When it is late spring and summer begins, that's when the Haravara country is at its most beautiful. Everything is colourful, fragrant, everything sizzles, fizzes.
At that time Kaško used to sleep in a tower in the centre of Košice. This is so that he can hear all the sounds not only of nature, but also of the city. The tower is right next to St. Elizabeth's Cathedral. It guards a small crossroads in the country's capital Haravara.
Kaško was lying there peacefully, blowing his nose even on this late-spring morning. Suddenly the turret began to shake a little and Kaško heard several thousand footsteps with his ghostly hearing.
"Not again!" he exclaimed anxiously.
For he remembered all the wars that had passed through the country of Haravara and Košice since prehistoric times.
"I can hear it right, they're definitely soldiers! I must go rescue Maxík and Majka and get ready to fight!"
Kaško hurriedly put his old military helmet on his head, hid the helmet used by tankers in his pocket and flew to Maxík and Majka. They were just playing on the carpet with blocks and animals.
"Majkaaa, Maxíííík!" shouted Kaško still in the squadron, "get dressed quickly, pack something for the journey, we have to run away!"
"Hooray, we're going on a trip again!" cheered the children.
"Well, not on the trip exactly. We must get ready for a fight!" Maxík and Majka looked at Kaško a little incredulously.
"You can't hear it, but I can hear the soldiers marching with my ghostly hearing!"
"Soldiers?" scared the children.
"Don't worry, we'll save everyone, I fought in a few wars before. Come on!"
He took the children by the hand and before they knew it, they were on a hill with a huge meadow and a strange building.
"And here we are. That's Dargov," Kaško pointed to the strange structure.
"Dargov?" Maxík looked at Majka in surprise. "We didn't get very far!"
"Look around, what do you see?" Kaško challenged them.
The children looked around and saw several tanks.
"Tanks?"
"Exactly. Tanks!" Kaško gasped. "But we'll still go here, to the museum, there are uniforms and weapons. Everything we'll need."
Kaško and his friends walked into the strange building. They were in a military museum full of objects that the soldiers had lost during the battles. They discovered a few rifles, uniforms, and food boxes. Satisfied, Kaško ran out.
"And now we have to try it!"
They climbed onto the tank and tried to start it. When that didn't work, Kaško climbed onto the next one. But neither tank wanted to go fight anymore.
They looked at the rifles and it was clear to them that nothing would come of them either.
"What is this place and why are these tanks here?" Majka finally asked when Kaško had calmed down a little.
"More than 70 years ago there was a real battle here. Your great-grandparents will certainly remember it, and maybe they fought here. It was World War II - haven't you heard of it?" – nepočuli ste o nej?“
The children shook their heads indicating “no”.
"The whole world went crazy," Kaško recalled, "everyone was fighting, shooting, hurting each other. And it was here that one of the great battles took place. Do you know what else is special about that place? Look down there – there's the village of Rozhanovce. Near there, more than 700 years ago, the greatest knightly battle took place. Imagine that a real king and his army walked through here, where we are standing now," the children dreamed slowly.
"You can go there with your parents sometime."
"Well, we could do that," Maxík thought, and he could see himself in his armour and on horseback.
"Knights, knights," mused Kaško, "exactly! Knights and their catapults."
"You want to make a catapult now?" Maxík asked in surprise.
"No. I know where it is. Not far from here. There on the hill," Kaško pointed with his chin.
Of course, they immediately went there – they didn't walk long at all and found themselves facing a strange thing.
It looked like a fountain, only there was no water coming out of it.
"And what is this again?" Majka asked.
"A non-functioning fountain?" Maxík added mockingly.
"This is the Herľany Geyser," Kaško smiled.
"Geyser? Where is it?" the children wondered.
"You'll have to wait a moment."
The children looked at the silent fountain, around which people began to gather in a short while. Maxík rummaged in his backpack and took out a small drum. He began to play a marching rhythm. He was about to ride out on horseback towards the enemy and play the sound of the drum to the beat.
Meanwhile Kaško searched his pockets – from one of them he took out two drumsticks and they started to make up a song to the beat of the drumstick. Majka was just fogging and then it came.
Water literally exploded out from under the ground.
"So, this is the geyser!" shouted the children into the roaring water.
"Exactly. Look how high that water shot up. And it's going to be like this for a few minutes!" Kaško shouted.
"It's beautiful!" cheered the children with their heads up.
"But where's the catapult?" Maxík suddenly remembered.
"This will be our catapult," Kaško announced triumphantly, "we will place stones on the fountain, as the knights once did, and when the soldiers go there, the geyser will explode, and the stones will fly at the enemies of the country of Haravara."
"I see! And the stones?" Majka asked.
"Stones, stones. Well, those are best found in a quarry. This direction is the village of Malé Ozorovce. And above it, there is the quarry. It's just a short walk."
A walk because they couldn't fly anymore. There were people everywhere. They got on the bus and in just a moment, they were in Ozorovce. They got off at a beautiful wooden church and walked towards the forest. They drove for about half an hour and...
"It was here somewhere... But this... this doesn't look like a quarry," Kaško said in surprise, and the children opened their tired little eyes in amazement.
"This looks more like a church in the rock," whispered Majka, "aren't you mistaken?"
The rock, from which tons of stones had already been removed, was now made into an altar, a chapel, benches to sit on, and even a place for a barbecue.
"I don't understand it. Where did the quarry go?" Kaško speculated.
"I guess no one needed it anymore," Maxík mused.
"Just like nobody needs war anymore," whispered Majka in Kaško's ear.
"This is more beautiful than war," they all agreed.
The children were sitting in silence for a while longer. They listened to the forest and the animals in the forest and after a while they returned home.
"Can you hear? They're already in town!" Kaško got scared and ran to the Main Street.
And really. A kind of stomping could be heard in the city.
But when they arrived in the city centre, there were several thousand people who were not marching, but dancing. There was a kind of dance festival going on, or people were just getting together to dance. Because the country of Haravara is full of great dancers, world champions in different dances. And Košice, it's a dancing capital.
The children laughed so hard with Kaško that their tummies ached.
And they were falling asleep laughing too.
A thousand dancers are always better than a thousand soldiers.
