Shhhh! Digital Media presents:
The Butterfly Dragon: Three For Women
by Brian Joseph Johns
Korea has had a very positive influence upon my life, even through some of the most turbulent times and have been close friends with me ever since. This first of three stories is dedicated to women, and to the Korean people.
It sees the return of some familiar Butterfly Dragon characters, though from a much earlier time in their lives.
She Made Me Sneeze
June 1996
"Where the heck did I put my tape measure?" the repairman cursed under his breath.
From the top of the folding ladder, he checked the other side of his tool belt, as sometimes he'd placed the lost tool in one of those pouches in a hurry. However, on this day he was certain that it wasn't there, and with a quick check a moment later, he'd confirmed just that.
He recalled that he'd used it last two days previously, when he was measuring for a replacement piece of baseboard for the fourth floor hall, just outside of the hobby room. Knowing that there were no nearby surfaces upon which to have placed it, he would have returned it directly into his tool belt. He climbed down the ladder carefully and scratched his head, suddenly perplexed by its absence.
Three floors up from where he was currently, in the room of one of the senior's home clients, a young girl sixteen years of age, with shoulder length blonde hair, two ocean blue eyes and a pair of opulent pink pearl lips measured out from one corner of the wall to the center of the room with the very same tape. She dotted the point on the wall with a marker from her pocket, and then grabbed a hook and fastener from the nearby coffee table, before which sat an elderly man in his comfy chair sipping from a mug of tea.
"That photograph was taken twenty-five years ago to this day," he said to the young girl, who while holding the fastener to the wall attempted to reach for the hammer, which she'd left on the coffee table just out of reach.
An elderly lady in a worn lab coat with a thick New Delhi accent, returned to the same room from the hall, and upon seeing the young girl reaching for the hammer, she quickly picked it up and handed it to her.
"Here you go Alicia," Sylvia held the hammer out to her.
"Thamks..." the young girl mumbled, pulling the nail out of her mouth and lining it up with the hook and fastener.
Then with the hammer in hand, she began to drive the nail into the fastener and hook, which tightened securely into the surrounding drywall. She then retrieved the delicately framed eight by ten inch portrait photograph from under her arm and hung it on the yield of her handy work carefully.
She took a step back to admire it, stepping to the side so that its owner could also enjoy its new home on the wall. She smiled, and awaited his approval.
"Absolutely lovely!" he said, holding the tea cup in his hand shakily as a tear welled up in his eye.
"Thank you," Alicia responded, thinking that he was referring to her handy work.
He was far too polite and considerate to correct her, and considered that he might have been referring to both her handy work and his long gone wife.
"Would either of you like to stay for a tea?" he asked Sylvia and then Alicia, shakily getting to his feet from the chair.
Alicia still have much to do that day at the senior's home, but she'd lived by an unspoken rule that when the opportunity came to lend an ear, she'd always try to accommodate such opportunity. Sylvia herself a resident of the home had become good friends with Alicia over the summer, the two sharing a common interest. Sylvia had been a recognized researcher and pioneer in the field of Quantum Biology, and the two had spent many hours talking at length on the subject.
On this day however, Sylvia had offered to lend her youthful friend a hand over the course of her day. She'd said that she preferred it to sitting idle in her unit absent of good company. Sylvia also saw it as the opportunity to become more familiar with the rest of the senior's home. Perhaps even to exert her unique perspective upon those within, for Sylvia truly understood the complexity of the fine thread that had become woven into the complex tapestry of the interconnectedness of all people, and the time and space they'd occupied.
The tea that Jolly had offered them was the entry point into another connection of some form, or at the very least the awareness thereof. Her and Alicia had discussed the matter a great deal and the concept had become a foundation to Alicia's understanding of the Quantum nature of reality. The topic had certainly sparked her interest in the connection between the brute force of numbers involved in evolutionary biology, while its Quantum nature had an implicit defiance of brute force alone. As if some probability derived implicit order was under the influence of conscious perception that eventually led to the complexity of life itself. We all were just threads weaving through time and space, made up of information and awareness that sometimes at key moments, became entwined with the weaving threads of the lives of others.
The next tea was just the beginning of the weaving of another such thread into theirs.
"I would be thrilled to enjoy a hot cup of tea with you," Sylvia, the younger of the two elderly residents responded enthusiastically.
"Care to join us Alicia?" asked Jolly once again.
"I can't think of a better way to enjoy our handy work," Alicia smiled, helping Jolly to get the kettle on and the tea cups in their saucers.
March 1953
Lance Corporal Melvin J. Laughton moved quietly, maintaining a tight coupling with the brick wall beside him. The sun was on its way down and the darkness crept closer as the night approached. At the corner of a rural intersection he stayed behind the brick wall, looking in either direction, first north and then east as far as his vision would allow him to see.
The silence was deafening, yet the destruction around him seemed peaceful and even serene in much the same way as a graveyard might seem to the living. Amidst the fallen buildings were structures that had miraculously gone unscathed. They stood defiant, like beacons of hope amidst the fallen. It was against one such building that Lance Corporal Laughton currently leaned, unsure of whether he should proceed further east, or stay put in wait of the advance of the 6th Regiment Of Korea, whom he knew would be moving in within the next forty eight hours.
Laughton had become separated from the rest of his regiment during a violent ambush they'd stumbled into. They had been approaching the eastern flank of hill 175 and were about to enter into rural Seoul, when they were shelled by regulars of the Korean People's Army 10th Battalion and elements of the People's Volunteer Army. He was isolated during the attack, running for cover in the opposite direction. Several 80mm shells detonated near his position, deafening him for a half hour as the rest of his regiment mounted a counter attack on the opposite side. By the time he was able to circle around to the right flank of the OPPFOR (opposing forces), the rest of his regiment had routed to the north west, while he remained cut-off by an enemy machine gun emplacement.
When he attempted to withdraw to the south so he could circle around to the west and regroup with his regiment, the OPPFOR had sent a forward observation team (assumedly for their 80mm Mortar crew) that cut off his route. He remained hidden for the better part of an hour, and used his map to plan a new route where he would rendezvous with the advancing Republic Of Korea's 6th Regiment. Through them, he could arrange for transport to reunite with his own regiment.
He'd kept a close eye on the KPA forward observation team for the better part of three hours before his opportunity to move came. It occurred when a fire fight broke out some three clicks to the west, possibly his own regiment encountering more resistance in the southern Seoul region. Using the cover provided by small arms fire and the OPPFOR's distraction, he pressed eastward for the remaining four hours of daylight, moving further north into the city for shelter and cover.
The city of Seoul had been, since the fighting first started in June of 1950, reduced from one and a half million to just over three hundred thousand people. During Lance Corporal Laughton's journey through the apparently derelict city, he'd only encountered one civilian thus far. An older woman very obviously scavenging the destruction for food and medicine. He'd watched her for some time with fascination, as she methodically scoured a nearby office building whose outer walls were a pile of rubble. She expertly moved from office to office, rummaging through wooden desks and cabinets for anything she could find. When he'd accidently knocked over a metal rod from a concrete pillar, making an intense racket, she barely looked at him, instead focused upon her salvage. She'd disappeared a little over two hours before, and his thoughts once again returned to his current dilemma.
He sat leaned against the corner of a solid structure amidst a sea of nearby rubble, across which he saw another larger building that might offer substantially better shelter for the evening, for it appeared to be residential. His eyes searched the path between his current location and the apparent entrance to this residence, when he noticed a little girl. She couldn't have been more than five years old, her face was tiny and pink, dirtied with several patches of dust from the surrounding debris. She watched him from across the way, unmoving and unsmiling.
To Corporal Laughton's right, he heard the sound of running paws on grass as a small dog, perhaps a Shih Tzu or Terrier of some breed approached him, its tail wagging as it closed on him. He reached out to offer his hand for the pooch to smell first. A sort of formal introduction he'd garnered. The dog immediately jumped back cautiously upon the offering, then stepped forward to sniff his hand. The dog's tail remained motionless for a moment, and then slowly it began wagging with enthusiasm. Corporal Laughton returned his glance to the little girl, whose glum face now harbored a curious smile. Corporal Laughton returned it and then some as he pet the dog.
The little girl's curiosity peaked and she began to run towards Corporal Laughton and the pooch. That was when something struck the Corporal as being wrong. There was some detail somewhere that he'd missed, that was practically screaming his name. Crying out to be known before it was too late, and only then did he see it.
It was far too obvious and blatant to miss, and perhaps that was the horrific genius of it. It was a grenade, on the end of a stick perhaps two feet tall, pried between two rocks on the lawn between himself and the little girl. His eyes traced the grenade and a thin wire, perhaps fishing line which was wrapped around the grenade several times, and followed a path just barely visible, eventually connecting to a concrete hook in the wall. By the time his mind had made the connection, his body was already in motion and he was up on his feet, his hands reaching out frantically for the little girl before she could reach the tripwire.
Just as her foot was about to cross the line, Corporal Laughton grasped her, flinging her upwards and away from the improvised trap. She flew backwards through the air as Corporal Laughton lost his balance, falling into the tripwire himself. Time stood still as he watched the wire pull on the grenade's pin, and a metal clip spring flew outward away from the device as smoke started to emerge from it. He recalled smelling the scent of sulphur or magnesium, as if someone had lit a match directly under his nose. Its fumes burning his nostrils and sinuses, making his eyes water. He watched for a moment in slow motion as this cloud of magnesium spiraled in the air from the grenade before he twisted his body, spinning as quickly as he could to put distance between himself and the now armed grenade.
With a final push, he was on his feet again and leaping in the direction of the little girl, though he couldn't remember if he'd done so to protect her, or to follow her. That was when he'd suddenly gone deaf. He felt a sharp stinging pain in his left shin, while his left shoulder blade was suddenly dislocated as if someone had struck it with a baseball bat. He tumbled to the ground on the other side of the street, just a few feet from the dirt that had once been the lawn. There beyond him the little girl lay on her back.
He lay still there for a moment, unable to move and not even sure if he was still alive. He watched the little girl for what seemed an eternity. She lay still, and then by some miracle of the heavens, she leaned forward, her face compressed as a stream of tears fell. She had no visible injuries and was for all intense purposes, very frightened. She got up and onto her feet, turning to run for the door to the residence which lay beyond Corporal Laughton's view. He watched her disappear behind the doorway, still unable to move.
He felt peaceful. A sudden warmth overcame him and what little evening daylight remained quickly faded into complete darkness.
The first time he woke up, it was the tongue of the little dog cleaning his face that had stirred him from the land of nod. It was dark and quiet. The sound of North Korean psy-ops could be heard in the distance as they repeated their perpetual oration in praise of the glorious Korean Empire somewhere in the northern part of the derelict city. In other circumstances it might have been aggravating, even maddening, but in this situation it had somehow become calming. As if he were simply in a hospital bed, hearing a radio in the nurse's area.
Corporal Laughton tried to lift his frozen face from the mixture of stone and dirt upon which it rested, but he found that it had become glued there by his own dried blood. He mustered the strength to try again, and screamed out in pain as he succeeded. His left shoulder was numb with pain, while his left shin felt shattered. Broken. Perhaps even twisted. For the life of him he dared not look at it yet for he feared what he might see. He knew that if he remained on his shoulder, that it would never heal properly and if he lived, that he would be horribly disfigured if he didn't correct his posture.
Once again, giving it every ounce of strength and will he had, he rolled over onto his back. As he twisted, another immense pain shot up through his left side, all the way to his shoulder and he once again returned to the land of nod. Quickly and silently.
The second time he awoke, it was the early morning sunlight warming his nose that had got his attention. The discomfort he'd felt before was now all but gone. He was on his back but not on the dirt and stone rubble of the road, but on the dirt and dried grass of the lawn outside of the residence. A rolled up pair of pants sat beneath his head as a pillow, and a pair of real wool blankets had been draped over him to keep him warm. He lifted his head attempting to get a glance at his left shin, and was greeted with the tip of a makeshift splint that adorned his lower leg, holding the two pieces of his bone together so they could mend.
When he returned his head to the rolled up pants, he felt the dog's nose tickle the side of his face and his ear.
Corporal Laughton laughed as the dog sniffed him, and then worked its way around to his other ear.
A shadow suddenly blocked the sunlight, and the face of a woman slowly took form. She had in her hand a pair of bowls. The first one filled with water and saline she'd made with sea salt. The second was filled with food. A sharp and pungent smelling mixture of red cabbage and other vegetables not unlike sauerkraut.
He saw the little girl from the corner of his eye, and then the lady spoke in harsh tones.
"안에 있으라고 했잖아!" she said firmly to the little girl, who immediately turned and ran to the doorway into the residence.
The little dog followed her.
The lady then squatted down on her feet, not quite sitting down, but resting on them nonetheless. She then began cleaning the left side of his face with a cloth soaked in the saline. Corporal Laughton could smell the stench of iron from his dried blood, though he could feel nothing from the left side of his face, nor could he hear anything from his left ear.
He tried to open his mouth, if for nothing else but to thank her, but he'd found that it was dried shut. She saw him making the effort, and she scolded him though her intensity was lost to him, for he could not understand her.
"움직이지 마! 상황을 더 나쁘게 만들고 있어요!" her eyebrows furrowed as she spoke.
She then gently but firmly began wiping his mouth, letting it soak in the saline for some time before wiping away the dried blood. He tried to open his mouth a second time, this time successfully, but nothing came out but air. He was dehydrated, as was the inside of his mouth nearly dry.
"매점을 가져와!" she yelled to someone inside of the residence.
A moment later, little feet and their tiny shoes could be heard quickly running towards them. The little girl stopped beside the lady and handed her a canteen.
"안으로 돌아가서 거기 있어!" the lady scowled and then returned her attention to his mouth.
She unscrewed the lid to a military canteen, though Corporal Laughton couldn't tell from whose military it had come.
She whet his lips only slightly at first with a little water, waiting to see if it caused a revulsive reflex in him. When he didn't gag, she poured a little bit more into his mouth. He quickly swallowed it, feeling his vocal cords regain their flexibility as if they'd been dried into edible rinds that had become lodged in his throat.
"hhhhhank hhhhank thhhhhank yoooou..." Corporal Laughton tried his best to speak, but found it difficult to make any meaningful sounds.
"말하지 마! 나머지! 나중에 말할 시간입니다!" she scolded him again.
"I cand unnerstan yooo..." Corporal Laughton responded, struggling again to speak.
"Don't speak! Rest! Time for speak later!" she spoke barely legibly with her thick accent.
With jeosgalag (chopsticks), she began feeding him the red cabbage carefully and in small pieces.
The spice and saltiness of the food made his eyes water, and his stomach creaked upon the first arrival of food in his body in nearly thirty hours.
The dog had returned, perhaps checking to see if the lady had accidentally (or intentionally) dropped any of the food. It apparently found a tidbit of the red cabbage, but alas it was not to the dog's tastes. As most dogs the world over, it favored meat and in this part of the world, sometimes salty dried fish or river carp. Recently however, it had taken to eating small rodents and whatever other critters it could find amidst the rubble.
She spent all of ten minutes feeding Corporal Loughton the entire bowl of food in tiny bits to ensure that he ate it all and didn't choke on it. After she'd wiped his face, she adjusted the pants beneath his head, and the wool blankets to cover him and left him in the sun to sleep.
There he remained for a long time, how long he truly had no idea of knowing. During his sleep, he heard the sound of other people arriving in the residence, and then an argument ensued in heated Korean language that he was certain must have involved at least some cussing. A few moments of tension ensued as he half expected to hear the report of a hand gun or possibly other small arms as whomever it was may have felt they had authority to do so. Thankfully though, nothing of that ilk occurred and whomever it was left without so much as a glance towards him.
The next day, he awoke to find the little girl hovering over him, a piece of grass in her hand which she was twisting and turning, at the base of his nostrils, tickling his nostril hairs. She laughed and giggled when he awoke to see her, and when he sneezed, she broke out into hysterics that ended with the older lady coming out of the house and chasing her back inside. He struggled to withhold another sneeze, only to have it backfire on him with twice the pressure. He sneezed in a fit several times, once again triggering the little girl into fits of laughter inside of doors. The sound of the older lady's footsteps could be heard inside, as the little girl ran from her, still laughing.
He fell asleep comfortably warmed by the sun, and the day passed quickly into night. Surprisingly, nobody had turned up to feed him and he wondered if he might have overstayed his welcome. Perhaps the lady had run out of food keeping him fed. Regardless, he didn't make a peep, nor did he try to get her attention that night. Instead, he practiced moving his limbs. Slowly at first, and then more and more, strengthening them for the time when he would surely have to leave.
His stomach filled with butterflies when he heard the sound of tracked vehicles nearby. Column after column of tanks drove into the city, as he waited intensely for the sound of gunfire and explosions. Much further in the distance, he heard what sounded like the thunder of large bombs, two-thousand pounders impacting the lines just south of Pyongyang. Then, a little closer, he heard small arms. A GPMG emplacement maybe? His mind returned to his unit the day he was separated from them. He envisioned them walking into a blind corner, and being cut down one by one by a fixed emplacement. That night he shivered in the cold air, the sounds of metal machinery continuing into the night.
By the next morning, he woke to hear the sounds of vehicles and then nearby footsteps. The Republic Of Korea 6th Regiment had arrived and were checking houses and buildings, one by one. Corporal Laughton awoke to find a Republic Of Korea Officer, a Captain standing over him.
"다쳤어?" the Captain asked Corporal Laughton.
Corporal Laughton reached for his tags, showing them to the Captain, who examined them, nodding affirmatively.
"번역기를 가져와!" the Captain yelled to one of the conscripted men.
Two minutes later, another Korean man arrived and greeted Corporal Laughton in English.
"Are you fine? We are with the Sixth Regiment. Were you being held prisoner?" asked the conscripted man.
"I'm fine thank you. No. Not a POW. I was rescued by a lady, with a little girl," Corporal Laughton explained.
"그녀를 여기로 데려와!" the Captain ordered another man.
"Is everything alright?" asked Corporal Laughton of the translator.
"Everything is fine. We just need to ask you some questions," the translator responded.
They brought the lady out in handcuffs. A piece of tape had been placed across her mouth.
"그에게 도움을 준 여성인지 물어보십시오." the Captain addressed the translator.
"Is this the lady that helped you?" asked the translator of Corporal Laughton.
"Yes. That's her. She saved my life! Where's her little girl?" Corporal Laughton found the strength to sit up.
"그에게 무엇을 먹였습니까? 당신은 그를 독살 했습니까?!" asked the Captain, who'd now pulled his service pistol from its holster.
"나는 그에게 내 음식의 마지막을 먹였다! 내가 당신 같은 사람에게 먹이지 않았을 음식!" she yelled at the Captain, spitting on the ground between the Captain's feet.
Inside of the residence, Corporal Laughton could hear the little girl crying. It sounded eerily familiar. Like the evening she'd averted death at the hands of the grenade trap. He struggled to figure out what the confusion was about and the thought occurred to him that this might be another kind of trap.
"미국인에 대한 정보를 그들에게 팔았습니까?!" he asked the lady, putting his pistol to her head.
"그로부터? 아니. 절대. 내 딸을 구해준 남자다! 지금 날 죽일 셈이야?!" she exclaimed, spitting again.
"Wait! Don't hurt her! She's..." Corporal Laughton pleaded with the Captain.
"Tell him! Tell him not to hurt her!" Corporal Laughton yelled at the translator.
"그는 그녀를 해치지 말라고 말한다. 그녀는 좋은 어머니입니다." the translator quickly said to the Captain.
"우리는 그녀가 북한의 동조자라는 정보를 가지고 있습니다. 그녀는 인민 지원군에 정보를 제공하고 있습니다!" the Captain accused her.
For a moment the tension became so thick, that time itself seemed to stop.
Then, Corporal Laughton did what he had to do. He stepped in front of the Captain's pistol, placing himself between it and the lady that had nursed him back to health.
The Captain then slowly withdrew his service pistol and returned it to his holster.
"그녀는 갈 수 있습니다." the Captain calmly responded.
"Why did that happen? Why did they ask?!!!" asked Corporal Laughton.
"전날 밤, 당신이 전선에 배치되고 있을 때, 북한군이 와서 당신에 대해 물었습니다." the Captain exclaimed.
"A night ago, when you were laying out front, a group of men from the Korean People's Army, the forces of North Korea came and questioned her about you," the translator explained what the Captain had said.
"What did she say?" asked Corporal Laughton of the translator, though he looked to the Captain.
"그녀는 당신을 고문하기 위해 당신의 상처를 사용하여 당신을 심문했다고 그들에게 말했습니다. 그녀는 그들에게 연합군의 움직임에 대한 잘못된 정보를 제공했습니다. 그들은 그녀가 거짓말을 하고 있다는 사실을 알게 되면 다시 돌아와 그녀와 그녀의 딸을 죽이겠다고 말했습니다. 그녀는 당신이 그녀의 딸의 생명을 구했고 그녀는 당신을 위해 더 이상 할 수 없다고 말했습니다." the Captain responded passionately as he spoke, looking at Corporal Laughton.
"She said she told them that she interrogated you, using your wounds to torture you. She gave them false intelligence about the movements of local troops and about you. They said that if they found out that she was lying, they'd be back to kill her and her daughter. She said you saved her daughter's life, and she could do no less for you," the translator explained to him.
"전쟁의 열기 속에서 많은 말이 나옵니다. 전투의 열기 속에서 많은 일들이 이루어집니다. 얼마나 많은 사람들이 말로 죽었고 얼마나 많은 사람들이 행동으로 죽었습니까? 사실 많은 사람들이 행동으로 구원받을 수 있듯이 말로도 구원받을 수 있습니다. 그것이 말의 힘입니다. 더욱이 여성의 연민과 신뢰." the Captain looked at Corporal Laughton intensely.
The Captain's years remained hidden within his eyes, a fierce thumos powering the man. The Captain left, heading for his command personnel carrier.
Corporal Melvin Jolly Laughton stayed with his regiment until the end of the Korean war. When the war was over, he found the lady and her little girl, introducing himself for the first time. Later that same year, Lan-Soo and he were married.
He quickly began a career in Seoul, where they lived for twenty years until 1971, when they moved together to Canada and remarried.
Return To June 1996
"That photograph was taken during the photo session for our second marriage," Jolly sat admiring Lan-Soo, rekindling his memories of a lifetime together before she passed away three years earlier.
Alicia wiped a tear from her cheek, Jolly leaning forward with a tissue for her which she accepted graciously, still gushing.
"What's a Lance Corporal, Jolly?" asked Sylvia.
"Well, it means a different thing in different traditions. For instance, in the United States a Lance Corporal would be called a Master Corporal or Section Corporal. In Canada, in places in Europe and the Commonwealth, the tradition of Lance Corporal goes back to the Mounted Cavalry and Foot Soldiers of the day. You see, the Lance Corporal was the Cavalier or Lance Footman charged with carrying the regiment's banner into battle, and he'd carry that colourful banner on a Lance for all to see, hence the rank Lance Corporal," Jolly reminisced about his days in the Armed forces and the Korean War.
"What about your daughter-in-law?" asked Sylvia, whose eyes were dampening.
"Wen-Lee? When we moved to Canada, she kept the house and stayed in Seoul, and started her own company. She makes natural medicines for colds, coughs and... you guessed it! SNEEZES!" Jolly began laughing to the point of tears coming from his eyes, as he recalled that day that his daughter-in-law to be had tickled his nostrils with bits of twisted grass to make him sneeze.
Alicia and Sylvia had a good laugh about it, and when all had calmed back down, Alicia asked him the question that had stayed with her all along.
"So what did the Captain finally say to you?" Alicia asked Jolly about the Captain's last words to him.
"I'll never forget what he said to me, that day. Its stuck with me for the rest of my life, as vivid as every day of the war itself," Jolly recalled.
Jolly recalled the words of the translator, though as if they'd been spoken by the Captain himself:
Many things are said in the heat of war.
Many things are done in the heat of battle.
How many have died by words?
How many have died by actions?
In truth, as many can be saved by words, as can be saved by actions.
That is the power of words.
Even more so though, the power of the compassion and trust of a woman.
Alicia was caught in the power of a moment. In the moment of the realization of yet another epiphany on her journey from a girl to a young woman. She sat pondering the Captain's words, along with Jolly, and at that moment they might have come to an understanding simultaneously.
"Oh my gosh, the time flies. I've got to get going or I'll be late for supper! Jolly, would you mind if I shared this story with my parents?" Alicia caught sight of the clock on Jolly's wall.
"Not at all. The more people who remember these moments, the better off we all might be," Jolly nodded the two women who made up his company.
Alicia picked up the measuring tape and the hammer as she got up to leave.
"Thank you so much Alicia, Sylvia. It really means a lot to me," Jolly stood and walked them to the door.
He means the compassion and trust of a woman. It truly means a lot to him, Alicia thought.
They both bid Jolly a good night, and Alicia walked Sylvia back to her room.
"Thank you for all the help, and for such a wonderful day!" Alicia gave Sylvia a hug.
"Thank you my dear. We both had fun today," Sylvia said gratefully.
"And learned a lot too. Oh, can you give the hammer back to Max?" Alicia gave the hammer to Sylvia, forgetting completely about the tape measure she'd put in her pocket.
"Of course I will. You get home safe and have a good meal. I'll see you next week," Sylvia said to Alicia as she closed her door.
Alicia quickly made her way downstairs on the elevator and grabbed her backpack from the office. After she said her goodbyes, she made her way out the front door and began the walk home.
When she was about three quarters of the way there, she couldn't remember if she'd brought her biology textbook with her or not, so she quickly stopped and checked her backpack for it. In the process, she accidentally dropped the tape measure onto the walkway of the house outside of which she'd stopped.
When she finally found her textbook, she continued on her way home.
However, the tape measure lay on the walkway just outside of a modest home in the midst of suburbia, where it lay for the entire night.
Until it was found by someone else...