We scan the low, gently rolling hills dotted with colorful blossoms and shady umbrella-shaped trees and climb the highest hill to view the rest of the land. The blue forget-me-knots are soft and flexible, and we sit to remove our shoes and socks, sighing in pleasure as we stand, and our feet sink into what feels like shredded fleece. Someone points out the vast round houses abundant with window boxes and gardens blending into the scenery, and we plop onto our stomachs, not wanting the creatures who occupy them to spot us.

Piercing the tropical blue horizon north in the distance is a flat-topped mountain, its face studded with pine trees. A cheery golden—waterfall?—splashes the valley below. To its right bends a dirt path leading to the top of the mountain where a flower-fringed brook feeds the golden fall. Further right sits a huge glistening round castle house, its jagged crenels sparking as if on fire. Left of the brook in a fairy meadow abounding with frolicking iridescent flying things, bright sunshine glints off the tinkling leaves of a gargantuan tree. Further left looms a soaring, sheer rock wall, shading the dreaded dark side of the mountain below.

Eager to explore more, we head left, west, along the inviting curly hedge on flat grassy land for a few miles, knowing we’re too far away from the Secret Portal to flee predators but itching to
see more. We climb another tall hill filled with periwinkle blue sweet asylum flowers that smell like honey and see a ribbon of shining gold some miles away. On our way to check it out, we smell something else that makes our stomachs growl hungrily but can’t place what it is. When we reach the golden ribbon, we discover it is a river fed by the fall. Luminous gemstone-colored elephants wade, float, drink, and swim in it, talking and laughing like people. Across from the river, the land is flatter and lightly sprinkled with nutmeg-colored boulders.

Without thinking, we fly east like birds—that’s what’s great about using your imagination!—to the center of the land, where we spy a sprawling outdoor market resembling a flea market at home. It’s bustling with cheerful elephants colored like a multiple-stranded gemstone necklace. Two gemstone elephant statues tower in the middle of a fountain. Water sprays out of their trunks, showering the young elephants playing in its basin. A nearby orchestra plays festive
background music. Wandering around, we see vendors selling just about everything our markets do: books, crafts, furniture, food, personal care products, tacos, toys, you name it. Elephants stroll around with ice cream cones the size of sapling trees and donuts as big as truck tires.