#10 Turtles
It's the first normal thing she's ever responsible for and she names him Puck to feel like she was still connected to her childhood. He's a little snapping turtle with a two-tone green shell and little yellow feet—like he's wearing a little pair of Odd's yellow converse.
Jim ignores it—pretends to think the little turtle in its little bowl is fake. He tells Aelita that she should get a goldfish if she's lonely, plastic turtles aren't much company. He starts to tell a story about a koi fish he adopted during the war and then wanders out of her open door. (Two weeks later she finds a bottle of fish flakes next to the bowl she doesn't remember buying.)
Odd drew Puck a little stain glass panel on the outside of the bowl, and Ulrich tells her it makes him look like he's in a little seaside church. The two start calling him Pastor Puck.
Puck sleeps on his little rock in the sun and always scampers over to the edge of the bowl when Aelita comes through the dorm door. She sneaks him pancakes and tells him all her secrets. Puck listens. He keeps her company and helps fill that empty place in her heart.