The Elephant Gate

Kevin slowly became aware he was uncomfortable. There was something jabbing his side, and his nose tickled. The last thing he remembered was seeing his mom's face before the funny-smelling rubber mask covered his face. But where was he now?

He reached out a hand and touched wood. It felt like the wooden bench in his backyard, but much rougher. And he was hearing click-click noises to his left. And his nose was tickling. He opened first one eye, then the other before sitting up. His vision swam for a moment as a momentary pain flashed across his head, and then cleared. He looked around with wonder.

He was sitting in a square, covered building. The sides were open, but it didn't look anything like his neighborhood in Richmond. It looked like the pictures he had seen online of tropical places; palm trees, bushes covered with colorful flowers, smooth green lawn.

He looked down at himself. He was dressed in his favorite Green Lantern pajamas, the ones without the footies. He scootched to the bench edge and tentatively lowered his feet to the wooden deck of the gazebo. It felt solid beneath his feet. He finally stood up, a little unsteady but with growing confidence.

He climbed down to the cool grass, walked the short distance to the nearest palm tree, and touched it. It was real! Where was he? Was it a dinosaur park? Or a zoo?

"Who are you?" said someone from the other side of the gazebo. Kevin spun around to stare wide-eyed at a little girl, who was hiding behind on of the trees a few feet away. He decided to stay where he was.

"I'm Kevin. And I think I'm lost. Who are you?" The girl looked like the teenage Mutant Jubilee, except she was wearing a blue dress instead of a yellow trenchcoat. Maybe he was in a comic book?

"I'm Surikitiya." Her accent sounded funny to his ears. "This is my home. How did you get here?"

Kevin thought for a moment, then shrugged. In that span of seconds his imagination and child's heart accepted this moment despite all the strangeness of it. Despite the strange way she spoke, she was just an ordinary little girl.

"I dunno. I woke up in the wooden house, but I was in hospital before then." He rubbed his head. Wait! He had hair! It was shorter than before, but it was still there. He touched the back of his head, and felt a raised area that wasn't there before. It didn't hurt, but it felt kind of bumpy. "The doctor was gonna open my head. I guess I'm all better, but I bet I have a cool scar, just like GI Joe."

"GI-who? I want to see your scar." And with that, the little girl skipped out from behind the tree. She was a little bit shorter than he was. Up close her dress had all kinds of sparkly threads on it. She grabbed his arm and tugged on it to bring him to her level. Kevin squatted down so she could see the back of his head.

Her tiny fingers pushed through his hair until she touched the scar. "Oooh," she breathed, "It feels just like a flower!" She pulled his hair a little harder to see better. "It is a flower!"

"What?" Kevin yelped, and stood up so quickly that the girl fell back with a thump. He didn't want to have a flower on him, that wasn't like G.I. Joe! Her face screwed up and she took a big breath. Kevin knew she was going to wail; his best friend in school Bobby had a little sister who made just that face.

He reached down and hauled her up and gave her a hug. "I'm sorry." He said. Momma always told him to be nice to girls, 'specially when they cried. "I didn't mean to knock you down." She sniffed for a minute or two, and Kevin judged it safe to let her go. "What do you mean by flower?"

She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand and pulled her dress straight. Taking his hand, she said, "I'll show you." She hauled him towards a little pond with white flowers in the middle. Along the sandy edge, she sat down and drew a shape with her finger.

Kevin looked at her scrawl. Did it look like a flower? He couldn't tell, but oh well, it was still cool to have a scar.

His stomach rumbled, and he suddenly realized he was hungry. She giggled, her fall completely forgotten as she grabbed his hand again with the single-mindedness of a little princess, and tugged until he gave in and started walking with her.

"Come on, Khun Pa will make you something to eat." Kevin found himself following her even though they'd just met.

They walked around a large hedge and the wooden house disappeared from view. Kevin stopped and pulled her up short. She turned and looked at him.

"Where are we going again, Sur'kya?" Kevin didn't like the way he sounded, but he was worried, and he could hear it in his voice. Nothing was familiar here. What if that wooden house was the only way home? Momma always told him to go to a safe place when he was lost, and it was where he first woke up.

"There! We just hafta follow the path."

Just past the trees there was a huge house, almost like a palace. It was pink, which Kevin thought was a girly color, but the roof was black, and it was all outlined in white, so it didn't look like a dollhouse. He looked down, and saw there were flat stones embedded in the grass. They were greenish-gray and didn't really stand out unless you looked really hard. When he glanced back, he could actually see the crown-shaped top of the wooden structure above the thick hedge. A wave of relief washed over him when he realized he could find his way back.

He allowed himself to be pulled into her wake as she walked determinedly towards the house.