pit, and good humans rescued her and then helped her find her family again. Like Ivan and Stella, she was born in the wild and was then captured. Mack purchases Ruby from a bankrupt circus and, over the course of her time at the mall, she shares her story with Ivan and Stella. She loves telling and listening to stories, and she also loves jokes. Ruby is inquisitive-she asks questions constantly-and very stubborn. Ruby is a baby elephant whom Mack purchases to try to reinvigorate the Big Top Mall’s daily shows.
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