Tasya
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Pivoting on his heels, and back towards the girl, he saw her soil covered hands were pressed to her mouth, struggling to muffle her laugher.
She lifted her eyes to Hugh and his nonplussed expression set her off like a match to a powder keg. She freed her hands from her mouth, threw them above her head, and let her laugher ring free throughout the courtyard. The people sitting on the benches, who had paid her and Hugh no mind beforehand, stopped their conversations and unglued their eyes from their smartphones.
They all looked over at her and started to smile and giggle.
Even though it was only for a few seconds, her laughter had infected them with joy.
“Why are you laughing?” Hugh asked, noticing that he was the only one not merry in this moment. “Did one of the mole people tell you a joke?”
Hugh's question brought another series of laughs from the black-haired girl. She tried to answer Hugh's questions, but each time she opened her mouth fits of laugher stymied the passage of words.
Only after three attempts was she able to compose herself.
“I can't believe you thought I was really looking for mole people!” The black-haired girl cried out. “Do you think I am some gullible and oblivious child who could be duped by fiction? I was just teasing you!”
“It seems that I am the gullible one here,” Hugh cracked a smile, “but if you are not on a grand expedition to meet the mole people, then what are you doing?”
“I can see that in addition to being gullible, you are also oblivious.” The black-haired girl said. “Isn't it obvious? I'm digging holes to plant flowers.”
“That does seem quite obvious,” Hugh said, “but why are you digging with a stick and not with a spade or some other tool?”
The girl retrieved her stick from beside her and smoothed out the holes she had been making.
“I am attempting to pioneer a new and ecofriendly method of planting flowers.” She held the stick in one hand and waved it before Hugh, as if to show him the majesty of it. “Sticks are renewable, can be picked up from the ground and are not manufactured in waste producing factories.”
“That's very admirable, that you care so much for the environment.” Hugh commented. “Maybe if you plant flowers in other courtyards people will see you and the idea will catch on.”
The girl erupted with laugher and once again the courtyard inhabitants joined in.
“I see that my jokes fly over your head a bit.” She said after regaining herself. “Don't worry, you'll adjust. Soon you'll see that I'm the best comedian around and be belly laughing in no time.”
In an odd way, Hugh found the entire situation humorous. The black-haired girl set a pair of humorous traps and Hugh had been snagged in each one. This fact brought a smile to his face and a laugh of his own.
The girl's eyes had grown as wide as Hugh's had when he had heard about her journey to slaughter the mole people.
“So now you laugh?” She questioned. “When I didn’t even make a joke? You sure have an odd sense of humor”
“Your joke about being ecofriendly only just hit me now and I couldn't contain myself.” Hugh said and concentrated on withholding a smile as he laid his own trap.
“Really! You just got the joke now?!?”
It was Hugh's time to spring the trap, and he did so with a laugh of his own, albeit with too much gusto. Those on the benches looked up but did not join. They shot perturbed glances Hugh's way and then dove back into their screens.
“I see you have a touch of gullibility yourself.” Hugh said, ignoring the lack of laughs. “I was laughing at being the butt of all your jokes, you know, taking them in stride.”
The girl carefully put the stick down, as if she were handling an artifact.
“Well, a discovery has been made.” She said. “A true breakthrough! We have discovered that you have a sense of humor! Let us tell the wisest scholars in the most prestigious universities!”
“I'll be sure to tell them as soon as possible.” Hugh joked. “But what these scholars really want to know is why you are digging holes with a stick and not a spade”
“To tell you the truth,” she said looking down at the stick as if it her artifact had become a pitiful creature, “I don't have a spade. If I had one, I would use it.”
Hugh raised an eyebrow.
“You could have said that right from the start.” Hugh said. “My grandmother loved gardening and I have boxes of her old stuff. There should be a spade around somewhere.”
A look of excitement sparked in the girl's face, then died out. Hugh could read on the girl's face that she was reluctant to ask him to go and search for the spade.
“Wait here for a bit, and I'll go and check.” Hugh offered. “If I find it then you can use it.”
“Thank you,” the girl said, and Hugh could hear the embarrassment tinted on her words. “I'll be waiting here and continuing my journey to the center of the Earth.”
Hugh returned to his entrance way and slid his key over the electronic keypad. The door beeped and chirped for a few seconds and the lock disengaged. Hugh pulled the door open thinking that the unlocking process was a bit too long and that lock makers made it so because they were so proud of the sound effects and wanted to show it off to others.
Entering the building, Hugh bound up a small flight of stairs and took a right down a corridor that led to the elevator.
As soon as he made the corner, two tiny dogs pounced on his legs with tails wagging and wide eyes that begged for cookies and belly rubs. The first dog was a gracile Yorke with oily and weighed down fur that said it was long overdue for a bath. The second was a stout and plump Westie that would have looked right at home in a child's toy store on a rack for premium stuffed animals. They weren't big enough to topple Hugh, but their nails threatened to a hole or two into his trousers.