exaggerated shock. "Are you serious? You don't want to dance?"
"Doesn't appeal to me. It kind'a scares me to be honest. I've never done it before."
"So. Just use your Ghimpour moves like I did in the market. Ghimpour on a stick. Ever heard of that before?"
With a laugh. "Nope, definitely not."
"I just made it up from the moves I already know. That's what dancing is, but a lot simpler. You already know a lot of moves, just do them to the beat and make the rest up as you go. Let the music move you."
"Alright, now I'm intrigued. I've always been curious. Plus, I heard Bitani kids like to come down and hang out there. We'll give it a shot."
And Nayaa leaps into Andee's arms giving him a big hug. "But first food. I'm starving." She comments as she jumps away.
Andee picks up the empty basket and throws it on his back the way it is supposed to be carried, like a backpack, and they head off through the market.
"Oh, we forgot to split the money." Andee stops suddenly.
"Yeah lets do it now before we spend it all, and really piss off your mom."
Andee reaches into his right satchel and pulls out a leather credit fold. As his hand exits, 'whoosh' the weight in it vanishes. It takes him a microsecond to realize it happened.
"Hey!" And then he rapidly turns around. A skinny guy is running as fast as an alcama down the main path between all the vegetable and fruit stands. "He stole the money!" Andee stunned snaps at Nayaa. She instantly understands and both take off after the thin guy. He's fast. Both Nayaa and Andee are top athletes, but this guy is ridiculously fast and agile. The market is fairly busy with people milling everywhere, yet he maneuvers around them with great skill. He is actually gapping a distance between himself and Nayaa and Andee.
"We're losing him!" Andee shouts as he rolls his shoulders tossing off his basket leaving it to fall behind him in the crowd.
"He's going for the back of the market. With all the alleys and warehouses we'll lose him." Nayaa shouts back to Andee.
The man is fast but the crowd is getting thicker. It slows him down. He looks back and sees his pursuers gaining. He seems to panic for a second. He looks at the buildings to his left. It's the beginning of a long structure made of many adobe row houses. They are mostly similar, but with varying roof heights, some with balconies, some not, and all have either flat or domed roofs. Most are two stories, some three, and most have a veranda feature at the first floor forming stalls where people are selling their goods. The buildings look to be connected all the way the length of the main alley to the back of the market. The first building has a solid awning supported by round columns with arches running from one to the next. The skinny guy rushes to a column and quickly climbs it, gets on top, and then starts running on the awning, than onto a balcony, and from there to one of the roofs.
Andee is first to the edge of the building where a farmer has an alcama drawn cart, set up as a stall, selling his vegetables next to the side of the building. The alcama is tied to a two meter tall wooden post about a meter away from the awning, which is about three meters high. Without losing a beat, Andee leaps with his left foot up on the wheel of the cart. From there he propels himself into a dive directly towards the alcama. His arms land on animal's shoulder while his momentum pushes him up into a handstand, and then beyond. Flowing with that momentum, Andee leaps off his arms turning up and over landing into a squat on top of the post. From there he leaps up and onto the awning and pushed forward by his momentum, leaps into a roll over and then back on his feet. He runs after the man without losing a beat. Nayaa does exactly the same with equal skill and expediency, just before the alcama realizes what's happening and begins to buck and jump startled.
The skinny man is now forced to leap over walls, balconies, stored junk on the balconies, and onto roofs, all of which vary in height and shape. On the ground he was fast, but these obstacles slow him down considerably.
On the other hand these obstacles seem to turbo charge both Nayaa and Andee. Like leaping ghimurs the two friends are masters of the environment. They flip, skip, and tumble from feet to hands, and back onto their feet, without ever losing a beat. It's almost a game for them and a treat to see. They are free running over the obstacles as if they weren't even there, and quickly gain on the skinny thief, when he suddenly rounds a wall on the next roof right out of sight.
Andee reaches the wall first. There's a large recessed door in it. Ahead, the building comes to an end. Nayaa looks over the edge down into the alley as she comes to a hard stop without an inch to spare. They are on the roof of a three story building when suddenly...
"There, there he goes." Nayaa yells pointing down into the alley. "He ran out of a door from the side of the building."
"The door! It's a staircase." Andee is about to lunge for it...
"I'm jumping. I can brace from the next roof and that ledge." Nayaa points to the two story lower building across the alley.
"Ok, good idea. You stick to the roofs, I'll jump down." Andee changes direction and immediately leaps past Nayaa. He jumps from the third story roof landing across the way on the side of the second story wall, hanging on from the top ledge with just his fingers. Nayaa immediately lands after him but up on the ledge, just between Andee's hands, and takes off in one fell swoop. Andee hanging from his fingers, with his feet planted on the wall, swings pushing with his feet to the right and lands on a protruding palm-wide ledge at the top of a first floor window, then instantly bouncing off of it, he flips sideways to land on his feet on the ground, followed by an immediate run. Without missing a beat Andee's now running back into the crowds of the market following the skinny man's path.
This part of the market is even more crowded. The skinny man struggles as he bumps into person after person. Andee is more eloquent and elegant. He twists and twirls, even spins with one girl as if dancing with her, to move her out of the way without harm. The next person he leaps right over, startling the poor guy, and now he has the skinny man in his sights. Andee maxes out his running speed and is now a meter behind the thief. Andee leaps, and with his right arm forcefully shoves the man forward. The skinny man running at full speed, is hurdled forward faster than he can run and starts stumbling, his momentum too great he falls face first into the dirt. At full speed he hits hard and slides forward about a meter. Andee leaps up in the air, this time somersaulting, twisting 180 degrees over the man on the ground, to land facing him from the other side, just past his head.
The commotion quickly creates an encircling crowd. Nayaa is on the roof coming to a stop. She casually jumps down onto a balcony, flips over the rail onto a flag pole, drops nonchalant to her hands on the pole, and gently swings down leaping to the ground. She politely excuses herself through the crowd as she casually makes her way.
The skinny man hit the ground hard and is severely dazed, but he is struggling, trying to get up.
"Hey, idiot! Give my credit-fold back and I'll walk away. If you don't, I'll start breaking your bones one by one." Andee. in a squat by the man's head, threatens emphasizing his point with a gentle smack against the side of the skinny man's head.
"OK-OK, give me a minute." The man groans, spitting sand as he speaks.
"Now!" Andee snaps at him.
The man reaches down to his waist, but then suddenly throws his arm out tossing a fistful of fine dust into Andee's face. Andee spins to shield himself and covers his eyes with his forearm as he rises to his feet. The man leaps up and bolts into the crowd past Andee. Nayaa squeezes between the last few people to head after the guy. Andee quickly spins back in the direction where the skinny man ran but as he does, out of the corner of his eye... 'there he is' ...he catches a glimpse of the same man in the blue hood from the day before. He is right there, at the front edge of the crowd. Instead of continuing his motion, and bolting off the spot after the skinny man, Andee forcefully turns back against his own momentum, and takes a blind-awkward step backwards right into Nayaa's path, who's trying to rush past
him, knocking into her forcing her sideways. She has to somersault with a 360 twist to land on her feet from the impact, and barely does so in a low squat. Andee on the other hand falls awkwardly on his side. Nayaa gives Andee a quick stunned look, but with no time to waste, she leaps to her feet and continues on her way. Andee flashes his eyes back to the spot in the crowd where he saw the man in blue. The crowd is thick, but no one in a blue robe. As quick as he can, Andee jumps to his feet. The impact with Nayaa was hard. He is a bit dazed and his leap up makes him even more dizzy. It doesn't matter, he focuses again on the spot in crowd where... 'and there he is, the man in blue!' He is turned sideways watching Nayaa running through the crowd.
"You!" Andy yells at the hooded man and leaps towards him.
End of Chapter 2 next Chapter 3 : The Fruity Dance
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