Maxík had already finished packing his backpack, in which he had six sausages, some bacon, four apples, a whistle harmonica, spare socks, onions, sound wood pieces, old papers, five pieces of bread, a raincoat for himself and Majka, and a guitar pick.
"That's it!" He sighed and zipped his backpack so nothing would fall out, “we can go”.
"We can't!" came from the corner of the room, where Majka was brushing her hair into a ponytail so it wouldn't make problems in walking in the woods.
"I mean, it takes you a while." Kaško shook his head with his green cap, leaning against the wall.
"Well, well, well, boys, just hang on there!" Majka exclaimed, putting five spare hairpins, three spare combs, a scarf around her neck, sunbathing lotion, after-sunbathing lotion, hand lotion, and about a hundred other things that miraculously fit in her small handbag. Kaško stared at it and wondered if Majka was a secret ghost or a magician too, because no one could put so many things in such a small handbag. Or maybe even her mom and all the moms of the world.
Kaško and Maxík looked at each other and just shrugged their shoulders.
"That's it," Majka stood up triumphantly in front of the mirror, "we're ready to go."
"Great, come on." Kaško moved from the wall.
"And where are we actually going today?" Maxík asked outside the door.
"You were going to grill some sausages, weren't you?"
"Well, yes, but where are we going to grill them?" Majka stood in the doorway.
"That’ a surprise," winked Kaško mysteriously, “Now, off to the station! We'll take the super-train to Slanec first and then walk to Slanská Huta."
They almost missed the train at the station because Majka had to fix her ponytail and lost her flower pin somewhere.
The trip was amazing. They were passing through Nižná Myšľa again, where they remembered the mammoths and stories of Uncle Laco, and soon they could see Slanský Hrad castle on the hill.
They got off at the station below the castle and headed towards the forest along the path.
They were walking for about an hour through villages, dirt roads, and Kaško's shortcuts.
Maxík and Majka didn't eat properly in the morning because they were looking forward to bacon sausages, bacon, onions, and grilled apples. That's why they asked Kaško every now and then if they were there yet.
"But it must be here by now?!" Maxík pointed to a sort of concrete shack, but it wasn't standing on the ground, it was just built around a hole in the ground. Nearby, a kind of a strange structure was already seen.
'As if someone wanted to build a small house and didn't get it. But in the middle of the forest? Among the trees?" Maxík wondered.
"Well, we can try it here. Look, there's a fireplace." Kaško pointed to the circle of stones on the ground.
"Oh, great." Majka sat right down on the ground and waited for Maxík to start pulling out the sausages and Kaško to make a fire. But Maxík was already at the strange building and Kaško followed him.
"What is it?" Maxík looked at the beautiful moss-covered buildings in amazement.
"Those are bunkers." Kaško patted the thick wall.
"Bunkers? Like, bunkers for giant kids to play in?" Maxík didn't understand.
"No! Bunkers were not built for games, but for defence. Look, recently, about 100 years ago, there was a war here in Slovakia, but also all over the world. People went crazy. They started killing each other, shooting at each other. Whole countries. Millions of soldiers marching around the world. It was the first time in history that such a thing happened. That's why it was called the First World War."
"Oh." Max opened his eyes in surprise.
"See those hills over there?"
"Yeaa." Max nodded.
"So, there is Hungary. Now we are friends, but at that time Hungary was on one side and we were on the other. We were fighting against each other."
"Really?" Majka couldn't stand it and came to listen to this interesting story.
"You bet. People were scared, so they started building these bunkers around the border," Kaško continued, "there were more than 50 of them. Now you'll find about 20 bunkers here. Some of them are really interesting."
Maxík and Majka went around one of the bunkers, which really looked like something out of a fantasy movie. As if it grew out of the ground. It was overgrown with moss, plants, and grass. It looked like it could hide in the ground at any moment.
"But those walls are pretty thick."
You know, they were prepared to throw grenades or use fire machine guns here." Kaško circled around the bunker.
"But they were tiny anyway. Not many soldiers could fit in here." Maxík speculated.
"There were really few of them here." Kaško paused and looked around.
"What happened?" Majka was worried.
"There's no one here," whispered Kaško, "do you want to see what it used to look like?"
"Of course!" blurted out both children.
"Wait a minute." Kaško turned around. Majka and Maxík sat down on the ground.
"And what is this?!" Majka picked up a strange cap from the ground.
Phew, this is an aviator's cap," Kaško took the brown leather cap in his hand, "and there's a name on it - Albert."
Kaško's eyes almost popped out of their sockets.
"Oh no, Albert is my fifth cousin."
"Really?"
"Well, now I'll be sure to show you what the place looked like, because Albert has been mad at me for almost 100 years because of this cap."
"Why?" Maxík and Majka didn't understand.
"Wait a minute! Kaško began to mutter to himself, no longer noticing that his friends were there.
He started talking to the wind, twirling his hands in the air, his index finger, as if he was stroking some things, and then letters appeared in the air and Kaško moved them like letters in a computer.
"What's that, Maxík?" Majka asked her brother timidly.
"I have no idea," Maxík whispered, "but it looks like a giant computer screen in the air."
"It's a huge computer!" Kaško exclaimed, not stopping moving the letters in the air. "What do you think, computers were invented by people just like that. First we invented them in the ghost world, and then we whispered them to the people in your world."
"Now you're chattering!" Maxík exclaimed, having read his share about computers.
"You would be carving letters in stone by now if it weren't for us ghosts who have time to think about such things and don't have to worry about food and clothing and other things."
Maxík didn't believe it, but he wasn't so sure. After all, he had been through a lot with Kaško.
"There he is!" Kaško was not hiding his enthusiasm, tapping some letters in the air, and holding a huge book in his hand, which he began to leaf through.
Maxík and Majka just stared, their mouths like the gates to the stables.
"This is our ghost library. That's how we choose a book and at that moment you have it in your hands," Kaško explained, "I got it."
"Step aside!"
"Okay, okay," the children resigned, "but what's going to happen?"
"You'll see something!"
"I cab believe that." Maxík said quietly, hiding behind one of the bunkers with Majka.
Kaško was talking and talking and talking, and suddenly the heads of some people in green uniforms and fur caps began to be emerging from the windows and doors of the bunker.
"Aaaaa, so it's you," one of the figures yelled, "not only did you steal my aviator cap, but you're dragging me out of our world when I've almost found it."
"Albert, stop it!" Kaško said confidently, lifting his aviator's cap in front of his cousin's eyes.
"What's that," Albert was surprised, "aaaaand you decided to return it. Well, it's about time." He grabbed the cap and put it on his head.
"My friend Majka found this cap. I just wanted to give it back to you so you could see that I didn't steal anything."
"Is that so? Albert flew up to Majka.
"It is, Mr. Albert." Mayka stammered.
"I can confirm that." Maxík stood between Majka and Albert like a proper older brother.
"Okay, okay, sorry, cousin." and shook Kaško's hand.
Kaško clutched it and at that they both flew up in the air, laughing and screaming horribly.
"Finally," Albert rode down the mountain, "I haven't been able to fly for almost 100 years."
"Why?" Maxík asked as loudly as he could.
"We, ghosts, after all, can't fly without our magic cap. Some have one and some have several pf them." one of the bunker's inhabitants explained to the children. "Kaško has many of them, but Albert only had this one."
"Aaah!" Majka and Max tapped their foreheads.
"But why did you wake us up too?" He asked into the wind in which the cousins were flying.
"I want you to show my friends what living in these bunkers was like then." Kaško asked them as soon as he got down on the ground.
"Come on, then,” invited them one of the ghosts who used to help the people here defend Slovakia.
"There were two machine guns here. There had to be two persons at each. One was shooting and firing and the other was holding and loading the bullets," Albert showed the children. "These were heavy machine guns. And here, at the edges, in the windows, were two light machine guns. And then there was one commander."
"So, there were seven persons in one bunker?" Max counted the soldiers in his mind.
"Seven, as you say." Albert confirmed.
"But sometimes there were more of us. And that was when people from the village brought the soldiers something to eat." Kaško continued.
"There were more than 50 such bunkers. We visited each other, we helped each other, but we were scared at times."
"I admire you. You are true heroes." Max looked admiringly at Kaško's friends.
"So we are," exclaimed Albert, "and now, let us fly."
They all flew up and started to chase each other around the bunkers like children. Just as Kaško was flying through one of the windows in the bunker, he noticed Majka and Maxík sitting down in the grass and propping their heads up.
Kaško called the other ghosts to him, they whispered something to each other and came to the children.
"We'll teach you to fly. Without an accelerator. Hopefully we can do it. Agreed?"
Max and Majka nodded, and the flying lessons began.
First, they tried jumping down from the bunker and waving their arms, then the ghosts found them an old military blanket which they spread as a parachute over Majka and Maxík. Finally, they stuck leaves from the trees on their clothes with clay and the children tried flapping their wings. But nothing helped.
Albert stopped, looked at the kids with sticky leaves all over their bodies that looked like little birds, and winked at the others.
"We'll take a trip." The ghosts took the children in a military blanket and flew.
"Oh, there's a manor house in Trebišov, that's where Kaško and I were cooking chocolate!" Majka shouted.
"You're right. There's this beautiful park. See some water. And we're descending!" Maxík replied in surprise.
"The Senné Ponds are below us. Can you see them? There are various paths through them now that you can walk on. And what you hear is the singing of thousands of little birds." Kaško gestured to his friends.
And really. The children heard a lot of bird chirps in the wind.
A beautiful little bird with blue feathers landed on their blanket. After a while, two more of them landed, completely different. Majka liked it very much. The more they descended to the ground, the more birds appeared around them.
"I don't like it very much." Maxík whispered in Majka's ear when there were already about 63 birds on the blanket.
"Don't worry, they're friends," Kaško assured them, "we're approaching the Bird's Paradise at Senné Ponds."
As soon as he finished, they landed on the ground. Many little birds were perched in the surrounding trees, chirping a little disturbed and loud.
Kaško and Albert stretched out their hands and began to whistle strangely with their mouths. About ten birds came out from behind all the little birds. Beautiful ones with crowns on their heads.
"These are the kings of the various bird species," whispered one of the ghost-soldiers.
The little birds sat on Kaško's and Albert's hands and started chirping. While they were chirping, they often looked at Maxík and Majka.
The bird kings flew up high, perched on the branches of the trees and made a very strange sound.
It sounded like a song:
Spread your wings, brothers,
don't let the kids get lost again.
Let them fly in the air,
and sing olalalala!
As soon as they finished chirping, they flew to Majka and Maxík, grabbed them by their clothes with their beaks and carried them upstairs.
"What's going on in here!" Majka began to scream.
"We asked the little birds to teach you to fly." Kaško and Albert laughed.
When the children were high enough to see the beautiful Senné Ponds with their paths, nooks, and crannies and thousands of little birds in the trees, they landed on a branch. That branch was as high as a seventh-floor window.
One by one the little birds stood in front of Maxík and Majka and showed them what they had to do to be able to fly.
They showed them how to properly grow feathers. Accordingly, Kaško and Albert glued the feathers from the little birds that fell on the ground on Majka and Maxík.
Then the siblings imitated different little birds. They walked on the branches, they learned how to wave their hands properly, to hold their head and body correctly.... And when they had to fly, they jumped down and ......
They ended up in the beaks of the other little birds.
All the little birds started to chirp loudly as if they were arguing about what else to do.
"Hushhhh!" Majka shouted, but she couldn't be heard over the noise.
Kaško whistled and everyone fell silent.
"We don't need to be able to fly." Majka began, "it's enough for us to fly with Kaško now and then, when he gives us an accelerator or takes us in his hands. After all, it's beautiful that we don't know. We can look up at the little birds and imagine what they must be seeing."
"The sky should be yours." Maxík joined in.
The little birds just bowed their heads and chirped softly. The bird kings came to Majka and Maxík and gave them two golden feathers.
"This is the biggest secret of the little birds. Whoever has these feathers can summon the little birds to his or her aid at any time, just by putting them in his or her hair or behind his or her ear." Kaško whispered to his friends.
Majka and Maxík bowed.
"Thank you." They looked at each other and put their feathers behind their ears. A thousand little birds flew to them and carried Maxík and Majka in their beaks under the Slánsky Hrad castle.
We should finally grill everything good to eat, Majka rubbed her hands and Maxík opened his backpack.
With a snap of his fingers, Kaško lit the fire.
The children grilled sausages, onions, bacon, and apples. Albert and his friends borrowed instruments from Maxík and were singing old songs about camaraderie until the moon came up.
By then Maxík and Majka were asleep. Kaško and the other ghosts carried Majka and Maxík to their beds, closed the windows and let them dream about who their friend really was. The children learned to really fly. After all, the most beautiful flying is flying to fantastic lands in a dream, not flying over hills and mountains.
