Free Tua and the Elephant by R. P. Harris

said the girl. Then she spun around on her heels and skipped down the path singing, “
Hoon lai ga, hoon lai ga,
nobody wants a
hoon lai ga.
”
    “What’s in there?” asked the brother, standing on tiptoes. He could see stalks swaying in the cornfield.
    “A demon from the forest went in there,” the boy in the sarong whispered. “With bloodshot eyes and tusks like a wild pig. Do you want to see it?”
    “No!” The brother stumbled backward. Then he spit on the ground and said: “I don’t believe in demons and spirits,” and ran off to catch up with his sister.
    “You can come out now,” the boy called to Tua. “They’re gone.”
    Tua led Pohn-Pohn back to the path, trying not to trample too many cornstalks.
    “They would have told their father about the elephant,” the boy said. “Farmers don’t like elephants very much.”
    “Thank you,” Tua said. “What’s your name?”
    “Kanchanok.” He blushed and looked down at his feet.
    “Why did they call you
hoon lai ga,
Kanchanok?”
    “I come from a village in the hills,” he said. “My father left home to look for work, and he didn’t come back. Now I must work to support my brothers, sisters, mother, and grandmother. I don’t have money to go to school.”
    “I’m sorry,” Tua said.
    She took off the bodhi seed bracelet and slipped it over the boy’s thin wrist.
    “Thank you for helping us,” she said. “This was a gift from my friend Noom at the temple. MyUncle Sip says gifts that are shared travel in a circle back to us.”

    Kanchanok turned the bracelet around on his wrist like a knob that opened a smile on his face.
    “Would you like me to take you to the sanctuary?” he asked.
    “Would you?”
    “Of course,” he threw out his chest. “Mae Noi is my friend. She taught me how to read and write. But we’ll have to cross the river and go through the forest so no one sees us.”

    The motorcycle with sidecar came to a turnoff at the bottom of a hill with a sign over the road that read:
    Elephant Haven
    Nak stopped the motorcycle in the middle of the road and gunned the engine, attracting the attention of a gatekeeper and a chocolate-colored guard dog with a razorback.
    The dog bared its teeth and growled back at the motorcycle.
    “Easy, Fudge,” said the gatekeeper. “Don’t much like the look of them, do you?”
    The motorcycle accelerated around the bend, sped up the side of another hill, and pulled over to the shoulder.
    “Look there,” Nak pointed his finger at the river below. “They’re crossing the river with that buffalo boy and going into the forest.”
    “Maybe they’re going to set it free in there,” said Nang.
    “They’ll come out of the forest and cross into the sanctuary there,” Nak pointed up river. “We need to get to the river and cut them off.”
    “How do we do that?” Nang threw up his arms. “There’s a guard. And a dog.”
    A raft floated downriver just then with two
farangs
on board.
    “By craft.” He chortled, then slapped down his visor and sped off down the hill.



CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Into the Forest
    After luring Tua and Pohn-Pohn out of the river with sticks of raw sugarcane, Kanchanok led them into the dense forest and onto a small dirt path. The forest leaned over the path, threatening to swallow it up. A line of green tufts grew between two dusty tracks as if bursting through a seam. The tree canopy blocked out the sun, sending down long vines of grasping tentacles and shivers down Tua’s spine.
    When they heard voices up ahead, Kanchanok steered them off the road and into the cover of the forest.
    An elephant appeared on the road, carrying a mahout behind her neck and two
farangs
in awooden saddle on her back. The
farangs
were laughing and taking pictures of themselves. After they passed, a young elephant only a few months old came running clumsily after his mother. The mother stopped so the baby could catch up, but the mahout struck her face with a bamboo switch and ordered