THE CABIN WAS as Vetta remembered it. Even the two chairs placed opposite each other as if for an interview remained exactly where Truancy Mundane had placed them originally.

It gave the impression of unfinished business. When their quiet little talk had come to an end some nights ago and they parted, the room was magically frozen in time, awaiting their return.

Now she was back and the magic spell was about to be lifted.

Vetta stood there, unsure what might happen next, at the mercy of some unknown fate. Then she heard sounds from the trapdoor in the floor and braced herself as best she could.

The girl with blue hair appeared, leaping the last steps into the room with a dramatic flair that seemed important to her. She danced around the room briefly and Vetta watched this display of exuberance in silence.

"And so we meet again," she said with a bow.

"Yes," Vetta replied and gave the room a more considered perusal. Bundles of cloth, a few odd trinkets and some lengths of ropes hanging from the wooden walls suggested it was not a place where someone lived. Vetta remembered it was not Truancy's home. Was it then a store house for stolen things?

No. The Blue Hair Clan did not steal. Vetta believed this as earnestly as Truancy declared it. They borrowed, they traded and they admired. They did not steal.

They also searched and yearned and hungered. They were incomplete, at odds, troubled. At least this particular specimen appeared to be. Like a broken vase in need of fixing, a lost beach ball waiting to be found. What, Vetta thought, could she do to help?

Without warning she felt hands upon her, arms gripped firmly, and she was dragged to a chair to be planted unceremoniously upon it.

"I said sit," Truancy declared with mock sternness.

"I am sorry," Vetta replied, making herself more comfortable upon the chair. "My thoughts misled me and I was inattentive. Please forgive me," and she looked at the floor where a few pine cones lay scattered upon the bare boards.

"Forgive you? Of course I do you funny little thing. Friends always forgive each other." Then she looked serious again. "I am your friend, aren't I?"

"Yes," Vetta said without hesitation. "You bring me joy."

"I do?" and Truancy laughed.

"Of course. Friendship is one of the five wellsprings of joy."

"Oh, I see."

She did see. It was part of her upbringing and she saw more than most. Only there were invisible things present too and this thought made her smile.

***

AMONG THE STORES was a supply of food in one corner of the shack and without comment Truancy heated up a pan of beans, thinking to make an evening of it. She offered a full plate to the other girl, who took it without question. Then she began consuming her own meal in watchful silence.

"You're a quiet one and no mistake," Truancy observed after a while. It was said in a sharp brusque manner but not unkindly. Vetta had learnt she meant no harm by it.

"I am currently at peace," she replied and shovelled some more beans in her mouth with the large wooden spoon that gave them a slightly tangy taste for it had been whittled from a young pine quite recently.

"Devouring a meal is certainly a peaceful way of getting along," the other girl laughed. "You like beans then?"

"They are lovely. With some melted cheese they would be even more amazing."

There could be no answer to that and the girls finished their meal, drinking spring water from a full canteen. Vetta placed her empty plate with its well licked spoon upon the floor at her feet and sat back to smile contentedly at the other girl. Truancy rose from her seat with a grunt.

"Come on," she said brightly, "let's wash up in all friendliness. I want to show you our amazing Frangea stars to see what you think of them."

In moments they were outside the cabin in the clearing and stood beneath a canopy of sparkling lights that overspread the tree tops. It was a perfect evening for stargazing with no clouds in the autumnal sky.

"There. What do you think of that?"

Vetta gazed long and hard at the sky, seeming unmoved.

"They are very pretty, especially that twinkling pink one over there," she said eventually. It was Truancy's beloved Blushing Beauty and she was delighted to find a kindred soul in admiring it.

"But don't you ever stare at them and wonder?"

"Wonder what?" Vetta was slightly bemused, being a Wonder girl.

"What they are. What's out there, why that one's pinkish and not the others for instance."

"My father says what is unattainable need not be pondered. They are far away and beautiful for being far away. Up close they may not be so pleasant. I like the stars better for being far away and unattainable and mysterious."

"It sounds like you don't want to know," Truancy said. "Why go to school? Do you not want to learn about things?" There was a tinge of exasperation in her voice.

"I do want to learn things," Vetta asserted. "Education is one of the five wellsprings of joy."

The fine hazel eyes of the girl filled with an emotion difficult to understand, then she sighed.

"So, bring me joy," she eventually said. "Teach me things," and she turned her back on the unattainable by re-entering the hut. Vetta, uncertain what this might entail, followed her and they resumed the simple seats facing each other.

"I've only been at this big new school for a short time," she said plaintively. "I haven't had time to learn anything so I can teach others. It would be amazing to do so though, passing on knowledge."

"What have you been doing all your life?" the girl said, astonished, thinking she was in the presence of an idiot child.

If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

"Watching my father make wheels of cheese," Vetta confessed nervously, picking up on the exasperation opposite.

"Why wheels? Why not squares or cubes or blocks?"

"Oh, there is a loveliness about a wheel of cheese beyond its taste and fragrance," Vetta enthused in that ready way of hers whenever seized by a subject. She pictured to herself a family gathering, all sat around a great yellow round thing upon a table, everyone awaiting their share of the feast. "Imagine having nine guests, each wishing some cheese. If it were a block this would not be difficult for one might divide it in three and then in three again."

"Sounds like number puzzles," the girl said, rubbing her hands and rocking on her chair. "Three times three equals nine. Good. What else?"

"Well, nine guests can be served when the cheese is in a block. What would you do with a block," Vetta asked carefully, "if it had to be shared between seven guests, and of course shared equally?"

The girl sat back and tried her own mental picture, cutting the squared shaped thing this way and that. Then her face brightened.

"I'd slice it into seven parts along one edge," she declared triumphantly.

Vetta nodded, but there was a look of triumph on her face too, a challenging triumph.

"It would work for quantity only, not quality," she said happily. "The guest who got the first slice would receive the hardest, bitterest piece, for cheese matures differently from the outside to the centre. Even with nine this would be so."

"How am I supposed to know that?" the girl replied sullenly. Undaunted, Vetta completed her image.

"A wheel of cheese allows the seven segments to be equal in size and texture and taste so that all guests are served with equal respect and care. It is a symbol of generosity. Generosity is one of the five wellsprings of joy," and she sat back looking a little exhausted by her efforts to sustain her argument. The blue-haired girl remained silent for a while, processing this information.

"We of the Blue Hair Clan," she said, frowning as she sought the right words to say, "follow our own code of sharing. We don't have much, so those in greatest need are helped first. Sometimes there are some among us who have to go without."

"This is a sadness," Vetta said softly and looked down at the floor.

"We manage," Truancy added lightly. "Besides over-indulgence ain't healthy 'tis said," and then she belched, the beans so recently consumed betraying her.

"It is difficult to know when something good does harm. Papa once scolded me when I was a baby," and Vetta laughed at the remembrance of the lesson. "Do not take too little if there is enough, and do not take too much when the need is met. Therein will you find another joy, that of good health." She looked up then and found the other staring at her, lost in her own thoughts.

"Thank you," Truancy eventually said and her manner changed, as if some inner decision had been reached. "You have brought me joy through your generosity and friendship, as well as knowledge of curious things. I have learned number puzzles, shapes and hidden properties. Now I see what good health means to you as well." She paused as if a little overcome by emotion. Vetta could not understand what it was that troubled the blue-haired girl called Truancy so much. Thus she kept silent a moment and then she remembered her father's teachings again, feeling a need to reinforce them as best she may.

"It is," she said quietly, "one of the five wellsprings of joy."

Truancy did not make answer to this. She did not need to. It was the expected set speech which through repetition might sound insincere yet it confirmed something else about the person speaking. An impression which grew moment by moment, delighting her by the idea of it.

An invisible, intangible thing it was that shaped the world without so much as leaving a mark. Like a member of the Blue Hair Clan just passing through. Only it was stronger, deeper, more lasting.

There was a determination about the girl from far away Poldorama to assure others all was well, that this timid little thing, though nervous and often alarmed at everything going on around her, was in fact in the throes of an intense contentment she designated joy. It not only seemed to sustain her in her trials but extended far beyond her own self.

Truancy pondered the girl's words more carefully, confirming the true meaning in those set speeches obviously learnt from conscientious parents determined to bring their daughter up rightly. There was a trick to it, like a swirly caught in sunshine, dancing with inner mystery that yearned to be free. Truancy Mundane counted things on her fingers and she knew she was right.

Inside she trembled, and it was with joy.

"That's four of these five wellsprings you've mentioned to me this night," she said carefully. "Good health, education, friendship and generosity." Then she gave her a fixed stare. "What's the fifth? Tell me so I can better understand."

Vetta stiffened at this unexpected question, which made her ponder deeply on many things all at once. She liked Truancy more and more. There was a fascination about her troubled soul that inspired a desire to help her, to bring her the joy she so much craved. She wanted to know things, to comprehend things that Vetta herself barely understood. She knew Miss Plazenby would never accept such a pupil in the extremely exclusive school she attended so somehow she had to find another way. She fretted inwardly, searching her mind for answers.

Fiercely she searched her memory, the words of her father and the respected elders of the Blessed Hub, and then the realisation seeped into her mind laden with panic.

"I don't know," she eventually said, tears of disappointment welling up in her dark blue eyes as if from a wellspring of despair. Of all the things to be ignorant of, this was perhaps the worst. The other girl just stared at her.

"You really don't know, do you?" Truancy replied with a reassuring smile. Vetta shook her head, short blonde curls dancing in the lamplight. Truancy got up from her seat and went over to where the Poldorama girl sat. She hugged her a moment and then released her, literally.

"I am letting you go again," she said. "So you can return to your friends. Your other friends," she added, correcting herself.

Vetta stood abruptly, seemingly alarmed at this sudden dismissal.

"You want me to leave? I'm so sorry I couldn't answer your question. It was really difficult and so unexpected." She seemed heartbroken by this flawed conclusion to their little meeting.

"You have answered my question," came a soft response and Truancy's eyes gleamed in the lantern light.

"How? I am so stupid," Vetta said mournfully.

"You are not."

"You are kind to say so." There was a sense of relief in her response. Then she gave the girl an uncertain look. "Where will you go now? What will happen to you?" The thought of suddenly parting from this strange girl and her unknown fate troubled Vetta more than she realised.

"Don't worry about me," she laughed softly. "We are all children of wandering ways. Wherever we go, whatever we do, our destinies are fulfilled as needs be. The Blue Hair Clan have lived in the wild out of the way places of Frangea for generations. We'll turn up again some day. Perhaps by then you'll be a teacher, like you said."

"That would be amazing," Vetta admitted.

It was time indeed to leave for it was getting late and though the evening meal was of no concern to the girl who had feasted on a plate full of beans, still there was a time she was expected to be back in her dormitory and that time was close. Thus the two girls walked out into the star-filled night again and felt the warm breeze of a Frangean autumn as it rustled the trees around them. They gazed up at the unattainable in silence and then embraced before parting, perhaps forever.

"As for the fifth wellspring of joy," Truancy said, unable to keep silent any longer.

"Yes?"

"It's you, Vetta. It's you."

THE END

***

AFTERWORD...

Please note this story is but one title in the FACE OF THE WORLD series. A complete list follows...

The Centre of Everything (A23)

The Perils of Pinky (B17)

Death Spiders (C1)

Teeth (a Sophelia Smog Adventure) (D21)

A Dying Art (E7)

Twinkle Twins (F5)

Bubbles Goes Wild (G4)

Dragon Post (H22)

Tinker Gold is Wealth Untold (I13)

The Golden Girl (J6)

The Sacred Hamster of Ragadoon (K15)

The Great Cheese War (L12)

Snow and Steam (or from Xenia to Gloriosa) (M26)

The Feeding Frenzy (N20)

Fairy Tangle (O14)

The Wicked Witch of Arbornica (P10)

Battle of the Spoons (Q19)

The Drowning Games (R2)

The Congress of Dolls (S8)

Tinker Dawn (T24)

The Fifth Wellspring of Joy (U9)

The Lonely Ghost (V3)

The Fatal Flaw (W11)

Invasion of the Dust Mice (X18)

The Other Meditia Girl (Y16)

The End (Z25)