Hilda sits on her fire escape, looking longingly over the wall. She misses being out there, exploring. She's an adventurer, yet she's hiding behind walls! Yet in her head, there is another truth; she loves Trollberg. It's people, her friends, her family. She wouldn't give them up for anything. As cars crawl along the street, she hums a soft tune to herself. The song is sung originally by Sean Sero, a popular singer in his day.

"Where there's light, there will there will be rain.

"Where there's dark, we hear the moon man sing,

"Is this us? Is this us? Oh, is this us? Is this us?"

The song is a bittersweet tune about never finding the one you love in such a big world and settling for what you have.

She slumps over, thinking about her life. How she never got to see her father, how she lived in the forest most of her life before this year. Now the school year's screeching to a hard halt and she has to start all over again next year. Twig sits on her lap and nudges her hand, she giggles before obliging, rubbing the deerfox's head gently. Again she looks out into the forest, noticing a large troll rise from the ground before sinking once more. Weird. She thinks, looking away, shifting her vision to a kid running down the street swiftly. Like he's late for something. He turns into a back alley and disappears.

"Hilda, your mum is calling." Alfur states.

Hilda nods, standing up. "Thank you Alfur." She says, Looking longingly out once more before returning inside. She enters the main room seeing her mother at the drawing station.

"There you are." she says, looking up. "There's mail for you, Hilda." She hands Hilda a package. Inside of it is her old drawing book, the one she filled completely. There's a letter with it.

Hilda,

Saw that you left this, thought you might want it.

-Woodman

So she opens the old book and finds her old drawings. "I can't believe the ink lasted this long." she states.

"I can't believe he gave it back." Johanna says, mostly to herself. Then to Hilda, "How about some Dragon Panic?"

"I'd love that, Mum." she says. They play until they have to go to sleep.

He wanders around the city, as daylight rises around him until he happens upon a school. Schools have always interested Wayne. Kids are commanded by a bell, and sent off by their parents to get taught by strangers. Odd. The kids file inside of the building. One looks back, a girl with blue hair and dark eyes. She waves and he returns it before walking away. He feels guilty living freely.

He walks into an alley where a nisse is waiting for him. "What took you so long?" it asks.

Wayne looks at him coldly playing the character of a movie villain, "I didn't ask for comments. Do you have what I asked for?" He puts an edge to his voice.

The nisse gives in, "Yes."

"Good. Then hand it over." The nisse hands Wayne a big jar of jerky. "Good. Here's your reward." He hands it an old, beat up book he found in the trash.

It dusts off the book carefully and looks at it, smiling. "Thank you. My son's always wanted a copy of Old Yeller."

Wayne, still with that edge, says, "I'm glad. Good day." Then he leaves to another alley where another nisse waits.

Hilda watches the others have fun on field day. Playing games, laughing, all that. She is wondering about that boy. Is he new here? Where does he live? Does he go to school? Who is he? Her thoughts are interrupted by David. "Hey Hilda. Why aren't you playing? It is the last day."

Hilda shrugs, "Just not really in the mood, i guess." She says. "Where's Frida?"

"She's with everyone over there playing volleyball." He pauses, "I would play too, but I'm afraid of getting a tooth knocked out."

Hilda giggles quietly and pats him on the back. "What aren't you scared of?"

"I'm not afraid of..." he stops to think.

Hilda punches his shoulder playfully, "Exactly. Just sit, we'll wait for Frida." While they sit, the kid from that morning walks by. She runs up to him, "I haven't seen you before." He grunts, continuing his forward motion. "My name is Hilda." She steps in front of him and holds out her hand.

He looks at her for a moment, thinking, before taking her hand and shaking it. "Wayne. Wayne Sharpe." he says, "Now if you'll excuse me, I was just cutting through this field."

"What's in the bag?"

"Supplies."

"For what?"

David walks up to them and asks, "Hilda, what's going on? Who is this?"

"David, this is Wayne." she says. He gives Wayne an oddly charming smile, like a kindergartener asking for a piece of pie, you can't say no to it. Wayne shakes his hand quickly. "Why don't you stay a while, you look stressed."

Wayne grunts, "Can't. Need to drop this off, I can't do much with sixty-three pounds weighing me down."

David shrugs, "We dug a ditch in the field. You could hide your stuff there until we leave." he says.

Okay so it's either leave your stuff and hope nobody takes it or leave and potentially lose something special. After weighing his options, he looks at the sun and sighs. It's all dry food anyway. Canda will wait. "Sure. I'll do it." They guide him to the far end of the field where they move a heavy wooden pallet to reveal a stash of junk food. "Just drop it?"

Hilda shrugs, "Go ahead. But gently, please." He follows her instructions and they move the pallet back, scattering grass and leaves over it. Wayne feels infinitely lighter. "David, how much time is left in school?"

David looks at his watch, "About two hours."

Hilda grins, grabbing Wayne's hand, her palm is hard and callused and her backhand is soft. He lets her tug him along, until they get to the pack where she looks down at their hands and pulls hers away, a heavy blush rising, "Sorry, I get excited."

Wayne shrugs, "No harm no foul."

"How old are you?" David asks. "You look like a kid, but you sound older."

Wayne thinks, "...Twelve?"

"Do you not know?"

"How long are your years?"

David frowns, "What?"

"I didn't grow up in the city. I never went to school." He says, shamefully.

Hilda, not wanting to be pushy says, "Three hundred sixty-five. Sixty-six every four years."

He sits, thinking, "Yeah, twelve." He decides. "Disregarding those extra days, twelve."

They smile, "You're my age." Hilda says, sitting next to him. "So this is all foreign to you, huh?"

He nods, lugubriously. David sits down next to him and pats him on the back. "Then we can watch people play. Hilda doesn't know how to do any of this either. And I- well- I just don't want to."

Someone sits next to them, "Well we have to do something." Wayne looks in the direction of the voice and sees another girl. "Who's this?" she asks Hilda.

"He's a friend."

"Wayne." he says.

"Well I'm Frida, pleasure to meet you!" She hold out a hand glistening with sweat, which he shakes, wiping his hands on the seat of his old jeans afterwards. "Sorry. I've been playing volleyball." she says. "What about the bouncy house?"

David groans, "I'd rather like not getting trampled to death."

"Okay… so what about the dunk tank?"

"I have nothing against the staff." Hilda says.

"Sports?" Frida asks.

"I don't know any." Wayne mutters.

Frida plots herself beside Hilda. "How do you know this kid? He obviously doesn't go here."

Hilda hesitates, "He's- a friend."

"Okay. Who's up for name tag?" Frida asks.

Wayne looks at her weirdly. "What?"

"Have you played regular tag before?" David asks.

"Yes."

"Same thing only if you're about to get tagged, you can call out someone's name and they're it." David says, simply.

Wayne smiles and nods, getting up. "Thanks." he says, "Also there's a bug like right on the top of your head." David bats at it and it crawls beneath his collar. "Got it." Wayne lies, smiling.

Hilda is "it" first, she chases Wayne for a bit before he yells Frida's name, and she tries tagging David, but he calls out Wayne's name. Wayne fakes chasing Frida before turning a complete one-eighty on Hilda who is running behind him. She falls on the ground laughing and calls out David's name. He tries to tag Wayne but Wayne throws himself onto the ground and calls out Hilda's name only to realize he can't see her, and tapped on the shoulder from behind.

"Gotcha." She whispers, he turns around and starts after her. She falls and calls out Frida's name.

"You okay?" he asks, helping her up.

"Fine." She looks over his shoulder, "Watch out-"

"David!" he calls, turning.

David stands still looking at them from his distance, before running at a rapid pace towards them. He fakes going for Wayne to tag Frida, who turns right into a boy with brown hair, bringing the game to a screeching halt. Wayne looks over the situation and helps them both up.

"Trevor?!" Hilda exclaims.

He glares at her, "You again?"

Wayne feels a slight tug of curiosity and decides to ignore it. "Are you alright, man? You took a good bump."

He looks at Wayne and shrugs, "I'll live."

"That's the spirit." Wayne smiles, "Why don't you get something to prevent that from swelling. Try not to get hit again on your way there." They laugh.

"Thanks," he says, "I will. Good to meet you."

"You too." Hilda follows him as he leaves with her eyes. "What's up?"

Hilda sighs, "I just don't like him is all." When he asks why, she shrugs, "He isn't a nice guy, he's really rude actually."

Wayne thinks about it. He didn't seem like a bad guy. "Noted." he says, efforting to make her happy. From there, they go to the food truck and get burgers. "How do I-"

Hilda shakes her head, "Watch me." she takes a bite from her burger. He follows her example, slowly. "Yes, like that. How is it?"

"This is literally the best thing I've ever eaten." Wayne says, taking another bite. "It definitely beats dry beef by a long shot."

Frida looks as though holding back laughter, "You mean jerky?"

Wayne shrugs, "If that's what you guys call it." he says polishing off the burger. Noticing Frida looking at him weirdly, "Sorry, I didn't grow up around here, I'm pretty new to town."

Frida pats him on the back, "We have so much to show you."

"Frida, you up for another game?!" someone calls.

"I'll be right there!" she yells back. Then she looks at her group of friends, "We'll catch up later, duty calls." she says, smiling. The group goes towards the bouncy slide, which there is no line for at the moment.

David looks at them, "This makes you jump higher and the slope lets you slide down. I'll go first to show you how it works." He demonstrates, laughing when he's at the top, but it seems that when he starts sliding he realises how high up he is and screams the rest of the way down. It takes all of Wayne's self control to refrain from laughing. The lady in charge lets them both up at once.

"I'll beat you to the bottom." Hilda exclaims.

Wayne grins, "You're on." They both jump high and bounce down the slide, cheering gleefully. Wayne reaches the bottom right after Hilda, but, facing more momentum, he slides right past her and she ends up sliding right into him, ending up on top of him. He groans after a couple of seconds, "I deserved that."

Hilda realizes where she is and gets up, a bright red blush across her face. "Well, I won."

"You're right." He laughs making his way to his feet, "You won and then you killed me" They share a laugh, getting off the death trap. "David, you tried to kill me!" Wayne jokingly cries, "I thought we were friends!"

David laughs, "You fell for my trap!" he dramatically exclaims.

They laugh it off before moving to the spot where they sat before in the shade until the bell for dismissal rings. Wayne gets up to leave when Hilda grabs his hand. "You don't have to go, my mum could drive you where you're going."

Wayne considers a ride near his home and shakes his head. "No, I have to meet someone." he says. "Tell you what, we'll hang out tomorrow. Meet me here at mid-day."

"Noon?" Hilda asks, smiling.

"If that's what you call it, yes." He says, grabbing his heavy bag. "See you then." he says, pulling his bag on.

"Bye." Hilda says, waving. He waves back without hesitation. Hilda waits patiently for her mum after that, who shows up slightly late.

"Sorry honey, I had to wait in traffic. How was your day?"

Hilda smiles, entering the passenger seat of Johanna's car. "It was good. I made a new friend."

"That's nice." Johanna says, driving out of the parking lot. "What's his name?"

"Wayne. Wayne Sharpe."