“Wait. Do I want to see the secret project the two of you have been sweating over every waking moment all summer?” He paused dramatically, then said, “I do.”
They laid out a sheaf of art paper in front of him. On the top page, they had hand lettered “The Many Adventures of Alex Hawk. (Manta-ak)”
Alex was truly surprised. She thought they had been working on creating their own characters or drawing Harry Potter scenes, which was their latest obsession.
“It’s you, Dad!” Sanda said proudly.
Alex turned the first page. It showed him standing in the basement with a black, shimmering door in the corner. The next panel showed him stepping through it and fighting the karak-ta, then being captured by the Winten-ah.
“We left out all the boring stuff,” Amy said.
“Yeah, we just tried to put in all the things people would like.”
Alex smiled and slowly flipped through the pages. They managed to convey things like Lanta-eh being born on the summer solstice and even showed the half-moon birthmark on her hip. Alex turned a page to see their version of the battle of Denta-ah in a full-color splash page. Alex’s heart stopped. Standing beside him was Senta-eh, bow drawn, about to rain death upon the opposing force.
Tears sprang to Alex’s eyes. “This is your mother,” he said to Sanda.
“I know,” she said simply.
“But... how do you know what she looked like. You got every detail of her right.”
“Oh, that’s easy,” Sanda said. “Haven’t I told you? She comes to see me when I sleep.”
“No,” Alex said, shaking his head and letting the tears roll down his face. “You haven’t told me that.”
“Doesn’t she come see you, too?” Sanda laid a concerned hand on Alex’s shoulder, imitating the Winten-ah gesture of comfort.
“No,” Alex said again. “But that’s okay. It’s you she would want to see. She’d already seen plenty of me.”
Alex turned the pages and saw all the stories he had told the girls over and over brought to life—fighting the Dandra-ta, meeting Tokin-ak, being shipwrecked and stranded on the island. They even drew a picture of the man being dragged away by the gator while he had diarrhea.
“That one’s our favorite,” Amy said, pointing to it. “Sanda did that one. Isn’t it good?”
“They’re all wonderful,” Alex said, turning the pages. There were pages that showed the burning of Lasta-ah, the fight to the death with Draka-ak, and the rescue of Lanta-eh.
“Girls, I am absolutely amazed at this. You conveyed everything without using any words.”
“We thought we might go back and add some lettering later.”
“I wouldn’t. I think it’s perfect just like it is. Although you do make me a lot more heroic than I really am.”
“Dad,” Amy said, “that’s not what Sanda says. She says that everyone there knew you were a hero.”
Alex picked both girls up in a massive bear hug and held them close, loving them.
“This is the coolest thing ever. And you’ve given me an idea for a project now.”
“What, what?” they shouted together.
“Just like you made me wait to see this, you’ll have to wait a few days. Not too long though, I promise. Can I borrow these pages for a few days?”
“Yes,” Amy said. “We wanted to give this to you as a Father’s Day gift, but it took us a lot longer than we thought to finish it. We wanted it to be good.”
“It’s better than good. It’s great,” Alex said.
Three days later, when Sanda and Amy came out of their bedroom in the morning, there was a steel box sitting on the dining room table. Beside it was a stainless-steel tube with a screw-on cap on one end.
They ran to the box and saw the inside was also lined in stainless steel. They threw it open, but aside from the lining, it was empty.
“Is this our surprise?” Sanda asked. “An empty box?”
“Yes,” Alex answered, “but it’s a very special empty box.” He paused and looked from one of their faces to the other, and back again. “Because today, we’re going to Winten-ah.”
Both their mouths fell open. High-pitched squeals filled the air, and Alex knew he had miscalculated. They had been begging to go back through the door for years, but Alex wouldn’t hear of it. Now he knew he had overpromised.
“No, no, sorry. Not like that. We’re going to drive out to where Winten-ah is. I’ve always wanted to see what it looks like now.”
The girls recovered as young girls are capable of. A drive and hike in the country was also good.
“But what’s the box for?” Sanda asked.
Alex held up their drawings they had given him. “I took these to the printers and had a color copy made.”
“Cool!” the two girls said together.
Alex produced the copies, rolled them up, and slipped them inside the tube. He dropped the tube inside the box. It fit perfectly.
“Sanda, do you still have the toy that the visitors gave you on Prata-ah, that day?”
Sanda put her finger to her chin in an exaggerated thinking pose. After a moment, she said, “Yes!” and ran back to their shared room. Rattling and the sounds of items being tossed on the ground followed, then she reappeared, holding the gray blob.
There had been a time when she had played with it every day, but as with all things, eventually it was put aside for new interests.
When Emily had given the blob of material to her, she had also given a small bottle of the green liquid to Alex. She had warned, “This will harden the design, but don’t do it until she is done playing with it, because it is permanent.”
Sanda had never created a design that she liked enough to be permanent, so Alex had never applied it.
“Do you still want to keep this? “
“Do you want it?”
“I could use it for this project, yes.”
“Then you can have it,” Sanda said, making a final pronouncement on the subject.
Alex took the gray material and warmed it with his hands. It could be stretched amazingly thin, and that’s what he did,
