It must have been eight years ago, when the crickets were singing in the bright Novillios sun, the grass was shining green and the children were playing ball outside, that this insufferable kid had sneaked into the churchyard to visit him because he was suffering from his illness. While the boy was very bored, he waited for his mother to bring him his favorite candy: chocoricots - they were awful, I've never tasted such... crap, that's it! I'm not going to be a food critic, but it's impossible to have had the idea of mixing red or white beans with white chocolate. You have to beat up those who had the brilliant - NO! - to invent this filth! This ignominy!
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw two hands on the window sill and a head of long, straight blue hair, his eyes focused on the incredible effort this stranger was making to climb up to his window.
He did not say a word, observing her in her difficult act to see where it was going to lead her. Watching her with all the attention in the world, hearing her gasp as she pulled herself up little by little, with the help of her tiny arms, then her head passing the window sill, he saw her face expressing all the effort she was making to see him, her eyes bulging, her nostrils dilated, breathing in, breathing out... and exhaled all the air from her lungs, lips rolled up showing her gums and the hissing sound he perceived came from the fact that she was missing two central upper incisors. As soon as she was able to put her leg over the edge, she was able to catch her breath.
The boy held back from laughing at the face of this stranger, he did not see why she had so much trouble climbing when she could use the gutter to get to the second floor.
Then, after catching her breath, she looked up and gave him a big smile.
- So what's up?
The boy, bandaged all over and looking like a mummy, lay on the bed and only blinked.
- You're not very talkative, you," grumbled the little girl, "and I should have known, since you never talk in class.
She allowed herself to enter the room, took a chair in front of his desk and stood next to him.
- You're probably wondering what I'm doing here?
The juvenile mummy blinked again.
- Am I supposed to understand something when you blink?
The patient looked at her without saying a word, he was really disinterested by the arrival of this turbulent kid who spoke loudly and was not ashamed to hide the hole she had in her teeth.
- Afterwards, I know you're shy so I'll tell you my name and you'll tell me yours, okay? she proposed, I'm Zelda and you?
He shook his head and closed his eyes.
- You're a pain in the ass!" said the little ingenue, "In class, the teacher never calls you by your first name! It looks like you don't have a first name...
He nodded as slowly as before.
- You really don't have a name? said the blue-haired girl astonished, it's incredible! So if they call you "the mummy with purple skin", it's better than nothing, she laughed.
The boy wordlessly blew his nose. This girl called "Zelda" amused him a lot, he was a little less tense in her company.
- Even though you look shy and the other kids think you're weird, I'm sure you're a nice kid," she smiled. You're new to the village so you must have never seen the "Supercharged Train" that's coming in five days? Well, we have school that day, so... we'll just skip school and play hooky...
- HE!" shouted the sister.
Zelda screamed in surprise as she opened her eyes wide and stood on the windowsill to jump.
- Oh, stop!" the nun shouted as she ran after her.
She tried to catch her but failed, she leaned over the window sill and saw the intruder land on a mattress. She stuck her tongue out at the young woman and sent:
- You'll never catch me, sister!
Then she runs away at full speed, with big strides.
- She's not cold in the eyes this kid? commented the nun interloqué, who was it?
The mummy shrugged his shoulders.
- Seriously, even if you don't feel well, you could make an effort to talk, sighed the woman in the religious dress, it's important to make friends, you know. I understand that it's not easy to live with what you have, but everyone has their differences, especially today.
Sister sat on the child's bed and stared at him.
- I have just learned that you are all alone at the school and that you do not speak, said to him the nun, I am there since the beginning of your "conversation" (in quotation marks because there is only she who spoke all the time, and I know very well how you made so that the other children find you "zarbi you tried to socialize only by the acts, only the acts cannot be effective without the words, she explained to him, is not necessary to listen to the fifty gruff persons who say to you that the men show their love only with the acts, the words it is for the girls! If not Christ would not have testified his love to us through his word, he would have torn off Legion with bare hand of the body of the possessed man as I did it with the immense alligator which tried to eat you!
The child laughed at this anecdote and the nun was happy to make him smile in spite of his deplorable state of health, she continued her sermon all the same.
- If you only express yourself through actions, people will think you're a helpful but weird little boy. If even mutes have friends, you can have friends too, no matter what you look like or what your background is. So remember, words go hand in hand with actions, never forget that. It also works with promises.
She took her shopping bag and placed the commission he had asked her for on her stomach.
- Here is the disgusting thing you asked me for! Enjoy them because they are the last ones I could find in Bisonti.
He grabbed them with his good hand and opened the bag with his teeth.
- That's what I was just talking about, you too," she scolded him, hitting him on the head, "it's by expressing your help to others that you can make connections, not by being a good guy h36.
You may not realize it, but she is making an effort to speak properly. And you can get indignant about her hitting a sick child, but it's just "The Fists of Love".
- You better finish them because I walked to get them since it's not church shopping day.
He smiled at her and nodded.
His tired and sickly air saddened strongly the one he considered as a mother, to see him in this state made her furious in front of his impotence and his incapacity to make him smile more often and longer, because hardly had he made his rictus that he found his sullen air. She had to find a solution. If she had to, she would go back to Sylvania to beg for help from the current queen.
But in the meantime, she would help him open up to others.
- You know what? I'll let you play hooky.
The boy's eyes widened at this meaningless phrase about the person who uttered it.
- Yes, yes," she confirmed, "I'll write a note to your teacher and you can go and see this 'super-telecom' train with this girl. But promise me one thing?
The purple mummy listened carefully.
- Take care of this girl and become her friend! Otherwise, I'll punish you for skipping school.
The boy agreed to his mother's terms, nodding his head several times and smiling.
He handed her his packet of chocoricots, the nun pretended to put her fingers in her mouth to pretend to vomit.
The boy sulked, she laughed and tenderly stroked his hair.
A tear fell from one of her eyes, which she quickly wiped away so he wouldn't notice.
It was decided, she would go to Sylvania and make him the most beautiful boy in the universe!