Si's first night Outside continues

Uncle Si walks down the road happily stomping the mud from his boots as he goes. He has no idea where exactly he's going which is both a little scary and quite exciting. He's never been anywhere before so everywhere he goes is somewhere he's never been! Along the way to nowhere-in-particular, he notices a particularly bright glow way off in the distance and decides that going toward that bright glow is as good a choice as any other.

But getting to that light is not an easy journey. Jumping ditches and walking over fields of gravel and crossing roads and avoiding cars and big trucks is particularly challenging for Uncle Si, who is only four inches tall on his tippy toes. When he comes to a chain link fence, he tries to slip through one of the diamond shaped holes but his big head gets stuck and he has to wiggle out backwards and try to find another way to where he was going. After walking for quite a distance away from the fence but still toward the glow, he comes to a group of concrete walls formed into something like a big (everything is BIG when you're four inches tall!) shelter, covered with a concrete roof.

As he walks slowly inside, Si immediately knows what this is. He heard many Uniforms talk about running to the bunkers during rocket attacks and having to stay there until what the they called the "Big Voice in the Sky" came over the loudspeakers proclaiming it was safe to come out. He always thought it sounded exciting to run to the bunkers, and looked forward to his chance to see them and maybe hang out inside one, but going into one in the dark, with only a small stream of light from a nearby building, is actually a little spooky, so Si keeps going, perhaps a little faster now, through the bunker, knowing he was almost to where he wanted to go.

Finally he gets to the big glow he's been heading toward all night, which tuns out to be a courtyard at the entrance to the biggest building he's ever seen. In front of that building are two flags: the U.S. flag and the Afghanistan flag. Uncle Si knows the red, white and blue one is the American flag, and has since he was a young toy. He knew the other was the Afghanistan flag in the same way he'd come to know about bunkers, from listening to the Uniforms. Looking at the flags fluttering a little in the light, Si thinks this will be a great place to find a cozy corner to sit and wait for morning.