My Tiki Girl by Jennifer McMahon

sidewalk, and he’s waving his wand in the air like he’s conducting all the action on the street: the women stopping for groceries on the way home, the dog sniffing the potted chrysanthemums in front of the 5 & 10, one-armed Lucky staring out the plate-glass window and seeming to give Dahlia a quick wink.
    We pass by Tip of the Cone, and I see Sukie and Heather sitting at a table inside. My first thought is God, please don’t let them see us. My second is that I know exactly what Sukie’s having: a caramel sundae with French vanilla ice cream and no nuts. It’s what she always gets. But when I chance a second glance through the window, I see I’m wrong. Milk shakes. They’re each drinking a milk shake—something Sukie would never even think of ordering.
    We cross Main Street without being spotted and go through Atkins Memorial Park, which is really just some scraggly flowers planted around a peeling white gazebo—a pretty pitiful gesture for poor old Mr. Atkins, whoever he was. On the other side of the park is School Street, and once we cross it, we’re at the low brick prison where Jonah spends his days. We cut across the playground, over the blacktop colored with bright lines of chalk from games of hopscotch and hangman, until we reach the chain-link fence at the edge of the schoolyard. Jonah shows us the break in the fence, hidden by the high shrubs in front of it. We crawl behind the shrubs, pull back the woven metal, and squeeze through to the railroad tracks. Jonah says that fifth graders sneak through the fence to smoke at recess, which is just what they did back when I went to school here. This is also where they drag kids to beat them up. Jonah knows from experience.
    The three of us walk along the tracks for a while, Jonah in the lead bouncing from tie to tie, Dahlia balancing on the rail in her clunky combat boots, and me watching my feet, crunching gravel and stumbling.
    We’ve been walking about ten minutes when we come to the Elff Soda factory, down the steep bank on our left. We can see men in blue uniforms walking around the trucks pulled into the loading dock, but can’t make out any details. I scan the parking lot of matchbox cars, looking for my father’s gray Saab. I think I spot it parked near the front entrance, and I’m sure he got a spot so close because he went in early. He goes in early and stays late. He’s what you would call a company man, my father, eager to impress. I stare at the massive single-story cement building, at the rows of tiny windows, and wonder if he can see me. If he could, I would just look like any kid from this distance, not a kid even, just a person walking with two other people, we’re that far off. Would my limp give me away?
    Does my dad’s office even have a window with a view of the tracks? In all the years he’s worked there, I’ve never been inside. My father doesn’t say much to me about his job at Elff, which could be because I’ve never asked. I make a mental note to bring it up at our next pizza night.
    Jonah believes my father is like a god, even though he has never met him. See, my father knows the elves who make the soda, which, Jonah informs me, is not just ordinary soda but magic elixir, each flavor its own potion. Black cherry, for instance, gives you the power to fly. Cola wards off evil spirits, even trolls. Grape heals you when you are sick or injured. And orange, Jonah’s favorite flavor, increases psychic abilities, which is how, he explains, he was led to the String Man’s cave.
    We’re climbing down the left bank now, not far beyond the soda plant but before we get to the green metal bridge that takes the tracks over a stream.
    “There aren’t any elves in the factory, Jonah,” I tell him. “Just regular people like my dad.”
    “That’s just what they want you to believe,” Jonah says. “Why do you think it’s called Elff if there aren’t any elves ?”
    “It’s named after a guy. Ronald Elff. He started the company a