“You missed, what else is there to say? Where is your warrior concentration?” Arewa laughed.
Embarrassed and swallowing an apology, Omlion didn’t notice the flip-flop flying back to him. He was not able to catch or return it, not even move away. Arewa knew how to throw.
“Come on, don’t pout! You’ll walk it off,” she consoled Omlion, who was confusedly rubbing a large red spot on his forehead. “My Dad trains me, too. Let’s go get your tree tomatoes.”
In a small winter garden on the roof of the house, there were plants useful for any kitchen: thyme, basil, coriander, dill, lettuce, some vegetables, and fruit trees. While the kids were collecting everything for the smoothie, Arewa took a closer look at Omlion and found his appearance somewhat unusual. It was not repulsive, but non-standard, to put it mildly. Wide bridge of the nose, ashy tousled hair. Two small, but prominent fangs drew attention when the boy spoke or laughed. His light smoky-blue eyes looked at the girl with inexpressible horror.
“Your hand!” the boy whispered and dramatically covered his mouth with his palms.
“What? What?” Arewa got scared and looked at her hand holding a bunch of fresh herbs. “An ordinary hand, a little dirty with soil, but it seems okay…”
Having noticed some movement in the basil leaves, the girl screamed in surprise. She threw the herbs down and jumped away from the garden bed, while continuing to scream like a police siren.
“Ha, ha-ha-ha! What a coward you are!” Omlion burst into loud laughter, as he picked up the wriggling lizard’s tail from the ground.
Once Arewa realized that Omlion had outplayed her, she turned as red as a beetroot, approached the boy, took the find from him, and pretended to eat it with a loud “nom-nom”. Omlion’s whitish eyebrows furrowed in extreme disgust.
“You don’t have to…”
“Call me if you find the rest of it. I prefer to start from the head,” the girl said as she chuckled and picked up the basil she had dropped.
Having collected all the necessary ingredients, the children returned to the ground floor, joking and egging on each other. Arewa politely asked what she could do to help, but Omlion was willing to do everything by himself.
“If you really want, you can wash the vegetables. But you better wait. You are my guest, aren’t you?” he said kindly.
“Right. To be honest, I’m not a fan of cooking,” the girl admitted, as she sat down at the counter, observing the young chef pulling out knives, a blender, glasses, and straws.
“Everyone should know how to cook,” Omlion said in surprise. “Ameed told me that even Tibetan monks have to learn this. Otherwise, how will they live if they can’t cook for themselves and there is no one to ask for help? You know, monasteries are in the mountains, you can’t order pizza there.”
“I’ve never thought about this,” Arewa admitted frankly. “But I can cook. It’s just that I don’t like it.”
“I see. Everyone has their own hobby. But I enjoy it. There are so many different options to do things. And I can also juggle, look!”
Omlion grabbed the last four tamarillos, but he never got a chance to show his talents.
An awfully buzzing drone flew into the store through an open window and smashed into the wooden panel with a shabby image of a planet, leaving a big hole in it. In a minute, a head wearing glasses appeared in the kitchen window. Its owner looked as if he had gone for his first ever morning jog: his round cheeks glowed with blush, his glasses got askew, and his eyes burned with indignation.
“Have you seen my drone? It was flying in this direction!”
Surprised Omlion and Arewa exchanged glances and stared back at the boy indignantly.
“It’s here! Your gadget has destroyed my wall!” Omlion picked up the device and went to inspect the hole in the wall, clicking his tongue. He slightly bent forward, as he checked the breach, wondering if he should look inside.
“Please forgive me,” the boy looked down and smoothed his curly bangs guiltily. “Yesterday I was sitting and thinking about how to make artificial intelligence for a drone. I kept thinking the whole evening and wrote a program, but it seems that it is lacking computational power…”
“I don’t know about the drone, but you are clearly lacking something! What if one of us had been standing at this very spot?” Arewa got rightly indignant as she pointed at the broken wall that Omlion was inspecting.
“Well, in theory, the neural network was supposed to recognize a human and stop the propellers on time…” the uninvited guest reflected seriously on the question.
“In theory?!” Arewa burst out with indignation.
“Guys?” Omlion’s voice came as if from a bottle, distracting the arguing kids from the dispute. “It turns out I’ve got a basement, and it also seems that I got a little stuck here…”
It was exactly as he’d described: Omlion’s head stuck firmly in the hole, preventing him from moving in any direction. Omlion was quite agile, but he was lacking experience and understanding that he should not put his head in every hole. But his curiosity was enough and to spare.
“Are you going to hang on the window like this?” Arewa addressed the one guilty of the disaster.
There was no answer.
Arewa looked out the window. The drone pilot was trying to sneak away scampering along the path paved with white stones leading to the gate.
“Hey, you!” the girl shouted to him. “Don’t you want to go back and fix everything?”
He did not answer and began to walk faster.
“Well, then the drone is ours!”
The boy stopped, turned around, and reluctantly walked back, having realized that he was too hasty to escape.
“Come in, let’s help him get out of there,” Arewa said as she met him at the doorstep.
The kids tried to free Omlion from the wooden captivity, but this only made the poor fellow scream indignantly. They pushed the panel trying to break it.
“What if we pull instead of pushing?” Arewa suggested. “If he managed to get there, he will also manage to get out. One! Two!”
On the count of three, the remains of the decorative panel fell apart with a crunch, and disheveled and slightly shocked Omlion got released from the prickly embrace.
The boy with glasses extended his hand to him and helped him get up.
“By the way, I’m Soul.”
“Omlion, very… very nice to meet you,” the boy said, shaking pieces of wood out of his hair. “And she is Arewa, my new neighbor.”
“What a coincidence,” Soul perked up. “So, all of us are neighbors!”
“Do you also live here?” Arewa asked with disappointment.
“Not really,” Soul replied. “My parents came here for vacation and brought me along.”
“Wow, lucky you. Ameed never brings me along on his trips.” Omlion sighed.
“Ameed?” Soul repeated as he picked up the drone, assessing the severity of the damage.
“My guardian and owner of the wall that you broke. He often flies to different countries… doing spiritual practices.”
“I don’t know about practices, but your guardian clearly has secrets,” Arewa said, nodding towards the passage that formed in the wall. “How about checking what’s there?”
Stone steps were visible in the opening. The stairs led down, dissolving in the dark, enticing children with their mystery and enigma, as they promised discoveries and