Elements' Eyes (Book 1: Going-Through)

A Surprise 2.3

She knew he wasn't there half a minute earlier; but it was strange she hadn't heard him approach. Keernah always sensed whether she was in comfortable solitude or there were some silly, annoying children hanging about. Might she have not sensed that just because the boy did not actually seem annoying to her? Also, might he seem not annoying because he wasn't staring at her as if she were a wild beast that had crawled out of the thicket?

She noticed he wasn't looking at her at all – even though he couldn't be unaware of her presence unless he was blind. He was kneeling in front of her but crouched over something small on the ground, so Keernah couldn't even see his face. His hair was black and surprisingly long – nearly past his shoulders. Keernah liked it immediately; she boldly came up to him, though, not because of that but because she glimpsed a white ribbon in his hair.

Or so she thought. Decorating one's hair was unusual when hair itself was considered almost useless. Only Keernah's mother decorated her daughter's plaits with every sort of colorful laces, bands, and stripes of fabric she could find. She didn't know any other way to make Keernah accept the need of doing up her hair. But going outside with all the stuff on her head was an absolute no. Keernah could not get it.

"Look, no one walks like this in the streets, didn't you notice?" Mom implored. "So you shouldn't do it as well, all right? Otherwise children will say mean things about you. Wear it all at home as long as you want." She knew that all she'd mentioned meant nothing to her brave girl, but there actually were no other reasons to forbid her anything.

And now Keernah saw with her own eyes that someone did walk outside "like this" and nobody ran around screaming mean things; although the children were pretty close and could well do that. But they didn't seem to mind somehow. Also, the boy's parents evidently allowed him to wear anything he wanted. Keernah was determined to show this wonder boy to Mom and ask why he could decorate his hair while she could not.

She'd always moved very quickly, and the boy hadn't even got up by the moment she was standing next to him. Then Keernah saw that te white stripe was not a ribbon on his head but a long strand of white hair. It split into thinner strands at the end. Keernah was totally amazed and liked the thing very much – it looked beautiful on black.

But she didn't happen to admire for long, because the boy stood up and turned out to be taller than she was; she could no longer see his whole hairdo. The white strand grew closer to the crown of his head, so it became visible only from the side now. Although Keernah had already forgotten about it and was staring at the boy, not even thinking to step back.

Actually, she'd never liked standing face to face with strangers, but it was only her lost cat Mea who'd understood her about that. She used to turn away with disgust when unfamiliar people picked her up and tried to scrutinize her sweet little face. But she seldom missed a chance to rub against her masters' cheeks when they just let her sit in their lap.

Now, Keernah instantly got the deepest reason for Mea's affection but was confused about another thing. Her cat had loved the people she'd known from her kitten days; but Keernah was already loving someone she saw for the first time ever. The more she realized the odd fact, the more familiar and friendly the boy seemed to her.

She really liked everything about him: his appearance, his scarce moves, his calm gaze without any hostility, the way he was standing still, obviously not going to run away. Keernah only sensed composure and favorable attention emanating from him; and the attention was as pleasant to the girl as warm water. She could instantly tell that kind of attention from the nervous attention of her parents, from the suspicious attention of children and unfamiliar dogs, from the menacing, evil attention of unfamiliar adults and from the educational attention of the familiar ones. It was more like the attention of Mea when she'd been looking for something to play with, the attention of Keernah herself when she would see something interesting and so big that it could not be grasped at once.