The pair wandered past the old house. The sign said:
Welcome to the Hermitage
Aelita smiled as they passed her father's old home. Then she noticed something she hadn't seen before. Something dark grey climbed up the side of the house.
"Odd," She asked, "what's that?"
The aforementioned blonde turned his head to look, and chuckled when he did. "That's a drainpipe, Princess."
"What's a drainpipe?"
Odd paused for a second. "Well… you know what a drain is, right?"
Aelita nodded.
"And a pipe is, well, you know that too." He paused for breath. "A drainpipe, however, is a pipe that collects rain, and delivers it to the drain."
Our pink-haired friend frowned. "It won't collect much water, will it?"
The purple obsessive refrained from slapping his forehead. "That's why the gutter was invented."
Aelita's frown grew. "What's a gutter?"
"You see that thing around the base of the roof?" he asked, pointing to give her a better picture.
"Yes," the naïve girl replied. "Is that the gutter?"
Odd nodded. "The rainwater falls into that, and then it flows down into the drainpipe. Get it?"
Aelita was silent for a moment. Then:
"You said a gutter surrounds a house?"
Odd smiled. "Yes. What about it?"
"If you were a house," she began. Then she abruptly hugged him for a few seconds. "Would that make me a gutter?"
Odd's response was not what she had expected. He turned mauve, stammered a few syllables, and fainted.
She stared at her friend's body on the floor. "Oops…."