Me: I would like to say, before we begin, that I absolutely positively do not agree with Sophie's view of London. That's just her, not me. I have no intention of offending people. Enjoy!

The screen door squeaked open, and Sophie Stevenson staggered through, then stumbled and fell from the weight of her cargo. Undaunted, she sat up, blew her frizzy red hair out of her face, and got to her feet. Then, she reached for the fallen garbage bag and slung it once again over her shoulder. This was quite a feat considering she was barely three feet tall and the bag was about the size of a small horse.

It was a fairly cold night, but then it was usually cold in London. She had moved here from America two weeks ago, for reason's which were beyond the six-year-old's comprehension. Her mother had been saying something about how thing's are always happening in London and she was tired of missing the excitement. Sophie thought their was plenty of excitement in America, but she was only six, so her opinion didn't count.

Everything was different here: the school, the dress code, the accents…Her mother loved the accents, and was forever trying to imitate them. She encouraged her daughter to do the same. It was like trying to convince a cat to grow fins and swim. Sophie was proud of being an American, thank-you-very-much! California was her home, and anyone who said otherwise would get a size-five shoeprint on their shin.

One thing remained the same though: chores. This included taking out the garbage.

After successfully crossing the driveway, she let the bag fall on the side walk and carefully rolled her shoulder, checking for permanent damage. Then, she reached up, removed the lid of the trashcan, and was nearly run over by the black blur that suddenly darted out of it. Having escaped it's prison, the blur then took off on all fours down the street, before turning out of sight.

There was a moment of silence as Sophie stared after it. The silence was broken by the sound of muffled yelling, footsteps, and a loud crash, all which seemed to be coming from the trashcan. A moment later, a grappling hook shot out of it and caught on the edge.

Then, a head popped out.

"Oh, hello there!" it greeted cheerfully.

Sophie stared. The head gave her a toothy grin, then yelped and disappeared. A muffled bang echoed through the can. "…Ow." A few seconds later, the man reappeared and heaved himself over the edge. Now on the street, the man stood up, straitened his bow tie, and looked around as though searching for something.

The man was unlike anyone Sophie had ever seen in her short, six years. He had a thin, wiry frame with a mop of disheveled brown hair atop his head. He was wearing red suspenders and a tweed jacket, both of which were incredibly old-fashioned. Underneath the jacket, he had on a striped dress shirt, with a red bow-tie that seemed to be thrown in just for the heck of it. All in all, his outfit made him look incredibly out of place.

That and the fact that he'd just climbed out of a trashcan that was a good two feet shorter than he was.

Being a child, Sophie could think of only one logical explanation. She tapped the man on the shoulder. "'Scuse me, Sir. Is it bigger on the inside?"

He whipped around so fast, Sophie had to take a step back. "What?" he asked.

"My trashcan," she clarified, oblivious to his strange behavior. "How did you fit in there? Is it bigger on the inside?"

Comprehension dawned on him. "Oh, right! No. It's not." He grinned at her. "It's a interplanetary gateway. Very inconvenient. Never know when one will pop up. One second, you're going through your closet, and the next you're on top of a volcano! Only this isn't a volcano. Or a closet. Can you imagine having a volcano in your closet? Though I suppose you wouldn't need a heater. Have you seen my dog?"

Sophie wisely decided to ignore the subject of gateways and volcanoes, instead latching on to the one thing she could make sense of. "Your dog?"

The man grinned at her. "Yes. Well, no. It's not mine. Well, it is mine, but it's not really. I don't own it, but-"

"You're looking for a dog," Sophie simplified.

"Yes," he replied, peering again down the street. "Have you seen it? It's black. But it doesn't have a nose. It's a nose-less dog. From Barcelona. Not the city Barcelona, the planet Barcelona. I'm there. But not anymore. I mean I was there. But now I'm here." He grinned at her giddily. "Aren't gateways amazing?"

Sophie blinked in surprise and peered down the 'gateway'. "I have a planet in my trashcan?"

"Yes. Well, no. It's a gateway. To a planet."

"So the planet's in the gateway and the gateway's in my trashcan. Wouldn't that make the planet in my trashcan?"

"No. Yes. Maybe?" He pouted, annoyed at her logic, and suddenly leaned over her, looking suspicious. "It's because you're ginger, isn't it?

Sophie frowned. She wasn't sure what 'ginger' was, other than I type of seasoning. She was fairly sure she wasn't seasoning. "Are you-..crazy?", she asked him, completely serious. She'd just stopped herself from saying 'mad'. That was an English word, and she was American. She would always be American.

He grinned at her again. "Almost definitely." Then, he glanced down the street again. "But I really need that dog. It swallowed my screwdriver. Not the first to do it, either. It was once eaten by a shark. A flying shark. Well, technically it was swimming through fog, which wasn't really actual fog, but a collection of-"

"The dog went that way," Sophie interrupted, pointing down the street. not wanting to keep the crazy person around. He seemed harmless enough, but after growing up in San Francisco, she'd learned to avoid crazy people, especially at night.

The man grinned in the direction of the dog. "Wonderful!" He took off down the street without so much as a thank you.

Sophie stared after him until he disappeared, then glanced back at the trashcan. Unable to resist, she leaned over the edge and peered inside. All she saw was the bottom of a trashcan. She frowned, then shrugged. Oh well. Then, she picked up the giant garbage bag and, after a lot of grunting and heaving, finally managed to get it over the edge and into the trashcan.

CRASH!

"Oi! Rory!"

"What are you yelling at me for?"

"I've got egg in my hair!"

"I-It fell from the sky!"

"Rory!"

"It did!"

Sophie cringed. "Sorry!" she called down the can, then slammed the lid on it and ran inside.

Once the door was closed, she giggled madly. She couldn't believe it! Her very own interplanetary gateway! Her mom was right; England was interesting! Maybe coming here wasn't such a bad thing after all. She did have a portal to another world in her trashcan, after all. Being six, Sophie found nothing unbelievable about that; she saw portals on cartoons all the time, and if it's on TV, it must be real. She'd never seen one in a trashcan before, though.

Sophie was grinning through her whole supper, her mind full of planning. She took out the trash every night! She could enter the portal then, and her parents would never even know it! She wondered what type of planet it was. Was the sky purple? Was the grass purple? Did it even have grass? Maybe it had aliens! Maybe she could bring back alien stuff, like ray guns! Momentarily, she considered getting a flying saucer, but she didn't think it would fit through her trashcan.

Her thoughts were interrupted by shouting from outside, mixed with the sounds of barking. The crazy garbage man! He must've found his dog! Quickly excusing herself, Sophie made a mad dash outside.

She threw the screen door open, and sure enough, there was the garbage man, grunting and muttering as he threw his weight against a black shape. Walking closer, she found the shape to be a dog with its hindquarters sticking out of the trashcan. Giving one last shove, the man finally pushed the yelping dog over the edge.

"And back you go!" he cried, before dusting his hands off.

Shouts immediately came from the can, mixed with the panicked yelping of a dog. "Ah! Hey! What the-"

"Eek! RORY!"

"It wasn't me!"

The garbage man raised his eyebrows in surprise at the voices, then dashed to the can and leaned over the edge. "Ah! There you are! Keep a hold of that dog, will you?" That being said, he scrambled over the side and slid down the rope. A moment later, the grappling hook detached itself.

BONK!

"Ow! Doctor, what-"

"Oh, good!" replied the garbage man. "You caught the dog! Just a moment…" A high pitch whining sound suddenly filled the air.

Then, the trashcan exploded.

Sophie stared in horror at the wreckage and debris where the can had once stood. That man had just destroyed her portal! How-How dare he! That was her only chance for freedom, and he just went and blew it up!

She stood there, looking forlornly at the scattered remnants of her gateway, even as her parents called her inside. As she turned begrudgingly toward the door, she vowed that she would find that garbage man. She would find him, and make him take her to another planet! It was only fair, since it was all his fault!

Of course, Sophie searched for days with no results. After awhile, she forgot about the crazy man in the bowtie and moved on to other parts of her life.

She didn't see him again until about four years later, when a lizard melted her school bus.

Me: See that shiiiiiiiiny blue button down there? Poke it!

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