HE LOOKED EVERYWHERE; behind the pay phone on the first floor, under the bench by the number 5 bus stop, between the display racks of the phone shop on the fourth floor. He asked every person he knew, from the man-with-the-bags to the old-lady-with-the-orange-scarf. He felt the words dissolving on his tongue. No one understood what he was talking about. A hamster-rabbit? What’s that? And he, the whole time, throughout the entire desperate search, didn’t know if he wanted to find his hamster-rabbit because he was worried about her or because he wanted to punish her.

It had been hours, and the missing hamster-rabbit refused to be found. Alvin was slowly coming to terms with the loss of his first and only pet, promising himself that by evening he’d forget about her. Passing the supermarket for the third time, he spotted her. She was going up the escalator to the fourth floor, sniffing the rail. Alvin broke into a run. He cut past three people on the escalator even though his mother said he should always wait patiently. He turned left and saw the hamster-rabbit slinking underneath the tables of the pizza parlor, nipping between the legs of the security-man-whose-son-died-in-the-war and slipping through the door and out of the station.

It was the smell that made him realize he was outside, the acrid scent of petrol and diesel coming from the buses and taxis. Alvin coughed and looked around. The words he knew could describe and define only some of the things he saw. The people zipping past him. The honking of the vehicles and the tall buildings. The problem was the things that were similar to what he knew, but not exactly the same. The buses that seemed particularly small, each with a slightly different color and shape. The signs brightening up the street in red, yellow, and green. The trees, which were significantly bigger than any tree he had ever seen inside the station, sprouting and spiraling into the sky, which was also different. Something about its clarity. As if it was a cleaner blue than the one he saw through the windows of the station. But before he had time to contemplate all this, he felt fear lunging at him. He was staring into the unknown.

Amid the jumble of background noise he heard the hamster-rabbit’s whistle and then saw her, not far from him, trying to flee the stampede of feet surrounding her. A fat soldier with a big duffel bag accidentally kicked her, knocking her to the curb. He bent down, tried to see that she was okay, but the hamster-rabbit had already crossed the road, and Alvin hurried after her.