The Message*
Sighing, Powder eventually came down the hill, through the meadow, and walked back toward the house. As Powder came up the porch, she saw a pile of mail left at the top of the porch steps.
They weren't envelopes or boxes, but large, sealed packages, each with round, flat lumps, shaped like bars of soap, inside each. Across the front, the packages were stamped multiple times, all addressed to the house, to a name she didn't recognize.
"Bobinsky… Bobinsky… Bobinsky…" she repeated, checking all the packages were addressed to the same person, to her house in Ashland, Oregon.
Then she sniffed the air and realized the packages were not bars of soap.
"Pewwy!" she exclaimed, holding out the pile in her arms as far away as possible.
Whatever the packaging was sealing in was very, very strong.
Looking off the porch, Powder spotted a nearby sign she hadn't noticed before. It had an arrow that pointed up a metal staircase that zigzagged and wrapped around the house like a fire escape. Sometimes reenforced with concrete.
'Bobinsky, there,' it pointed with bold letters.
She took a breath and climbed the stairs, avoiding looking down at the ground.
Finally climbing to the top, Powder blew the hair out of her face and looked out over the landscape. From the metal balcony three stories above the ground, she could see the driveway meet the road surrounded by nothing but pine trees and a gathering white fog. The color of the purple hills in the distance beyond the town reminded her of the view in her dream.
She pursed her lips and pushed the thoughts aside.
Wiping her forehead, Powder knocked her knuckles on a white front door arched by the roof of the house, but there wasn't any answer.
"Hello?" she called, standing on her toes, leaning side to side, not seeing anything through the curtained window in the door, "I think our mail got mixed up!"
Still no answer.
Biting her lip, she leaned her ear against the door, wondering if anyone was home.
"Should I leave it outside? Or –"
Powder gasped as she tripped forward, her weight against the door pushing it open. She lunged to catch the pile of packages that jumped into the air. They thankfully fell in a neat line, straight into her hands. None fell out.
For once, her clumsiness didn't get the best of her. If only Mylo had been around to see it.
Peering inside the open door, Powder was surprised the place looked more like an old attic than a remodeled living space. Everything was either wood or brick. A round table with a table lamp and tablecloth sat in the middle of the space. A sheer, white sheet covered half of the table, like a ghost on Halloween. A clothesline of laundry hung among the rafters in the wooden beams holding up the roof. Everything else was covered in a layer of dust. A random chicken clucked from a straw nest in a corner. A black pot boiled on a stove that looked even older than their oven downstairs.
"Secret!" a voice said behind her.
Powder jumped as she whirled around, nearly dropping the packages in her arms again.
A long, beefy arm reached around her shoulder and closed the door. The arm was attached to a man with impossibly purple-hued skin, muscular limbs, a big chest, a patch of wiry hair on his head, and a few strands of a long, wiry, handlebar mustache.
"Famous rabbit circus not ready!" he said in a thick Russian accent before taking a bite out of a plump, red beet in his hand. "Little girl," he chewed.
He was hanging upside down like a vampire bat, his feet hooked somehow onto the roof above his door, completely content.
"C-Circus?" Powder looked down at the packages in her arms and realized the strange smell she didn't know must have been pet food. "I, uh, I brought this for you," she said, handing it out to him.
With a blink, he tossed his beet aside, and smiled widely, taking the packages from her. He hugged and sniffed them deeply, muttering something in Russian.
"Huh?" Powder asked.
"New beetroot samples!" he replied, as though that answered everything. For a split-second, Powder saw that his tongue was blue.
The strange, hulking man let go of the roof, catching himself in a handstand, and turned himself upright, practically stepping over her with his long legs. He wore black riding boots, which didn't go with his athletic outfit.
Powder was only glad that the man's athletic shorts fit well and didn't reveal much. She still partially covered her eyes just in case.
The man's white undershirt rolled up on his belly as he stretched, and a strange medal bounced while pinned by his shoulder. Attached by a red and green ribbon, it was round and flared out with gold like a sun. The round center had a blue background and a red teardrop shape. But Powder couldn't read the Russian inscription. She didn't get to see more of it before he stretched his leg up behind him like a ballerina, taking the opportunity to lean closer.
"Very clever to use this mix-up to sneak me home and peek at kroliki!" he said, leaning close to her face, staring her in the eyes.
His eyes were so cloudy, Powder wasn't certain if he could see. Unnerved all the same, Powder glanced to the side.
"Crow-lee-kee?" Powder asked.
"The bunnies!" he grunted impatiently, putting down his leg and pointing his thumb over his shoulder.
He suddenly leapt over her again, hand standing on the fire escape railing, and stretched his legs into splits as he did pushups.
"Oh, sorry…" Powder said, trying to duck out of his way. "I'm… Powder Lane," she tried to introduce herself.
"And me am the Amazing Dr. Mundo Bobinsky!" he said with a smile to her, balancing on one hand with his legs outstretched. "But you call me Dr. B, because amazing me already know that me am."
He suddenly crossed his legs into a pretzel knot and dropped off the fire escape, disappearing out of sight. Powder rushed to the railing, alarmed, but when she looked over the edge of the balcony, she didn't find him on the ground. She heard clanging of footsteps on metal behind her, and she turned and saw him somehow standing in front of his door again.
He wiped his forehead with a small towel and draped it over his shoulder, before sighing, "You see, Paula, the problem is… Me new songs go, 'Opa! Opa!'"
He danced to emphasis his point, pounding his chest. Then he modeled a flute.
"But the bunnies only dance to music like 'toodle-toot', like that..." He shrugged, sucking his teeth. "Is nice but not so much amazing..." He then collected the packages and exclaimed passionately, "So now, me switch to stronger beets and soon, watch out!"
He suddenly stood straight up and saluted her, or to someone she couldn't see. Pivoting on his heel, he headed toward his door. He stopped to give her something.
"Here, have beet. Make you strong," he said.
Powder eyed the vegetable in her hand, dubiously.
"Dosvidaniya, Paula," the man said with a smile before kicking his door open and leaping backward into his apartment, closing the door in her face.
For a moment, Powder only scowled in disbelief.
"It's Powder," she mumbled to herself.
Certain the strange man was gone, she scoffed at the beet in her hand and tossed it over her shoulder, falling somewhere far to the ground on the property.
When she climbed back down the stairs, Powder held her garden clippers in her hand, wondering what she could do with them. She circled around the house.
"Opa, opa. Toodle-toot…" she muttered, playing with the words in her mouth.
Then she heard a voice above her shout, "Hey, Paula! Podozhdi! Wait!"
Dr. B was waving his hands from the balcony above her. He suddenly jumped over the railing, and she saw the bottoms of his black riding boots, dropping straight toward her.
"No!" Powder reacted, uncertain where to jump out of his way, holding up her garden clippers above her head.
As natural as if Dr. B were only hopping off a short ledge, the man parted his legs at the last second, missing Powder, and stopped himself before landing on her. Despite how close the point of the clippers had been to stabbing him, he simply pushed her clippers aside with his finger as he adjusted himself to stand beside her, then looked around conspiratorially and bent down to her height.
Dr. B whispered behind his hand, nervously, "The kroliki… asked me to give you message."
"The… bunnies?" Powder asked, not knowing what else to say.
"They are saying…" He looked around suspiciously, looking scared of the gathering mist, and leaned down so close that his moustache tickled Powder's ear, whispering, "… Do not go through little door."
Powder's eyes widened, her heart skipping a beat.
How did he know?
"Do you know of such a thing?" Dr. B asked, shrugging like he truly didn't understand.
Powder shook her head, confused. "The one behind the wallpaper? But… it's all bricked up."
"Bah!" Dr. B waved his hand, standing tall again. "So sorry! Is nothing! Sometimes the bunnies are a little mixed-up," he said as he walked to the staircase, circling his finger by his head.
Reaching up, he vaulted himself up the side of the fire escape as though it were normal for him.
"They even get your name wrong, you know?" Dr. B scoffed, climbing the stairs, "They call you 'Powder' instead of 'Paula'. Not Paula at all!" He laughed a deep chest laugh as he turned into his apartment again, scoffing, "Maybe me work them too hard!"
Powder eyed him warily as he ascended out of sight and closed his apartment door again.
Annoyed beyond words, Powder shook her head and rolled her eyes.
"Weirdo," she muttered to herself before continuing her walk.