Two heads pressed against each other. Hair meeting and becoming a mess of red. The girl sat on the left, dressed in a “Wendy-Meets-Alice” mishmash of blue frock, black-and-white striped stockings, black mary janes and curly hair beaten into two Harley Quinn tails. Panda coloured ribbons completely with plastic panda faces kept Nana’s hair in place. Rikke, the boy on the right, wore a yellow-faced shirt. Gudetama, the forever depressed egg, dropped from collar to diaphragm, melting as it were into the upturned white tulip-shaped shell. As if undecided about his look, Rikke’s pants were classic white and blue rimmed sailor pants, paired with a pair of blue rubber boots and a sailor’s hat. 

All this hinted at an indulgent adult. Someone who couldn't say “no” as the children grabbed items off the rack at random in the nearby outlet mall, staring at him with puppy eyes and overzealous smiles. Still this was a mission and the children [i]had[/i] promised to follow his orders to the letter. Thus, their current task - decoding this message for Sister Rena! 

“The Secret to Awesome Power,” Nana read out loud as her fingers traced the latin words with ease. The next few symbols were gibberish at this point and her scrawling didn't help. 

Rikke counted on his fingers, seemingly oblivious to the fact that Nana was talking, and pausing to write the corresponding English alphabet beneath each symbol. Some of the letters came together in patterns he recognised but, to him, the words were no different than the symbols - [i]nonsense.[/i] Having finished several words at random, he slid the paper firmly in his twin’s direction.

Nana’s head straightened as she took the paper. Her attention had been pulled away by that annoying tapping. “Panda Power … Ka-Pow!” She giggled when it clicked that this was a prank message. Drawing several pandas in power ranger suits and colouring them with Alchemy, the girl hopped over to Rena. “Princess! We solved it!” 

“Aaaaaand,” she continued in her bubbly voice, getting into her best power ranger pose. “Hello! We’re the Panda Rangers here to help Princess Rin and Princess Rena …. um save the world! Yeah!” She finished with renewed bravado as she puffed out her chest with childish pride. 

Rikke ambled over and peeked from behind Angel. Staring at the adults in turn and watching their lips move with a burning intensity. The occasional flick of his eye made it seem like he was listening yet the slowness of his movement begged the question if his hearing aids were working that well. Those brown eyes finally rested on the robot lady whose glasses looked like an accessory from a gundam movie. Rikke pointed at Bella and continued staring. His mouth formed soundless words as he struggled to bring across his message. Instead, Bella received a mental replay of that annoying tap from earlier. 

“Oh! This is Rikke and I’m Nana.” His sister slid in. “He thinks you made the tapping noise earlier,” she explained as she bent forward and smiled. Her own brown eyes gazed at Bella, albeit with far less intensity than Rikke’s. 

Suddenly, she grabbed her brother’s arm and pointed at Elsa. “Rikke! Remember her?” She exclaimed, hoping to distract him before Bella became uncomfortable. “She’s got the same name and powers like the Disney Princess.”