Jason Albertson

Brock wasn't happy. His language arts teacher had given his class an assignment: write a dictionary definition for "trunk." He understood that there were multiple possible meanings. So far, he had come up with this: An elephant's nose A sturdy box The center part of a tree The enclosed part of a car where you put big stuff The part of your body that is not arms, legs, or head It seemed too simple. Surely his teacher meant for him to turn in more than 35 words. It wasn't that he wanted more work to do, but he wanted a good grade for this class. Brock sighed and flipped open the novel he was reading, Warriors: Jungle March . (It was the elephant-based spinoff of the dog-based spinoff of the popular cat-based fantasy series .) He was at the part where the hero, Olliparulus, leaves his loving family to fulfill the prophecy or die trying. Olliparulus stands on the last mountain on the horizon, silhouetted against the dying sun, and raises his trunk ...

Brock opened his eyes. His head was slumped onto a desk, which meant he was at school, and he had just been asleep. He straightened, pulling his head up through the fog. A teacher-ish person was looking at him with some impatience. He couldn't pull up her name. Or what class he was in. Not good. "It's a one-word answer, Brock. You know this." Uh-oh. She must have asked him a question while he was asleep. His mouth would have gone dry with panic if it hadn't already been dry from hanging open while he slept. He looked around the classroom, trying to get some context for what kind of question it might have been. The room had some books, some desks, some kids, two windows--yes, everything pointed to this being a classroom, but that wasn't much help. There were some trees outside the window closest to him, but there are probably trees outside most windows in the world. He tried to swallow calmly. He failed. The only option was to wing it. "Trunk,...