HIV-infected Thai boy, a victim of smuggling, is making strides physically and emotionally in his temporary U.S. home.

Got is here and there, at once, everywhere.

Jumping and running.

Singing and dancing.

Striking poses and laughing.

“He’s just wild!” says Chutima Vucharatavintara, the gentle woman behind the transformation of this 3-year-old extrovert. “He’s changed. He’s different. I don’t know, he’s crazy!”

Vucharatavintara, 46, laughs, shakes her head, and lets her face drop in her hands. Her dismayed look seems to beg, “What have I done?”

Here’s the answer: In eight months, Got--the HIV-infected Thai youngster smuggled into Los Angeles as a prop in an elaborate slave labor scheme--has grown almost 9 inches, gained 6 pounds, learned to count to 10 in English, and is no longer afraid of strangers.

That’s a long way from the nights he spent in sleepless agony suffering from the chickenpox, high fevers and an ear infection after the plot--in which a man who rented him for $250 in Thailand to pose as his son as he attempted to smuggle his female companion into the United States--was thwarted by authorities at Los Angeles International Airport in April.

In an instant, Got, whose full name is Phanupong Khaisri, found himself at the center of an international struggle that some have compared to the Elian Gonzalez saga. The boy’s right to stay in America has been championed by activists who contend it would be wrong to send him back to the place where his HIV-infected father committed suicide and his HIV-infected mother is a drug-addicted prostitute.

Fourteen days after his arrival at LAX, Got met Vucharatavintara, the selfless Thai community activist who continues to serve as his temporary guardian. Since then, the fearful, sick boy has grown in size and confidence. As his infections healed gradually, the nightmares that kept him up at night, causing him to wail and cry so loudly that neighbors called the police, also vanished.

“I remember those days,” says Vucharatavintara’s 17-year-old son, Tre. “It was horrible. Every day in the middle of the night, exactly at 3 a.m, he’d wake up crying and crying. I’d come downstairs and put him back to sleep.”

Now, the boy who could not bear to be out of his caretaker’s sight and recoiled when strangers approached, is the teacher’s helper at his preschool. Got has learned to draw, paste and play board games, and loves tussling with Vucharatavintara’s sons, Tre and Anya, 10, and with Jason Chantharasomphoch, a 15-month-old boy who frequently spends the night at the family’s Highland Park home.

“He plays a lot now,” Vucharatavintara says, as Got whizzes past her with a toy airplane, laughing heartily from deep within his belly. “Nobody can stop him.”

And sometimes no one can understand him, especially when he’s singing, as he does many times each day. Like right now, when an inner spirit moves him to drop his airplane and start swaying to the melody coming out of his gaptoothed mouth. “Pa, Pa, Pa”--which means “auntie” in Thai and is his favorite moniker for Vucharatavintara--is all anyone can make out, but that doesn’t matter to Jason. He’s jamming to the beat.

“What language this is, nobody knows,” Vucharatavintara points out. “But everyone gets it. Even Jason know it’s music. He always dances. He loves to hear Got sing.”

When Got speaks, he still prefers his native Thai but his English is expanding. Familiar words make him smile; he repeats those he does not recognize.

“What’s your name?” he says, repeating the same question posed to him. “What’s your name?”

“Your name is Got,” Vucharatavintara reminds him.

“Got! Got! Got!” he yells, spinning wildly near the family’s Christmas tree. “Goooooooooot!”

He stops in front of a stuffed, lime-green frog, wraps it in a blanket and holds it close, pretending to rock it to sleep. Then he grabs a diaper and tries to put it on the fuzzy amphibian.

“Got, the frog does not need a diaper,” Vucharatavintara says, taking the diaper from him. The boy laughs and gets up. He runs up to Pa and snuggles his face inside her neck. “Thank you,” she says softly in his ear.

“Got understands things a lot better now,” Tre says. “I guess he trusts the rest of the family a bit more. If my mom goes out, he’s OK. He understands that she will come back.”

Maybe so, but it’s obvious that Pa, the woman who will someday separate from him, still owns his heart. “Pa, Pa, Pa!” he chants again, sprinting across the living room. “Pa, Pa, Pa!”

Got’s future remains in the hands of the Immigration and Naturalization Service, which has not made a decision about his asylum and does not have a deadline, according to an INS spokeswoman. The boy’s paternal grandparents want to adopt him and bring him back to Thailand, but community activists in Los Angeles have been fighting that out of concern for his welfare back home.

Boonlue and Sumalee Khaisri came to Los Angeles to visit their grandson daily for six months, and have now returned to their homeland to appeal the case. But activists are researching putting Got up for adoption here, which, they hope, would suspend the need for asylum.

“During the asylum interviews, we were able to establish that Got faced past persecution because he had been trafficked and also faces future persecution because of his HIV condition,” said Chanchanit Martorell, executive director of the Thai Community Development Center in Koreatown.

“He would be ostracized by Thai society as well as [by] his village and community. If the grandparents wanted to, they could contest [the adoption] and we’d have to prove they’re not fit.”

There also is the question of the boy’s health. Vucharatavintara and Martorell are concerned about the quality of medical care Got would receive if he returned to Thailand. His T-cell count is seven times higher than when he arrived, an indication that his immune system is fighting the virus. His skin is smoother and he has regained his appetite. “He’s doing so well now,” Vucharatavintara says, admiring him as he grabs a rag and wipes a wall, wanting to help at home like he does in school. “He’s a totally different child. We treat him differently now. We tell him he’s a big boy.”

“You’re a big boy, right?” Vucharatavintara asks him.

Got flashes his mischievous smile and wraps himself around Pa’s leg.