And Kevin immediately flops onto his back with a hysterical giggle. "Hi Paras. I'm Kevin." He pries his fingers off the knife with his other hand and rubs the sensation back into it.

Mr. Wonka skips and hops back at their landing site with a hatful of the choicest fruit in his arms, whereupon he is greeted by the sight of a pair of scuffed, bruised, and battered combatants lying winded and giddy on the wet and leaf-strewn ground. Apparently, the boy Kevin and the strange colossal (intelligent??) bug engaged in a duel (??) in the brief interval he was away and have now become friends (??) as a result.

"Ah, what an unexpected and dare I say scientifically fascinating development! Specifically, I am delighted to report that I found apple trees nearby! Quite likely to be a previously-unknown varietal, to boot!"

Kevin extends a weary thumbs-up Wonkaward. "Congrats! I, uh. Paras likes to fight. He's Paras because he calls himself that."

"Paras."

He crouches down closer to bug height. Good heavens, the way the little plated segments fit together perfectly like armor. And are those mushrooms growing in its back, he wonders?

"Oh, I am absolutely charmed! Delighted! Honoured! I call myself Willy Wonka. What a surprising creature you are—and redoubtable duelists both, it would seem."

The Paras selects a particularly large and healthy-looking specimen from the mushroom pile, then climbs onto Kevin's leg and starts eating it (the mushroom, not the leg).

Kevin giggles. "I'm a bench. So do you have any idea how to get back to the factory or do we just live here now?"

"Not a clue, dear boy!" he says happily. "We're on a proper adventure, myself included. I told you my Bon-Bons Voyage were something, didn't I!"

He frowns. "Now I suppose I could invent a sweet that puts us back safe and sound in our own boring beds, certainly I could, but what would be the use of that? It's a dreadful way to live—and a terrible thing to do to a confection in any case. No, I think for the moment we find ourselves in the thick of life, and we should do all we can with it. We'll find our way in time."

You know what Kevin doesn't see any of around here? School. No homework either, unless it's hiding in the trees.

"I'm definitely having fun so far! You're not gonna miss all your machines and stuff?"

"They are marvelous machines! But the factory is, in the end, an extension of my own mind, which I've still got, and most importantly, there is so much more for me to do and see here than there.

Actually, I've been meaning to go on holiday for some time now. Charlie Bucket deserves a chance to helm the factory on his own, and the Oompa-Loompas can take care of—"

He closes his eyes in sudden exasperation.

Mayday! Mayday! And S.O.S.!
We find ourselves in some distress!
The boss has had an accident,
and we're quite puzzled where he went!

Perhaps he's in a better place,
like Panama or outer space,
or fallen far enough to see
the backrooms of reality?

Or maybe not! He may be dead.
We'll have to manage in his stead.
And what a shame for such a gent
to perish in an incident
forewarned by signs so bright and wide
a fish could read them if it tried!

For all he loved to ogle books,
he never spared such longing looks
for Rules—perhaps their prose lacked wit;
Perhaps he was a hypocrite
who thought as boss he was exempt,
and viewed such guidelines with contempt?

With due respect (we'll say it nice)
We have some pertinent advice:
You cannot be too high to fall!
The posted signs include us all!
So if you see them, don't be daft—
Avoid the elevator shaft!

Mr. Wonka will try his best not to imagine it.

"Er...and the Oompa-Loompas can take care of the rest. They're terrifically efficient. Not to mention inventive."

Kevin was the first person in his tour group to succumb to shenanigans and remains blissfully unaware of the Oompa Loompa Greek Chorus. 

"I wonder where we are. Do you think we could be in the Amazon? I've heard there's giant bugs there. But it's not wet enough."

"Oho, now that's an interesting riddle, isn't it? I have, at this point, only the vaguest speculation. Somewhere in the subtropics seems likely. Perhaps an island—as you may already know, what with the ecological vacancies, island species often become larger (or smaller) than their mainland cousins ordinarily find tractable.

But I sense deeper mysteries afoot here—for one thing, that insects are not normally so...playfully intelligent. I'm curious what you make of that. I have some half-baked theories, of course, but I shall be keeping them private for a little while longer. If we're lucky, perhaps our situation will become easier to see after dark, hm?" Twinkling smile.

"Do you think we're in outer space?!"

"That would be the coolest thing ever."

"I'm so glad you think so." Approving chuckle. "It wouldn't explain why there are apparently apples and bamboo here—or, for that matter, us—but it would certainly be a start. And it would add a real touch of intrepid wilderness to our outing, I'd say."

"It sure would." Kevin looks down at the Paras, which climbed off him when he stood up and is now perched decadently atop the mushroom pile. "Are you a space alien?"

"Par par?"

"It's too bad we don't have saws and stuff so we could build a treehouse. I guess we can sleep in the elevator."

"Well, if the long view of history teaches us anything about human nature, it is that we are born without hammers, and that this absence is invariably highly temporary. But in the meantime: yes! My lovely glass Elevator will be a safe and starry place to lay our heads."

Tender sidelong glance at the Elevator, shot through with dappled light.

Kevin gets distracted mulling over what order things must have been invented in. He knows some things from school about what technology the native Americans had, but not what order they got any of it in. There was something called a stone age that was a really long time ago, but doing anything with stone seems like it would require more tools than doing anything with wood . . . 

A small leafy plant a meter or so away from them wiggles and shifts at no apparent provocation.