Outside the window the sun was shining as if it wanted to bake everyone. Majka and Maxík had the foehn on, all the windows and doors in the apartment open, and Majka found a beautiful foehn next to one of her carnival costumes, which she waved as if it was going to fly away.
Majka's bangs moved up and down every time the foehn moved and every time the foehn was pointed at her. Maxík's eyelashes moved just a little with the foehn. Outside, beyond the window, nothing moved.
"I can't take it anymore," Majka cried slowly and tiredly and stopped waving the foehn for a while because her arm started to hurt.
"Tell me about it," Maxík joined in, "I'd like to jump into a bathtub full of ice."
"Not a bad idea!" Majka thought desperately.
"Stop it, we can't make that much ice in our freezer at home," Maxík stopped the sister's reasoning.
Suddenly, outside the window, in the distance, the leaves on the trees moved. But so gradually, first on one, then on another, then the leaves on the third moved. It looked like the wind was playing and jumping from tree to tree. The siblings were looking at the trees. The wind was coming towards them. They narrowed their eyes and took shelter under the window at the last moment. Something in the room banged on the foehn. It had fallen to the ground and was now blowing into the attic. Three spiderlings came right out of the corner and cooled themselves in this artificial foehn breeze.
Majka and Max looked at the ground.
"Kaško?!" they both exclaimed in disbelief.
"Excuse me, fellas, I'll clean this place up in a minute."
Kaško was sitting on the floor. He was wearing the most ridiculous swimsuit with braces that was at least a hundred years old and a cap with a huge propeller on his head.
"This foehn on the cap is fine, but I can't see anything through it," Kaško murmured with a smile, stopping the spinning propeller on the cap.
"Do you ghosts feel hot too?" Maxík asked.
"Noooo, not as much as you do, but we do a little bit, yes," Kaško took his cap off and started to philosophise, "It's strange but for example I don't feel fire, but I feel the sun and its warmth. I don't know why. I must read something about it."
"And what are you wearing, please?" Majka couldn't stand it.
"This?" exclaimed Kasko in surprise, "this is my favourite swimsuit."
"But why are they wearing a skirt too?" Maxík didn't understand.
"This is the first men's swimsuit, which appeared in the world more than a hundred years ago. Before that, swimsuits were not worn. People swam in whatever they could," Kaško laughed and continued, "this skirt is not a skirt but... actually I don't know what it is, but I like it."
"It looks a bit ridiculous," Majka grinned.
"Funny, but I feel good about it," Kaško replied almost offended.
"But we're not making fun of you, we just haven't seen a swimsuit like that before," Maxík reassured his friend, pointing the foehn at himself and the sister.
"Listen, inventors, instead of a foehn, we could go for a swim, how about that?" Kaško winked.
"We've been talking about it since this morning, but Mom and Dad are at work until tonight."
"Let's go!" the ghost shouted. "Take your swimsuits, a sunscreen, a hat, and plenty of water. Come on now."
The children were running around the room. Suddenly they weren't even feeling hot, maybe because they were running so fast that they were making a draft themselves. They packed up what they could, Maxík brought some more musical instruments, an inflatable ball, and Majka brought four hair clips, two combs, and a small inflatable chair in the shape of a duck.
"We can go!" shouted the children, and they were standing at the door.
"Take some more string. We will go to the river. You'll sit in the inflatable chair, you'll float like a boat, and then I'll pull you in." Kaško asked them.
At the station, they got on a bus to Malá Lodina. The Hornád river flows through this village, as it does through Košice. There are always plenty of opportunities to walk around the water, to roll on the grass, or even to float on the inflatables on the river.
They got off the bus and found a beautiful spot by the river. Maxík immediately took out a ball and Majka an inflatable chair and blew into them like a blacksmith into a bellows. Meanwhile, Kaško hammered a wooden stake into the ground and tied a string to it.
" Kaško, it's so beautiful in here, " Majka called through her teeth and between breaths into the inflator chair.
"Well, well," his brother joined in, "we couldn't have found a nicer place," wheezing and blowing and talking.
"I'm looking forward to the cruise," Majka smiled with the inflator end between her teeth.
"Done!"
Kaško took Majka's inflatable, tied a string around the little duck's neck, and threw it on the water.
"Hooray!" Shouted the children, throwing themselves onto the inflatable.
"Wow!" they shouted and were swimming like real sailors. Max played at having the rudder in his hands. Majka, in turn, pretended to read the mysterious map and show Captain Max the way to the treasure.
Suddenly, "BANG!", something banged horribly, and all that could be heard was SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS, like ten snakes slithering on the ground.
Kaško immediately started pulling the inflatable to him and called to his friends:
"Hang in there and don't be afraid!"
The inflatable hit a rock that was just below the surface. As it was very hot, the river was smaller, so the pebbles were closer to the surface.
The children came out all wet, scared, and sad.
"What are we going to do now?" they asked, looking desperately at the burst inflatable."
"We were having such a good time playing sailors."
"Wait a minute, there is a boat ride on the Hornád River not far from here. They'll give you a boat, and you can sail all the way to Košice."
Kaško flew to the place where the boats were rented and the Hornád rafting was starting. Firstly, the boats were already rented, because the heat drove everyone to the water, and secondly, the boats were rented only to adults who could take their children in the boat. Kaško came back with his head down. It was clear to the children that there would be nothing to be gained from rafting.
"What the heck, we'll build our own boat out of wood," the ghost friend declared determinedly.
"What?!" the children opened their eyes in surprise.
"Well, let's build a boat!" Kaško declared even more confidently.
"But we have neither axes, nor chisels, nor.... We can't even do that," the children protested.
"We might not, but I have a few friends here who are happy to help us with that."
Kaško pulled a small horn out of his pocket, probably from a cow, which had been drilled and looked like a trumpet. He began to be saying something into it.
Maxík and Majka, meanwhile, hid inconspicuously behind a big ball, which Maxík inflated. There was some rustling in the woods. Someone was walking around the trees, twigs could be heard snapping and grass rustling, even the leaves up in the trees were moving. The children waited for the giant lumberjacks to come out of the woods with muscles and an axe in each hand and a saw on each shoulder. Or else Miesiželezo (iron-mixer) or Lomidrevo (wood.breaker) or Požujskalu (chew-the-rock) might still come out. But out of the woods emerged some kind of animal with two large teeth in front, about the size of a large cat. Right behind it, seven snakes, a deer with magnificent antlers, and small turtles emerged from the forest. You probably didn't know that turtles live in Harawara too. And they're bog turtles, and they have their own kingdom here. But that's for another time.
Well, a woodpecker with a red cap and a few bird friends appeared in the tree.
"Kaško, are you sure you want to build a boat?" Maxík asked timidly, slowly coming out from behind the ball.
"Of course," Kaško replied and ran after the animals.
They were whispering something to each other. Everyone just nodded and nodded. At one point, Kaško picked up one of the snakes, and it tensed up like a string, and Kaško scribbled something in the sand with it. The children came closer and closer to the animals and Kaško. When they were quite close to them, they looked down at the ground. Kaško drew a sketch of a boat with the snake's tail. Every critter there was also drawn in rather ridiculous positions.
"Is that a sketch of a ship?" Maxík said a little doubtfully.
"This is a sketch of our ship," Kaško corrected him and introduced all the animals, "Meet the snakes, the deer, the woodpecker, the raven, the crows, and you probably know the turtles. And this," he looked at the animal with the big flat tail and big teeth, "this is Uncle Beaver.
"Beaver, of course," Max remembered the science class.
"But how do we, and these lovely animals, build a boat?" Majka still didn't understand.
"Look," said Kaško, with a glance at the animals, "shall we?" the animals nodded and got to work.
Uncle Beaver started biting the tree with his teeth. Splinters were flying all around. Slowly the tree began to crack and Kaško took the children away from the tree. After a little while, the tree collapsed to the ground and the beaver went to work again. In this way, with only his teeth, he cut down five trees. The children stopped breathing. They forgot that it was so terribly hot outside.
When the tree fell to the ground, the little beaver cubs came running and shaved the bark off the tree in a few minutes.
As soon as they did, a woodpecker flew in and started pecking. He looked like an insanely funny sewing machine. The little red head was hitting the tree, showing little holes in it. He only stopped when he discovered some worms in the wood, which he ate immediately. When the holes were in all the trees, more little birds flew in. They took the string that Kaško had and tied the trees together tightly, and Uncle Beaver dug a place to sit and a small table in all the holes. They put up one big tree in the centre of the boat.
"I'm starting to like it," Kaško rubbed his hands together.
"Us too," the children shook their heads in disbelief.
The little birds took a blanket from the ground, which the children had prepared for a picnic and sunbathing. They carried it up to the tree in the middle and tied it to it with clever little beaks and string.
"It's going to be a sailboat," Max whispered excitedly.
"What, did you think you were just going to build any boat with Kaško?" Smiled the ghost.
"Kaško, but how are we going to get this boat on water?" Majka began to worry.
"Wait a minute," Kaško finished as soon as the deer and the snakes came to the boat. The snakes propped themselves up under the boat, and the deer's antlers slid it along the ground. That's the way pyramids were being built. In a little while the boat was floating on the water.
"What's that in the water over there?" Maxík was alarmed when he saw some movement just below the surface of the Hornád, near the boat.
Suddenly turtles came out of the water and sat in the back of the boat so that their hind paws and tails were in the water.
"Come on!" Kaško called to the children.
The children ran to the boat, sat down in it, and in that time the beaver dug out two oars, which they dipped in the water and moved.
Something was happening in the back of the boat. Turtles are slow on land, but very fast in the water. They started digging with their feet, helping our sailors. They were using their tails as rudders to keep the kids and Kaško from getting lost and hitting another rock.
The children waved to the deer, beavers, birds, Kaško shouted how much he thanked them and Majka made a big heart in the air.
But the boat accelerated, so Kaško took the oar from Majka and helped Maxík to row.
They sailed like that for about two hours. They were beautiful hours. The breeze was blowing. Maxík became the real captain of the ship. He pointed the direction, turned the sail, and helped Kaško rowing. Majka was sitting on the boat and admired the beautiful nature around her. Beautiful forests, interesting hills, animals on the shore and in the water.
The landscape of Haravara is simply beautiful.
When they landed in Košice, they didn't even want to get off.
"Don't worry, we'll get a ride this summer. Come on!" The children and Kaško stepped ashore, but that's when they noticed the turtles looking a bit pensive.
"Something wrong?" Kaško came to them.
"Well, you know, we're not river turtles, we're swamp turtles." The turtles began timidly, "we came to help you, but now we are far from our swamp."
"And where do you have that?"
"We are from the forest and swamp in Tajba near a village called Streda nad Bodrogom."
Kaško's eyes lit up.
"Then we'll take you there," he said to the turtles.
"Shall we?" Maxík asked.
"You wanted to do some more sailing, didn't you?"
"Are we going to sail all the way to Streda nad Bodrogom?" Majka moaned. She and Maxík had agreed that she would be rowing on their second voyage.
"Nooo," laughed Kaško, "we wouldn't even make it there. Here you go," and he handed them the accelerator.
The children understood. They took the common accelerator and started waving their hands. They each took a few turtles and flew up.
"There it is!" shouted the turtles when they saw the bridge that connects Streda nad Bodrogom and Viničky, "there is our swamp near that bridge. But you can put us here near the bridge, too, and we'll walk a bit and swim from there."
The children looked down and saw something else besides the bridge, the beautiful forest and the swamps that resembled a primeval forest. A beautiful white boat. A real boat, the kind that sails on the sea or on the great lakes.
They looked at the laughing Kaško and understood everything.
They landed at the bridge, said goodbye to the turtles, who immediately crawled into the grass and headed towards the boat.
There was a sign by the boat saying Sails of the Bodrog River and on the boat Artur. The children bought the ticket with their monthly pocket money, which they always had with them on trips with Kaško. Fortunately, they still had some seats available.
"You're really lucky, two tourists didn't come. Otherwise, you wouldn't have got here," smiled the bearded man, who was also a guide on the cruise. "Otherwise, you have to report here a few days in advance."
"And please, where does this ship sail?" Majka asked.
"You get on a boat, and you don't know where it goes?" the guide wondered, "You must be adventurers."
The children just nodded their heads.
"We go along the Bodrog River to the town of Sárospatak. That's in Hungary. There you can walk around the town, have a swim, then we'll go back home."
The children sat down and let themselves be carried to the Hungarian town where Saint Elizabeth, the patron saint of the capital city of Haravara, Košice, was born. The journey there was beautiful. They saw many wonderful places. In Sárospatak, they went to see the old castle, the birthplace of St. Elizabeth and for a delicious ice cream.
When they returned home, they were so tired that they didn't even have time to thank Kaško. Only in their sleep did they smile and whisper to Kaško.
"It was beautiful."
Kaško contentedly put on his foehn cap, turned it on, and flew home.
