The chunk of red brick turned into a powdery splatter like an exploded star. Voila! He had just invented a new game. Throwing bricks onto the pavement again and again, he made several powdery stars…“Why don’t you throw one piece to our side of the street?” I called out. To our mutual delight, he complied. This time, the splatter looked different, more like the spread of a peacock feather in a red monotone…Soon, we were master artists together. There was one key trick for dodging an incoming projectile, and agility was of paramount importance…I dodged. “Splat!” a peacock!

***

Oh, the monkey in me could not be left behind…Our teacher still had not arrived. So, I climbed up again. More confident and very emboldened, I jumped to the next bench. Now why turn around? I thought to myself. Why not jump to the next one?…The last bench where I was supposed to stop and turn around happened to be a little wobbly. The wobble and my skill did not match…I went, downwards, headfirst, with my hands spread apart. But the corner of the bench was in the path for my downward trajectory. Clunk!

***

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Zavarba pulled me in and held me tight. I did not resist…I listened to her voice so soothing and soft, but the room’s sounds magnified some unknown ones, teasing my ears. I had never heard some of these noises, so they were hard for me to ignore. All the while, I was trying to process what she was saying. I abruptly pulled away from her embrace, staring directly into Zavarba’s eyes. She had just said that an old cobra still visited the house. My mind couldn’t grasp the idea. “What? A snake in the house?”