by R. P. Harris
But that wasn’t all she found at the day market.
CHAPTER TWELVE
A Narrow Escape
“We’re looking for a little girl,” Nak told the omelet vendor after making a quick inspection of the market. “We’ll have two pad Thai omelets with chili sauce.”
“Good morning, gentlemen,” replied the vendor. “A little girl, did you say? Little girls come in many shapes, sizes, and colors. Tall, short, fat, thin; brown, pink, white, yellow, and black.” He tucked the noodles into their eggy blankets, scooped them onto paper plates, sprinkled ground peanuts on top, and passed them over the cart. “That’ll be thirty baht,” he said.
Nak paid the vendor while Nang fell on his omelet like a praying mantis.
“This little girl is rather … short,” Nak said.
“And she might be traveling in the company of a—”
“Relative,” Nak finished the sentence.
“That would be our Tua. Small for a girl of ten, she is, but as smart as a watch. Stays with her auntie on soi four sometimes, Lady Orchid the actress. Now, I don’t know if you gentlemen are patrons of the performing arts or not, but that’s one show you really don’t want to miss while you’re in Chiang—Hey, where are you going? What about your change?”
Both mahouts had just turned away from the vendor’s cart when Nang, who had been casting his eyes about for something more to eat, saw a small girl enter the market and elbowed Nak.
“Is that your street urchin?”
Nak turned in response to the elbow rather than the question (elbows speak louder than words), and was about to deal Nang a blow he wouldn’t soon forget, when his gaze fell upon Tua.
Tua met his gaze and froze in midstep like a chameleon.
Nak recoiled like a cobra ready to strike, pointed a bony finger across the market, and roared:
“STOP … THAT … THIEF!”
All eyes swung from the source of the roar … to the pointing finger … to Tua … to the source of the roar again. But none of the pairs of eyes knew quite how to respond. They couldn’t see a thief anywhere near where Tua was standing, so they froze as if waiting for someone to hit the “play” button on the remote control.
Tua took a tentative step backward … then another … and one more. The third backward step unloosed Nak like an arrow, and Tua dove into a pile of cabbages.
Vaulting over sacks of rice and stacks of plastic buckets, with Nang stumbling in his wake, Nak overturned tables and chairs, pots and pans, curry bowls and flower carts, until he reached the produce section and stood panting over the pile of cabbages. He plunged his fist into the mound, plucked out a cabbage head, tossed it over his shoulder, and began digging at the pile like a dog.
Tua was clawing her way to the back of the pile when a pythonlike grip encircled her leg. Suddenly she was dangling upside down and staring into the right-side-up face of the mahout.
“Gotcha.” Nak bared his teeth and snarled.
“Put her down, you filthy brute!” cried a voice.
Nak turned to identify the speaker, a stout woman with a withering scowl and a shimmering gold tooth.
“This doesn’t concern you,” he snorted, shaking off the distraction. Tua wriggled in his grasp like a fish, and he had to resist an urge to smack her with a hard, blunt instrument. There were too many witnesses.
“Yes it does,” said the woman. “Those are my cabbages.”
“I have no interest in your cabbages. This delinquent stole my property.” And he held Tua up closer to his face as if to make a positive identification.
Taking advantage of the moment, Tua reached out and gave Nak’s nose a twist.
“Ai-yee!” he yelped, and released his grip.
Tua dropped onto the pile of cabbages and, rolling to the ground, squeezed through the legs of the gathering crowd and sprinted down the soi to Auntie Orchid’s house. She had to get Pohn-Pohn out of there and be quick about it.
Just as Tua disappeared, a policeman began pushing his way through the crowd. “What’s the rumpus? Can’t a man eat in peace?” He pulled his cap down around his ears and plucked a napkin off his chest. “Make way,” he ordered. “Step aside.”
“The very man I was hoping to see,” Nak smirked at the crowd. “Constable, this mob has aided and abetted a dangerous criminal. She’s short, has a vicious temper, and went thataway. Approach with caution—she probably hasn’t been vaccinated.”
“What sort of crime?” The officer picked his teeth.
“The blackest crimes of all, sir. Theft of private property—and attempted murder!”
The crowd gasped as the officer reached for a notebook and pen. “What are the missing items?” He heaved an indifferent sigh. “Who was the alleged victim?”
“There is but one item missing. An elephant.”
The crowd gasped again.
“And the victim stands before you,” Nak added, pointing to his swollen nose.
“I didn’t see an elephant,” said the officer.
“It’s probably hidden with the rest of her loot. She’s a cunning little devil.”
“I’ll need to see your elephant’s license.”
“Eh? Elephant’s license? Of course.” Nak began to pat his pockets and look about for Nang.
Nang had melted into the crowd and was doing a less than convincing imitation of an innocent bystander.
“Nang,” Nak called out. “May I have the elephant’s license, please?”
“No,” Nang whispered.
“Don’t tell me you’ve left it back at the hotel?” He rolled his eyes in exasperation.
“No,” Nang spoke to the ground between his feet.
“Ah,” Nak said. “It must be in the hotel safe with our other documents.”
He leaned closer to the policeman and murmured: “I wonder if I might have a word in private.”
“Hundred baht,” the officer replied.
“I beg your pardon?”
“Or we could go down to the station and fill out a report.”
“Of course. I see. No need to bother ourselves with troublesome paperwork, eh?” Nak winked.
“What about my cabbages?” cried the woman with the gold tooth.
“And my spilled rice?” cried another.
“And my plastic buckets?”
“And my curry bowls?”
“And my flower pots?”
“One at a time,” said the police officer. “One at a time.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
On the Run
Tua tumbled through the front door, ricocheted from room to room, burst out the back, and, stopping at last with hands on knees and gasping for breath, shouted an alarm across the garden.
“They’re coming! They’re coming!”
Auntie Orchid was sitting in the lotus position under a bodhi tree with legs knotted beneath her on a pink and green pillow, eyes closed, and hands folded, palms up, in her lap. Pohn-Pohn, who was standing directly across from Auntie Orchid, had likewise crossed her legs and closed her eyes, and was curling her trunk in front of her face in imitation of the same pose. They each raised an eyelid and regarded the source of this interruption.
“Who’s coming, darling?” Auntie Orchid exhaled. “We don’t usually receive company this early in the morning.”
“The mahouts,” Tua shouted. “The mahouts are in the market!”
The devotees unknotted themselves and sprang into action. Auntie Orchid dashed into the house, while Pohn-Pohn trotted around the yard, looking for a place to hide.
Tua was torn down the middle. Her right foot wanted to follow Auntie Orchid into the house, and her left foot was lobbying to help Pohn-Pohn find a hiding place. Her right foot won the day. As Tua bolted for the back door, Pohn-Pohn retreated to her shelter and attempted to blend in with the scenery.
“Auntie,” Tua called out as she wandered from room to room. “Where are you? What do we do? Where are we going to hide Pohn-Pohn?” Her heart was pounding like a piston inside he
r chest.
The door to Auntie Orchid’s bedroom swung open and the actress, Lady Orchid, stepped into a shaft of sunlight shooting down from the window above the front door. She was wearing a Thai costume with bangles on her wrists and a golden crown on her head that glimmered like a temple. Batting her comely eyelashes, she turned her crimson lips up in a hint of a smile.
“Wat,” she said.
“What?” Tua repeated.
“Not ‘what,’ darling,” Auntie Orchid explained, ‘wat.’”
“What wat?” Tua asked, though she didn’t think this was quite the time to be discussing temples. (She didn’t think her auntie ought to be playing dress-up, either.)
“My little brother Chi Chi’s wat, sweetie. He’s being ordained as a novice monk. I’ve just spoken to him on the phone and he’ll be expecting you.”
“Wats have walls tall enough to hide an elephant,” Tua said, warming to the plan.
“An excellent point. But you mustn’t dawdle. It’s a long walk to the edge of the city, with perils and traps at every turn. I’ll remain behind and create a distraction while you make good your escape. It’s how they do it in the movies,” she explained. “What are you waiting for? Put your sneakers on. Reo reo!” She clapped her hands. “Hurry up, there’s no time to waste. Go out the back, into the soi, down the street, and over the moat. It’s across the bridge and just past the train station. And try not to draw attention to yourselves,” she added, before blowing a kiss and sinking back into the bedroom to make up her face.
“The shortest distance between two points is a straight line,” Tua reminded herself of the lesson she’d learned at school. Since point A was Auntie Orchid’s back garden, and point B was Uncle Chi Chi’s wat, a straight line between them meant crossing a very busy intersection on one of Chiang Mai’s busiest streets.
She looked up one end of the soi and down the other.
“All clear, Pohn-Pohn,” she said, trying to sound confident. But she was thinking of the “perils and traps at every turn” that Auntie Orchid had mentioned.
Pohn-Pohn reached her trunk over Tua’s head and sniffed the air.
“Try not to draw attention to yourself, Pohn-Pohn,” she said.
Then arm in trunk, they stepped out into the soi.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
The Diversion
Nak raised his clenched fist and was about to give the door a good pounding when it fell away and Lady Orchid appeared in its place.
“Here for the show, boys?” she purred, batting her unnaturally long eyelashes.
“Oh, yes, pleeease,” blushed Nang.
Nak bristled and shook his head like a horse. “No, we are not here for the show. We’re here for our elephant. What have you done with it?” he demanded. “And where’s that thieving little guttersnipe? I’ll have the law on the pair of you.”
“The law? Elephants? Guttersnipes? My, but you do have a fertile imagination. You aren’t by any chance connected with the theater, are you?”
“We’re street artists,” Nang said, hoping to impress this dazzling creature. “Animal acts, mostly. Card tricks. I used to play the bamboo flute.”
“I’ll have a look for myself, if you don’t mind. Outta the way,” Nak said. He attempted to brush past the actress, but she blocked his way.
“I do mind, as it happens,” Lady Orchid said, tapping his chest with a daggerlike fingernail. “Very much,” she continued, walking him backward to the end of the porch. “In-deed!” And she flicked the end of his nose.
Teetering on the edge, he reached back his foot for a step that wasn’t there … and toppled over like a sapling.
Lady Orchid curtsied, bowed, and blew kisses to her audience, real and imaginary.
Nang broke into applause. “What a show! What a performance! What a woman!”
“You had better see to your friend, darling,” she said. “He looks a little starstruck.”
“Can I come again?” pleaded Nang.
“Of course you can, you silly man. Tickets can be purchased at the box office.”
Then she batted her eyes, stepped inside the house, and closed the door behind her.
“Did you see that?” asked Nang.
But Nak was lying on the ground, gasping for breath.
“Let me help you up. Are you all right? That was a nasty spill. How’s your head?”
Nak pushed him away and steadied himself on wobbly legs. “She’ll pay for this,” he hissed.
“But I’m sure it was an accident,” Nang said in her defense.
Nak’s hand shot out like a cobra and bit Nang’s ear.
“Ow!” Nang cried. “You’re hurting me.”
Nak twisted the ear another notch. “Not the woman, you mongrel half-wit! The feral brat who stole my elephant. I’ll make her pay.”
“You’re hurting me,” Nang whined. “Let go.”
Nak looked down the length of his arm and drew back his hand as if from a flame.
Nang stepped away and rubbed his throbbing ear. Then, reaching for the medallion under his shirt, he mumbled an incantation.
“What’s that? Speak up.”
“That hurt,” Nang said.
“Of course it hurt, you superstitious clod. It was supposed to hurt. How else do I maintain discipline? Now come on, if you’re coming. I’ve got a score to settle with that brat.”
Anger spread across Nak’s face like a bloodstain, and Nang took two paces back.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
The Concrete Island
After glancing over her shoulder at the empty soi, Tua turned back to face the bustling street ahead. Motorbikes darted past like wasps, tuk-tuks trolled for fares, and red songthaew trucks pulled up to the curbside, unloaded their passengers, and gobbled up new ones. Cars and vans bullied each other, honking insults, gunning engines, and spewing exhaust.
“We’ll have to walk in the street, Pohn-Pohn,” Tua said.
Pohn-Pohn raised her head and rolled back her eyes. The street roared at her like a waterfall.
“Don’t worry,” Tua said. “I’ll walk on the outside and protect you from the cars. Just look straight ahead and follow me.”
The moment they stepped into the street, the observers became the observed. But they didn’t stop traffic so much as congest it, for every car, van, motorcycle, tuk-tuk, and songthaew veered in their direction to get a better look at the unusual pair. They screeched, honked, skidded, and gawked, while Tua, walking on the outside and cradling Pohn-Pohn’s trunk in her arm, stared straight ahead. As Pohn-Pohn lumbered past, every parked car cried out an alarm until the whole block was shrieking like babies in an orphanage. When they reached the intersection, Tua guided Pohn-Pohn across a lull in the traffic to a concrete island in the middle.
As Pohn-Pohn teetered on the narrow divider, spilling over into the lanes on both sides, Tua looked around her—and into the tinted windshield of a tour bus roaring down on them like a rogue wave.
A flash of sunlight reflected off the dark glass, blinding Pohn-Pohn.
“Look out, Pohn-Pohn!” Tua leapt onto Pohn-Pohn’s trunk as if expecting to pull her out of the way.
Pohn-Pohn opened her eyes and, seeing Tua dangling from her trunk, tossed her head out of the lane. Her ear flapped over her eye as the bus roared past in a blur. She set Tua down on the narrow island and began inspecting her.
“I’m alright, Pohn-Pohn,” Tua said, and hugged her trunk. “That was a close one.” When a gap opened up in the traffic, she led Pohn-Pohn across the empty lanes and down the embankment to the riverside.
As Tua gazed across the River Ping and down to the bridge below, she wondered how she would ever get Pohn-Pohn onto a busy street again. She sat down on a hollow log to collect her thoughts and make a plan. They had to cross the river somehow, or they’d never reach the wat.
“We need a boat,” she said. As she scanned the river for a boat or barge big enough to accommodate an elephant, Tua felt the log roll beneath her.
Pohn
-Pohn’s foot was on it.
“Not now, Pohn-Pohn.”
Pohn-Pohn rolled the log again.
“What is it?” Tua looked Pohn-Pohn in the eye. “What’s the matter?”
Then she looked over her shoulder to where Pohn-Pohn’s trunk was pointing … and saw a sagging tent, a spent fire, and a chain attached to a stake in the ground.
The log she was sitting on was the very same log she had hidden behind the night before last.
They were back at the mahouts’ camp.
Pohn-Pohn didn’t wait for Tua to speak; she lifted her off the log and pulled her to the river’s edge.
Tua planted her heels in the sand and pulled back on the trunk.
“We can’t swim across the river,” Tua said. “It’s too far. It’s too fast. It’s too deep.”
Pohn-Pohn waded into the swirling current up to her neck and, looking back over her shoulder, flapped her ears as if to say, “Come.”
Tua looked up and down the river one more time, hoping for a boat to come to their rescue. There were none to be seen. So she waded into the muddy water, climbed onto Pohn-Pohn’s back, clamped her arms around the elephant’s thick neck, pinched her legs tight, and closed her eyes.
“Okay, Pohn-Pohn,” she said. “I’m ready.”
Pohn-Pohn launched herself into the swift current with her trunk rising out of the water like a snorkel.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
In Pursuit
No sooner had Tua and Pohn-Pohn slipped over the embankment than the two mahouts came panting up to the intersection behind them. Nak stared up and down both lanes of traffic.
“Where could they be?”
“Move on, move on,” said a gravelly voice. “This isn’t a tourist attraction.”
Nak turned around and glared down at a wrinkled old man sitting on a footstool behind a folding table. He was selling charms, medallions, amulets, and talismans. Bare-chested and wrapped in a faded sarong, he leaned over and spit betel nut juice on the ground between his feet.