Foreigners Enter

Early in the morning, most of the villagers were gathered around the dusty road, the only entrance to the village from the nearby town.

After waiting for about an hour, one SUV followed by three jeeps and one truck can be seen sending dust around the road from afar.

Villagers got ready with their garlands and programs that they planned based on the local customs and traditions.

These vehicles slowly approached the village entrance and lined up across the designated open area.

Several people got out of these vehicles, their appearance diverse showing they come from continents of the world. They started unloading their supplies and materials from the truck.

One muscular middle-aged guy got out of the only SUV, in a military-like uniform who appeared to be their leader in charge of co-ordinating the whole adventure camp.

Local people put garlands around this guy and welcomed all these foreigners in their traditional ways with local musical instruments and folk songs. The local children in their school uniforms were entertaining them with dance and music.

Ayan watched all this standing far from the crowd. He was more interested in the vehicles that they came in than the foreign faces. Soon, he lost his interest and started heading home.

One of the foreigners got a little passionate seeing these innocent-looking children and gave him a chocolate bar, a rare delicacy for the village children most of whom have never known about them till now. One foreigner talked with the girls who danced to entertain them and gave them a package of cookies as encouragement.

Seeing this, all the village children started gathering around the foreigner asking for chocolate and food.

Annoyed by this scene, a blonde woman with tight clothes and fair skin came and started scolding her fellow adventurists, warning them in English. She looked about 20-year-old.

"Don't give them chocolate or food. These poor, illiterate children are not as innocent as they look. Once you give one of them a chocolate, they will gather their whole gang asking for more. Give them an arm and they'll take the whole hand, humph."

"Trust me. I've been through such situations plenty of times. They will definitely annoy you demanding more and more. Also, be extra careful of your belongings now, they might open your bags to steal the chocolates and cookies."

Listening to her, the other foreigners ignored these children and started moving to their campsite.

Some of the older literate teenage boys understood what she said and the village children all got angry with her making faces at her but she ignored them continuing her activities.

-----

Dawa, the Sherpa boy, came to Ayan's house and asked him to go play with him.

Ayan was very surprised by this as other children always taunted and alienated him when they played together. To avoid the unpleasant experience, these past few years, Ayan spent more time alone on his smartphone and only occasionally played with them which would eventually lead to disagreements in the end.

Ayan left with Dawa after getting permission from his Aunt Tsering who was rather happy with it.

Dawa brought him to a meadow where he could see almost all the small and teenage children had gathered.

As he came near the group, he could feel something big and unusual was going on here—discussions were going on in a heated manner.

"This is too much. That blonde woman is too hateful," one teenager spoke angrily.

"First, she spoke ill of us without any real cause, preventing any of us from getting any chocolate and freebies from the tourist," another child chided.

"Even worse, she shooed us away whenever we tried to talk with any of the tourists. Now, these tourists think that we are a nuisance," another one added.

Another teenage boy criticized, "And to make matters worse, she went and complained to the village committee, saying we were rude and annoying them. I just got badly scolded by my parents."

A boy with a swollen face loudly declared, "You guys are lucky. Your parents just scolded you. My old man went mad and beat me up black and blue with his belt just because someone said she pointed at me while complaining. And, I neither went to ask for chocolates nor tried to talk to the foreigners. I was just accompanying my friends because they wanted to see these foreigners."

The boy started crying,

"And it hurts like hell…. Damn…. I didn't even get such…. beatings when I stole a chicken… from my neighbor hoping to steal its eggs."

Some children started consoling the bruised boy whereas others were busy criticizing and cursing that woman with spittle flying all over the place.

Dawa came and spoke loudly, "Stop it guys! I know that you are all frustrated and angry with that woman. But, listen to me for a moment."

Most children stopped talking, and even the bruised child stopped crying after Dawa spoke. It was like they considered him the leader.

Ayan who was oblivious to all these situations was amused watching all this.

Dawa sternly said, moving his eyes through the crowd, "I know that you want the chocolates and the packaged foods but in this situation, there's no way you're getting anything. So, from now on, nobody will go and annoy them, unless you want a beating from your parents like this guy here. See, if you leave a bad impression on them, they will discourage other foreigners from coming next time. So, everybody will behave properly if you want another group of foreigners to come next time."

Many children disagreed but did not voice their opinions as if afraid of Dawa's stern eyes. The bruised child grimaced, unhappy being made an example.

Then, Dawa again spoke in a soft tone, "But, there is still a chance for you to get these chocolates and packaged foods. I got information that they will stay here for 15 days so they must have brought a lot of food, especially for contingencies. While returning, they would be more than happy to gift you guys with these extra foods to reduce their luggage."

Older children acknowledged but small children became confused as if not understanding. They became happy after older children explained it to them.

Dawa then announced the names of 12 children including Ayan and asked them to stay while the rest of the children dispersed returning home after these 12 older children shooed them away.

These 12 children looked at each other not knowing what they were here for.

Dawa looked into the eyes of each of them and said, "We all agree that the behavior of that lady was indeed inappropriate. There might be at least one such lady in every group of foreigners. If we ignore her too much, won't we be bullied by such foreigners every time they come?"

Ayan frowned upon hearing his words.

He wanted to speak some words warning them but another teenage child spoke first, "We understand your words but if we do anything she will surely complain to the village committee. You've seen that those committee members were like dogs around those foreigners ready to bark at their call. They must've got some decent benefits from them for them to behave like this."

"I don't want to get on their bad side and be beaten like that bruised guy."

Dawa fiercely started at the boy who spoke scaring the boy.

Breaking their staredown, Ayan spoke in support of the teenage boy, "Yes, I also don't think it's a good idea to punish her. In fact, if the deed ever gets out, we would be against the whole village."

Dawa stared at Ayan who faced his eyes without any fear and chuckled.

"What if, we punished her without anyone finding that the deed was done by us."

"Why do you think I dismissed all those other children? Because they are small and cannot keep secrets. If we did something, they would definitely spill the beans. The ones that are here are people that I can put my trust in. Or are you planning to betray us… to get on the good side of the foreigners as well as the village committee?"

As he spoke, he moved his eyes around every other child, most of whom were intimidated and cast their gaze away except Ayan.

Ayan broke the tension and spoke, "We are very glad that you trust us so much but in my opinion, this is still risky."

A cross-eyed teenage child looked at Ayan and spoke, "I can put my trust in other people here except Ayan."

"Yes, me too. He's too strange and he's had the least interaction with foreigners till now. What if he suddenly decided to double-cross us," another child quipped confidently.

"Same for me," another teenager echoed.

Most of them spoke against Ayan as if to vent their anger and distract themselves from the cowardliness they showed against Dawa.

Dawa sighed as if showing sympathy to Ayan.

"Guys, you all know about the abilities of Ayan. With him working with us, we can definitely do some pranks and get away without anyone knowing of it."

"Yes, but…," the cross-eyed boy wanted to speak against Ayan but was stopped by Dawa.

"I'll ask again. You all trust me, right?" Dawa asked softly.

"Yes. We trust you with all our lives," the cross-eyed boy admitted eagerly as if to please Dawa.

"Then, I also trust Ayan with my life? So, this means that everybody here is trustworthy, right?" Dawa inquired.

"Yes," a few of them acknowledged softly whereas some were silent.

"But, I don't agree."

Dawa quickly turned to the speaker with his fierce eyes. The speaker was Ayan so his eyes actually softened. "All of us here already consider you as a friend we can entrust our greatest secret with. Do you not have such trust in us?"

Hearing Dawa's words, all the boys focused their eyes on Ayan.

Despite being uncomfortable being stared at, Ayan still spoke in a calm tone.

"I have promised my Aunt Tsering that I would not show my abilities to any foreigners."

"So, I'm really sorry, guys. I cannot help you with this."

Dawa signaled the cross-eyed boy with his eyes.

The cross-eyed kid turned towards Ayan and spoke, "Ayan, do you remember that time you ran up the mountain like a monkey and caused a fight between those red monkeys and gray langurs? The whole village was disturbed by their fight. I did not complain about you to your aunt or the village committee due to our friendship."

Ayan stared at that boy deeply and spoke hurriedly in defense.

"I only tried to communicate with those red monkeys. They were the ones who aggressively chased me and I didn't know that I went into the territory of the grey langur. And, they started fighting against each other on their own. I might be a little at fault, but I didn't entice them."

"Despite that, you took advantage of me and ate some of the delicacies my uncle brought from the town as compensation. And those were the snacks I had accumulated for a month, planning to savor them on good occasion."

Another boy stated, "What about that time when you raced against that wild horse, irritating it, which led to the horse running around the village in anger, disturbing everyone?"

Ayan quickly responded, "I only raced with that horse, okay? I didn't even try to talk or touch it. Who knew that it had such a temper, that after losing, it would chase me to the village? And where can I go if not the village to protect myself against the assault of the wild horse."

"Besides, you exploited me even more than that cross-eye. You took money from me to buy that expensive toy of yours. Heck. You even borrowed many of my toys and broke my favorite toy. You still haven't given me compensation for that."

One of the children spoke for the first time, "What about that time with the bear, you were the person the bear was attacking? You must have provoked and brought it to the village."

Ayan quickly retorted, "That has nothing to do with me, okay? That bear was already near the village. I just thought that it was a cute big dog so I went near it, hoping to clearly observe it. I admit though, I was small enough that I didn't know about the dangers. But, the bear targeted me on its own accord. Thankfully, I was beside the village and I was able to run towards a safe place in time shouting to warn the villagers. Humph! If I were anyone else besides me, with their inferior running speed, guess what would have happened to them? And if I hadn't reacted properly alerting the villagers, who knows, maybe you might've become its next prey."

One timid boy suggested, "What about that time when the village was infested with a strange plague? What did you do to bring that disaster? Nobody in your family was sick at that time when the whole village was affected, what's your answer to that?"

Ayan became angry and stared at that boy,

"Now, you are all slandering me with ridiculous nonsense. I am not responsible for that plague. The reason why we didn't get infected might be because my aunt and uncle care more about hygiene and cleanliness. In fact, my family donated the most to the relief fund, while many of your parents didn't even spare a single penny."

This time, the timid boy surprisingly spoke confidently, "I learned from my mother that the village shamans all said that you were the cause of the epidemic."

Ayan sneered, "Those quacks are always coming up with new excuses blaming random people to extort money."

The timid boy said, "What do you know? Once, I had high fever and my mother took me to them, and they healed me."

Ayan dismissed him, "I don't want to argue with the slander that you have no concrete proof of."

The cross-eyed boy maliciously spoke, "Whatever, Ayan, if you don't help us this time, we will definitely spread all your embarrassing deeds to the villagers. You'll definitely face some severe consequences for your actions."

"Yes, we'll first start with your Aunt Tsering," another child pressed.

Ayan clenched his fist in anger, "Damn it! You guys are trying to blackmail me."

Dawa spoke lightening the atmosphere, "Hey guys! Let's not get worked up for something so small."

"We are all friends with whom we can entrust our secrets."

"On my account, please don't spread about Ayan's deed."

The cross-eyed boy quipped, "If only he agrees to help us here."

Dawa turned to Ayan and smiled victoriously. "See, they are willing to protect your secrets from villagers. You should repay their help by supporting us."

Ayan suddenly realized that the whole conversation and its flow were controlled by the boy in front of him. He could only reluctantly agree to them.

Dawa announced, "We will be meeting early in the morning tomorrow, 6 p.m sharp, just beside the clearings in the north near the forest entrance where we used to play football. I hope there won't be any late-comers or absentees."