It was a beautiful spring morning, and Majka and Maxík were just sitting in their room waiting. They didn't even know what they were waiting for, but one could see that they were waiting for something. Maxík was cleaning all his mirrors, magnifying glasses, and slides, which had gathered a little dust over the winter because he hadn't used them much - after all, what could he possibly study in winter? Majka was tuning her musical instruments and sorting her books - which ones to read now, which ones later, which ones she had already read and... and then there was a soft knock at the window.
“Did you hear that?” asked Maxík.
“Yes,” said Majka, looking around.
“Someone's knocking,” said Maxík, slowly approaching the door to check if he had heard correctly.
“I heard it.”
“Should we open it?” Maxík looked at his sister from the door.
“Hmm... should we?”
“Maybe it's Kaško.”
“But he's never knocked so softly before,” thought Majka, and she started biting her nails a little, even though she shouldn't.
Majka opened the door, but there was no one there.
“Could Mum be playing a joke?” she couldn't believe it.
“Probably not,” Maxík thought, and then they heard the knocking again. They turned to the window and almost fell over. Standing behind the window was their friend Kaško, floating in mid-air. They quickly opened the window, and it was immediately clear what they had been waiting for.
“What are you sitting here for?!’ Kaško shouted, as if they had agreed long ago to meet and what they would do.
"‘We're not just sitting here," his friends turned away from Kaško and pretended to be busy.
"No?" Kaško smiled under his breath.
"No. I cleaned all my microscopes and magnifying glasses, and slides," said Maxík, showing off his work.
"And I sorted through my books and tuned my instruments," Majka also boasted.
"So, if you're ready, shall we go?" Kaško continued.
"Where to?" Their eyes lit up.
"It's warm outside, so let's go on a trip somewhere, shall we?"
"Do you have a plan?" Max and Majka opened their eyes and ears wide.
"We could go to Green Point."
"Is that some kind of green place?" Maxík searched his mind for such a place.
“That sounds good,” chirped Majka and began to choose a handbag to take with her for a walk in the woods.
“Take some nice warm clothes too,” reminded the fluttering ghost Kaško.
“What for?” Maxík and Majka looked up from their packing at the fluttering Kaško.
“In case it gets windy.”
“That's true,” thought Majka, “it's often windy in the forest.”
“How are we going to get there?” they asked, standing ready to leave.
“We have time today, so we could take the bus,” suggested Kaško.
“Whatever you say,” said Maxík, jumping over the doorstep.
The children got on the bus heading for the village of Kluknava.
“Will we get sick?” wondered Majka when she heard where they were going.
“Why would you get sick?” asked Kaško, not understanding.
“Well... there'll probably be winding roads if it's called Kluknava.”
“There are winding roads there, but don't worry - you'll be enchanted when you get there,” promised Kaško cheerfully, his eyes shining so brightly that if it had been night, the bus driver wouldn't have needed to turn on the headlights.
They got off the bus in a picturesque village in the middle of Haravara and walked a short distance - well, Maxík and Majka walked, and Kaško flew a little.
“So, what do you think?” asked the flying boy.
“Wow!”
In front of them stood a tower. But not a castle tower, a lookout tower. And not just any tower - a beautiful tower.
“Kaško?”
“Yes?” he waited for words of praise.
“Do you want to go up?” Maxík repeated slowly.
“Of course I want to!” Kaško exclaimed cheerfully and flew up and down.
“But...” Maxík wanted to say something...
“Guys, I can fly, so I can see nature from up here whenever I want, but you have to look at it from above.”
“As you say,” Maxík moved forward decisively, and then something beeped.
“Oh no!” Maxík gasped.
“What's going on?” Kaško looked at Maxík quizzically.
“I wanted to take some great photos and find out more about that tower.”
"I'll tell you everything."
“But there's this QR code and my phone just died,” said Maxík, already turning to leave.
“Don't worry, you can charge it here,” said Kaško, pointing to a wall in the observation tower.
The children started laughing.
"Why are you laughing?" Kaško didn't understand.
"Kaško, we don't have mobile phones that run on light energy."
"You don't, but as you've noticed, there are solar panels on this tower."
"Really?" the children looked more closely at the tower.
"And they generate electricity, so you can charge your phones."
“Cool,” said Majka and started climbing up.ľ
“Let's go, let's go,” encouraged Kaško.
“But I...” Maxík started again.
“What's wrong, Majka?” asked Kaško when he saw Majka suddenly stop in front of the steps and stand there silently.
"I tried to hide it, Maji," Maxík said, lowering his eyes.
"What's going on?" Kaško didn't understand.
"Majka is afraid of heights," Maxík blurted out, and Kaško flew down from the tower to Majka.
"Really?"
"Mhm," Majka nodded without saying a word.
“So Green Point is out of the question.”
“You guys go ahead,” Majka stepped away from the steps.
“No, we're either going together or not at all,” her super brother joined in.
"But I'm a little afraid of heights."
"What about flying?" Kaško remembered their flights.
"That's different," Majka waved her hand.
"How is it different?" Kaško didn't understand.
"I close my eyes."
"Oh... okay. But this place is really safe - but if you're scared, we could go somewhere else. Is there anything else interesting around here?"
"You bet, there's a great bridge," Kaško remembered.
"Oh, a bridge," Majka sighed.
"A bridge – but not just any bridge."
"We're all ears," Maxík sat down next to Majka.
"The longest bridge in the land of Haravara."
"Come on."
"Indeed."
"Does it go over a river?"
"Indeed, it's a bridge," Kaško drew bridges in the air.
"You guys go ahead," Majka sat down in the grass and picked up a book to read.
"No way," Kaško decided. "There used to be a castle not far from Kluknava."
"A castle?" Majka's eyes lit up.
"Mhm, in a village called Richnava."
"Richnava Castle? I've never heard of it," Maxík searched his memory.
"You haven't heard of it because it's no longer there."
“And where is it?” Majka didn't understand again, and her eyes saddened once more.
“They destroyed it,” Kaško said in a detached manner.
“Oh, well, that doesn't help us much, does it?” Maxík winked at Kaško.
“But don't you know that they built a castle in Kluknava from the stones of this castle, and there's a secret compartment in one of those stones?’”
"A secret compartment?" Maxík and Majka sensed adventure.
"A scarecrow," Kaško said casually, and the children thought that Kaško had changed and started calling Majka a scarecrow and laughing at her.
“Kaškoooooooooooooooo?”
“There's a scarecrow in that box,” Kaško defended himself when he saw their looks.
“Is that some kind of medicine or something?”
“It's a book,” Kaško said mysteriously.
“A book?” they repeated after him.
“A book with different things written in it.”
“Oh, what a surprise, a book has different things written in it, huh?” Majka looked at Kaško, wondering if he was lying to her, even though Kaško had never lied to them before.
“But this one has everything written in it about the Čáky and Thurzo clans...’
"Who?"
“They were noble families.”
“Oh, I thought they were some of your cousins.”
“Those families owned the castles and chateaux we were talking about.”
“And what was in the fear-monger?”
“‘Fear-maker," Kaško corrected Majka.”
“So will you tell us what was in it?”
“How to fight various fears.”
“Let's not hang around here, let's go,” said Majka, and in three seconds she was packed, had her shoes on and had finished reading the last verse of the book.
"Or, let's fly."
"Or even..."
Kaško gathered his friends under his cloak, Majka closed her eyes, and before you could say ‘o ho ho,’ they were standing in front of a beautiful castle that looked like the castles they had once seen on holiday in Austria or Germany.
“It's beautiful,” Majka said, still in awe.
“It is, but now we have to find the stone,” Kaško reminded them of their mission.
Maxík and Majka admired the four towers surrounding the castle, the massive doors, the beautiful windows, and Kaško examined the stones and pebbles above the doors and around the towers.
"We have to go inside," Kaško announced after searching.
"But this doesn't look like an old castle."
"Old castles belonged to different people, so they rebuilt them over and over again."
"And?" Kaško's friends didn't understand what he was talking about.
“Look, for example, when I was here 458 years ago, this corridor wasn't here, they probably added it only about two hundred years ago."
“But they added it nicely," Maxík and Majka nodded appreciatively.
"Yeah, and these windows weren't here either," Kaško recalled, flitting here and there.
“There were no windows?” The children were already thinking of all the scary stories about houses without windows and castles where everyone fell asleep in the dark and...
“There were,” Kaško reassured them, “but they were completely different, they had decorations around them and..."
“And?”
“And here it is,” Kaško suddenly stopped flitting around and smiled with a smile that said, “Now it begins.”
“Are you sure?”
“No.”
“So how...” his friends waited for Kaško's decision.
“Do you have your tuning fork with you?” Kaško suddenly asked Majka.
“Sure, I can't go anywhere without it. What if I meet some great musician from Haravara and we want to play together and I can't tune my instrument?”
‘Lend it to me," said Kaško, tapping the stones with the tuning fork used to tune pianos and various other instruments.
“Every stone has its own melody – and here you can hear a melody from 500 years ago - so this must be the original stone.”
“And it's hollow,” added Maxík in an expert tone.
"Let's do it."
Kaško closed his eyes, began to mumble and sing, and a small door opened on the stone, revealing some pieces of paper.
"Is that the book?" Neither Maxík nor Majka thought so.
"I did not say it would be a book, I said it would be advice."
“Advice in a shop?”
“But...”
“Or in front of a gallery?”
“Every member of the Thurzo and Čáky families who became a ghost has stored their advice here on how to get rid of certain fears. Wait..." Kaško rummaged through the old documents.” Against fear of the dark, of little mice, of hairy spiders, of Aunt Iza's singing. Here it is - how to get rid of fear of heights."
“Well?” Majka waited for Kaško's advice.
“We're in luck,” Kaško smiled.
“Why?” Majka waited impatiently for some wise words from Kaško.
“Because everything I need is here in Kluknava.”
“I think I need some food too...”
"We'll find that here. Look, there's a restaurant in the castle, and it's very good, but we'll come here after we cure Majka."
"How?"
"Let's go," said Kaško.
“Let's fly!” Maxík spread his arms and waited.
“On foot,” Kaško tapped Maxík on the forehead.
They walked a few metres along Kluknava and came across a strange place.
“A shoe museum,” read Maxík, beginning to doubt that Kaško could hear him properly.
“Kaško?” asked Majka.
“Yes?”
"What's this?" Majka pointed to the museum.
"This is where you can heal yourself," Kaško said calmly.
Maxík and Majka rolled their eyes a little and went inside. In the shoe museum, they found shoes from famous people. There were shoes from Matej Tóth, Peter Sagan, Miro Šatan, Miško Hudák...
“Wow, good,” Kaško acknowledged that he had chosen a good place for a trip.
“What did you find?” Kaško asked Majka, who had stopped in front of some shoes.
“Shoes from the actress Kamila Magálová,” Majka said dreamily, because she loved her aunt Magda.
"She's a great actress," agreed Maxík.
"I like how she tells fairy tales and also..."
"Here they are," Kaško interrupted her.
"And what are these clogs?" Maxík remembered a strange word.
"They're not clogs, they're shoes that our great-great-great-great-grandparents wore here in Haravara," Kaško explained to the children.
“Oh, and they're supposed to heal me?” Majka whispered incredulously.
“Did you know that there was once an ice age here too?”
“In Kluknava too?”
“Yes,” confirmed Kaško, placing the so-called clogs on the table.
“What about it?” the children didn't understand.
"There were mammoth hunters here, and sometimes when they hunted mammoths, they got all the way up on the mammoth's back. And that was pretty high."
"Well, sometimes almost three metres."
“I couldn't do that,” said Majka, shaking her head and sitting down.
“And that's why a Haravara shaman named Šaňo...”
“Šaňo?”
“That's the name we gave him, because people didn't have names in the Ice Age.”
“Right.”
"So, he cast a spell on these shoes – when a hunter put them on and climbed a high hill or walked over something high up."
"Like a mammoth," added Maxík.
"Like a mammoth," repeated Kaško.
"Can I guess?" Majka joined in, having probably figured out what was going on.
"Go ahead," said Kaško, sitting down for a change.
"He wasn't afraid anymore," Majka tried.
"Exactly," confirmed Kaško.
“Let's borrow them.”
They waited for the lunch break when the museum closed, Kaško rushed inside and borrowed the magic shoes for a moment. Majka put them on and they headed towards the Kluknava Bridge. It was really beautiful. It smelled of wood – coniferous wood – as if it were still Christmas, and a river flowed beneath them as they approached some strange buildings.
“Copper used to be mined and processed here,” Kaško pointed to the small factories.
“So this is where the copper mountain from the fairy tale was?”
“Well, I'll tell you, it was a copper hill.”
Maxík and Kaško looked at the old smelters and old buildings around them, and when they turned around, they saw Majka standing in the middle of the bridge, smiling, holding the magical shoes in her hands.
"I don't need them anymore," she chirped cheerfully.
"As always," Kaško patted himself on the shoulder.
Maxík coughed and everyone laughed heartily.
Maxík and Majka set off towards Green Point to look at the beautiful nature around them, and Kaško flew back to return the magical shoes. And Majka fell asleep that night with a strange, beautiful smile on her face, because she had managed, with the help of her friends, to overcome her fear even without the magic shoes.
