The flight attendant wheeled her trolley cart along the aisle and stopped by our row. The woman next to me in the window seat had nodded off, so I gave her a tap.

“Beef stroganoff?” said the flight attendant brightly.

“Oh yes, that’s mine,” said the window seat woman, who hastily unlatched her tray table to receive the food. I leaned back as the flight attendant handed her her meal.

“Linguini alfredo?”

“That’s me, thanks!” I said, as I accepted my meal from the flight attendant.

She turned to the woman in the aisle seat, a dour lady who hadn’t spoken much at all in the five hours we had shared so far. “And for you, ma’am,” she said, producing a fancy red-and-blue box from the lower shelves of the trolley cart, completely unlike all the other meal trays, “here’s your mystery box.”

The woman accepted the box quietly on her tray table, as the flight attendant turned across the aisle to deliver the passengers in 23D-23F their meals. Then she unlatched the box.

At once a giant tentacle shot out of the box, waving across the aisles, its rows of suckers pulsating wetly. Hysterical screams echoed from across the cabin. Then the tentacle wrapped itself around my aisle seatmate, constricting her, and retracted all the way back into the box with her.

Another tentacle shot out of the box. This time I leaned as far as I could away from the box until I was practically pressed against my poor window seatmate, who had already gone into shock from the appearance of the first tentacle. After a few seconds of waving, it deposited a small girl into the aisle seat. She had on an oversized shirt with flecks of paint on it, and she looked nothing like the fifties-ish woman who had just disappeared into the box. The tentacle snaked back into the box, which shut itself of its own accord.

The girl turned to me. “Hi, I’m Cassie,” she said.

“Um,” I said. “Emily.”

“Where am I?” she asked. She was very calm for a six-year-old that had just been regurgitated out of a mystery box via giant tentacle.

“You’re on a plane, sweetie.”

“HOLY MOTHER OF—” squealed my window seatmate, who had just come to. “WHAT THE FUCK JUST HAPPENED?”

“Shh! Don’t scare her!” I said. “Also, language! She’s a kid!”

“Where is my mommy?” inquired the girl.

“Um,” I said, “I’m sorry. I don’t know where your mommy is. But just stay here, um, until the nice lady with the cart comes along again, and she’ll help you find your mommy, okay?”

“And whatever you do,” chimed my window seatmate in between breaths, “please don’t open that box.”

“Yeah, don’t open that box.”

“Why?” asked the girl, who began to fiddle with the latches, only to stop when the flight attendant came by.

“Cassie!” the flight attendant gasped, her eyes lighting with joy as the girl leapt into her arms. “I’ve been worried sick about you honey—”