Parto 1: La Vizitanto. 11: La Novulo

La instruistoj had already served dinner, but no one was eating. Thirty pairs of eyes, including mine, watched the elevator.

A whirring sound grew louder and louder, then stopped. The door opened and revealed six children.

They wore the standard La Nesto uniform: beige tunics and shorts, loose and comfortable, identical except for the three stripes on an arm and a leg. Their color showed the age of the wearer. The new children sported yellow stripes, like Serena did before they got their green ones earlier that day. Gabino had received my old purple stripes, and I inherited Arakil’s red ones.

The six children observed their new home: La Kerno’s hexagonal dining room, the study and play areas, the six surrounding ĉeloj. Their eyes, wide with a mixture of nervousness and curiosity, settled on us, their new companions. Medusa inspected them back, observant as always, while Gabino leaned back on their chair, grinning.

I tried to remember how I had felt five years before, when I saw La Kerno for the first time, but I couldn’t. My first memory of La Nesto was Arakil giving me the oval stone they had found in the stream.

La Instruistoj n-0 called each of the new children to go to their groups. Five did so, but the smallest, a child with light brown hair and green eyes, remained standing, gazing into the distance. La Instruisto 4-0 went to get them.

Serena followed behind and was the first to attempt communication.

“Hello! What’s your name?” they asked.

The child kept looking at them, without answering.

“They are Abrajm,” said 4-0.

Our new companion jumped when hearing their name. They looked at the instruisto and then at the five of us, one by one. Their gaze stopped on Osiris. They took a step closer.

“Abrajm,” they whispered, tapping their chest.

Osiris offered them a gentle smile.

“Hello, I’m Osiris.”

Serena bounced forward, eager to join the conversation.

“Hi! I’m Serena,” they said to Abrajm, extending their hand.

Abrajm turned their attention to Serena, tilting their head. They scanned Serena from head to toe, a thoughtful expression on their face. Then, a slow smile spread across their features, lighting up their green eyes. It was a radiant, disarming smile. Abrajm took Serena’s hand, gave it a soft squeeze, then gave them an unexpected hug.

We were all taken aback. Hugs weren’t against the rules, but they weren’t the norm either, especially not right away. New arrivals tended to be shy. Yet, Abrajm’s hug was so heartfelt, and Serena’s joy was so contagious that smiles spread across our faces.

As the day drew to a close and the lights dimmed in La Kerno, I watched the new children settle into their respective groups.

Abrajm, now sitting between Osiris and a chatty Serena, seemed more at ease, a small smile playing on their lips. Across from them, Medusa stared at Abrajm with an intensity that made me wonder if they were conducting some sort of silent experiment. Gabino nudged my arm with their elbow.

"Think they'll hug everyone?" they asked me, smirking.

Abrajm didn’t seem to talk a lot, though. Their gaze kept returning to the elevator. It made me wonder what they were thinking, what they were feeling, being in this new place so far from what they used to know.

And so began the era of Abrajm, a time when routine turned into disorder, an age of constant motion and unexpected change.

They ran from here to there and Serena always went after them, but they could never catch them. There were only two ways to stop them. The first was if they saw Osiris interested in something. Abrajm followed them and Osiris' slow pace slowed theirs down. The other way was when they stopped by themselves, always without warning, and stayed looking at something. Or sometimes at nothing.

I, the wearer of the red-stripped uniform, had become the person the inhabitants of Ĉelo Kvar sought when they had a problem. Although I enjoyed this status, it was sometimes very tiring.

Serena would arrive, exhausted, asking me to catch Abrajm so they could play together, as if I could do it. I always tried anyway, driven by some misplaced sense of leadership. And Serena, being such a nice kid, would pretend they didn’t care when they saw me falter after several failed attempts.

Osiris said nothing to me, but Abrajm followed them all over La Nesto, and sometimes Osiris gave me a look that pleaded for some alone time. Although Abrajm was very “catchable” at those times, the tough part was preventing them from running back to Osiris.

And not a day went by without Gabino coming to me to complain about Abrajm. Some of their complaints were justified. “They broke my notebook!” or “They left mud tracks all over the floor!” but also “They tried to put my shoes in the sink!” and we can’t forget “They drew all over my notes with crayon! Crayon, Kanako! I had to rewrite everything!”

But what was I supposed to do? I asked them to make an effort to get along with Abrajm, but alas.

“Listen, Kanako, listen! It’s not that I dislike them! I’m trying to be their friend, I really am! But then I ask them something and they just stare back at me! It feels like they’re looking at something through me! Am I transparent? Am I!?” they said, doing jumping jacks in front of me.

By sheer luck, Medusa didn’t seem to be a victim of Abrajm’s frenzy. They spent their time with me, telling me about their observations.

“I think something happened to Abrajm before they came here,” they told me. “It’s not normal that they almost don’t talk. They seem to have trouble focusing, jumping from one thing to another, and they get restless all the time. It’s like their mind is always racing.”

One way or another, Abrajm became the center of our lives. A puzzle we couldn’t quite solve, a constant source of both amusement and frustration.

The situation reached a breaking point one afternoon, almost a month after Arakil’s departure.

I was in La Kerno with Medusa, reading a book, when Gabino rushed past us from the garden towards Ĉelo Kvar.

“I swear, if they have it, I’m going to flip out!”

We exchanged confused glances, but before we could talk about it, Gabino came out even more agitated than before.

“My glass bird! You little pest! Come back here!”

We followed Gabino to the garden, where they were already chasing Abrajm around.

“Gabino! Relax, what happened?” I shouted, trying to calm them down.

Gabino looked at me, their hands clenched. Their jaw was tight, their eyes narrowed. They were anything but calm.

“This fool has my bird! They're going to ruin it!”

They continued the chase, and Abrajm went around the back of our ĉelo until we lost sight of them. I wanted to follow, but Medusa stopped me. They shook their head. I couldn’t keep up.

A few minutes later, Abrajm appeared from behind, having gone all around the building. They gave me Gabino’s crystal bird, now broken, before running off. I sighed. It was a gift from their mother.

Gabino showed up afterwards. They were bleeding at the knee, as if they had fallen. I braced myself for their outburst.

“Look, Abrajm is just a kid, and they don’t…”

But Gabino didn’t seem to hear me. Their brow was furrowed, their eyes locked on some unseen point in the distance, as if they were seeing something I couldn’t. They swayed, their hands trembling.

“I’m sure we can repair your bird,” I insisted, reaching out to touch their arm.

“I’m fine. It’s fine,” said Gabino, pushing my hand away and going back inside.