Dora squeezed through a curtain of hanging vines and gasped. There, sprouting from the mossy earth, was the first car engine — its chrome leaves still wrapped in green.
She knelt and pressed her palm flat against the warm metal. The engine hummed like a sleepy cat. A leaf brushed her wrist, and she followed the sound deeper into the green.
Dora scrambled up a mossy root and saw more — little cars dangling from branches like fruit, their headlights glowing soft and yellow.
She reached for one, and it revved its engine and rolled down a vine, bumping against her knee. She laughed. Three more cars — blue, yellow, green — appeared behind it.
The blue, yellow, and green cars rolled down from different branches, forming a line behind the red one. They rolled away through the ferns, their engines purring.
Dora followed, stepping over twisting roots and ducking under hanging vines. The red car stopped. It turned its headlights toward her and revved once, as if saying hurry.
Dora pushed through a final curtain of leaves and gasped. The Car Jungle stretched before her — cars growing in every color from the ground up.
The little red car drove up and bumped her shoe twice. Then the others gathered around, their headlights flashing in a pattern that made Dora laugh out loud.
Dora sat cross-legged among the cars as they tucked themselves into the moss, their engines ticking softly like crickets at dusk.
She leaned down and whispered, "I'll keep your secret." The red car curled up against her ankle, its warm engine still humming.
Dora rested her hand on its roof. She felt the steady tick-tick-tick of the engine against her palm, and she knew — this was hers to guard.
The jungle hummed around her — engines purring, headlights blinking, a whole secret world tucked beneath the leaves. Dora smiled and stayed.