The Mysterious Hymma Brothers

I walked up to hym slowly. In the cave, he was the one who had complained the loudest about me. I watched hym work for a while. He would take an icicle out of the little red pouch he had slung over his shoulder and, using a pot of miracle glue, paste it to the branches of the tree, talking to himself the whole time. He had just finished the tree when I spoke to hym.

“Excuse me sir, I don’t mean to bother you…”

He looked down, “Bother me, of course you’re bothering me. How long have you been spying on me, little missy, and just how much have you seen?”

“I’ve been watching you for quite some time and I suppose that I have seen quite a lot,” I said.

“That is not good. Not good at all. It isn’t right that you should be seeing this. On Top Dwellers aren’t to know about our work. There has never been an On Top Dweller that has even gotten a glimpse of a Hyma at work, except, of course, for that little girl who followed my brother Juger into our cave and…wait a minuet…are you…aren’t you…my word, you’re her!”

I didn’t know quite what to say so I just stood there and nodded my head.

“Well, answer me little missy, are you you or aren’t you you?”

“Well, yes, sir, I suppose I am me. Or at least I try to be. I know that I was me this morning. Do you mind telling me what you are doing? I met your brother in almost the exact same fashion, hanging off of a branch and trying to put something on a tree.”

“HA-HA! That’s where you are wrong, little missy. Juger doesn’t put things on trees, he paints things that are already there! He and Biger swear by paint, while me and Jiger know that it’s miracle glue that really does the trick.”

“Paint?” I asked scratching my head.

“Of course, of course, paint to color the leaves brown and red and yellow and the grass brown in the fall. And then green, naturally, for everything in the summer.”

“And what’s the miracle glue for?” I said still scratching my head.

My questions seemed to aggravate the Hyma. He sighed a long, loud sigh, that shook his little body so much that he almost fell out of the tree. Finally he looked at me and said, “To put icicles and snow on the trees and ground in the Winter and to put green buds on the trees in the Spring.”

I stood there, scratching my head, watching hym do his work for quite some time. I wanted to ask hym more questions like why does he and his strange little brothers do things to my Grammy’s trees? And was it just her trees or was it all the trees in the meadow, or all the trees in the entire forest? Or was it all the trees in the world? But I didn’t ask hym any more questions. He was so grouchy! By the time I was done wondering and my head was hurting from all my scratching, I looked up and the little man was gone. It was getting late and the grey, almost couldn’t see sky, had turned to dark. I could hear Grammy’s voice calling me to come inside. She had hot cocoa and just baked chocolate cookies with walnuts - just for me. So I forgot about the little Hyma and the strange things he had told me. At least for a time.