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Chapter Text

9:55 a.m., UTC+1.

August 19, 2021.

Triberg im Schwarzwald, Baden-Württemberg, Germany.

In a small Airbnb overlooking the quaint Black Forest town, eleven-year-old Ojo Finley sat in the bedroom, doodling on her iPad.

This was no ordinary tablet—it was a gift from her best friend, Rhiannon Rodriguez, the fifteen-year-old concept artist who taught her how to draw digitally. Rhiannon claims the tablet had been passed down through her family for generations, but not always in the same form—her grandfather claims it used to be a painting set, and her father saw it as a camcorder.

Which should have clued them in that the tablet was no ordinary art supply.

Its powers extend beyond changing its form—as Ojo discovered, its mysterious drawing app, Clee Painter 2.0, could allow her to draw what happens later in the day. And, if she puts enough willpower, it could even bring her sketches to life.

Eight months earlier, she used it to test the children of the Heroics, the world’s superheroes, to see if they were ready to take the place of their parents. They all passed with flying colors, and Ojo was made an honorary member of the new Heroics with full privilege to save the galaxy alongside them.

But she chose to live as a normal person, enjoying the life of a young online artist.

So there she was, drawing as she normally did, when she realized her latest sketch was something she didn’t expect.

Instead of showing her at a tourist spot with her family, it showed an unfamiliar young boy standing inside her bedroom, with her falling backwards presumably in shock. In the corner, a cuckoo clock read ten o’clock sharp.

Ojo spent the next few minutes observing the drawing. The boy had red hair tied in two uneven braids, wore a white shirt with a green lederhosen, and had a green cap with a yellow feather sticking out of it. He twirled his thin moustache as he gasped at a pocket watch chained to his trousers.

He looked like a local—but why would he be in her bedroom of all places?

The answer came a few moments later.

The cuckoo clock on the wall chimed ten o’clock, and alongside it, a boy materialized seemingly from its pendulum. He looked exactly the same as the boy in the sketch, and in shock, Ojo fell backwards.

She sat up just in time to watch him twirling his moustache, checking his pocket watch, and singing what appeared to be a clock chime—four bars, each of four notes, followed by ten loud bongs.

“Wh… who are you?” asked Ojo.

The boy didn’t answer. He sang another song—one which Ojo identified as “Ievan Polkka”, a Finnish folk song. Strangely, he appeared to be singing the lyrics and backing beat at the same time—an ability even Ojo’s musical friend A Cappella couldn’t do.

Stranger still, as he sang the backing beat—which consisted of the words “pol, pol” repeated every second—the clock’s pendulum glowed and swung to the same exact time as the beat.

He only answered after finishing the entire song. “Hallo,” he said in a thick German accent, “my name is Grandson Clock.”

Ojo giggled a little. “Grandson Clock?”

“Ja. I’m the son of the son of Grandfather Clock, the hero of Switzerland.”

Ojo was immediately charmed by his soft, fair skin and piercing blue eyes. “Nice to meet you, Grandson Clock,” she introduced, holding an arm out to the boy. “I’m Ojo, the daughter of Miss Granada, leader of the Heroics.”

Grandson Clock grabbed her hand and sharply turned it so that it pointed downwards—which, needless to say, confused her.

“Oh, sorry.” He turned her arm so that it pointed upwards, paused, then returned it to its original position. Only then did he shake her hand like normal. “I thought you were a clock that needed resetting.”

“You’re really into clocks,” noticed Ojo.

“If you can’t tell, they’re the source of my power,” explained Grandson Clock, striking a dramatic pose with a clock key. “For example, I can make clocks chime at will.”

He pulled one of the pinecone-shaped weights on the cuckoo clock, and the bird called once—even if it was 10:03.

“I can also reset any clock to the perfect time.” To demonstrate, he advanced the cuckoo clock a few minutes, then tapped it with his clock key. The hands immediately reset to the proper time.

He then sang “Ievan Polkka” from start to finish—again. “In case you’re wondering, ‘Ievan Polkka’ is one of the few songs with a perfect 120 beat-per-minute tempo—that means each note in the backing beat equals exactly one swing of a pendulum.”

Lastly, he showed his pocket watch to Ojo. It not only told the hours, minutes, and seconds, but it also had smaller dials that told the month, date, day, and year. “And this pocket watch—“

“Let me guess,” interrupted Ojo, “it tells the perfect time?”

“Exactly. How did you know?”

“That’s my power. Super intuition. My iPad allows me to draw what happens in the near future.”

Ojo showed her iPad to Grandson Clock, showing a comic of her encounter with Grandson Clock with all the dialogue perfectly matching their current conversation.

“And did I mention I can bring my drawings to life?”

Ojo demonstrated by sketching a cuckoo bird. It flew off the screen and landed on Grandson Clock’s shoulder, calling two times.

“Wrong timing, cuckoo,” teased Grandson Clock. “It’s 10:05:53. You’re three hours, fifty-four minutes, and seven—six—five seconds too early.”

Ojo giggled. She erased the sketch on her tablet, and the bird disappeared mid-flight.

“You know what, Ojo?” asked Grandson Clock suddenly. “I may have met you just six minutes and fourteen seconds ago, but I feel like the two of us are more than just superheroes.”

“You’re kidding, right?” Ojo shot back.

“Of course not. We’re like weights and a pendulum—different powers, but we compliment each other to do great things.”

Ojo couldn’t help but blush. “I feel the same way too.”

Without warning, she ran up to Grandson Clock and hugged him really tightly. Feeling the same way, the boy blushed slightly and hugged her back.

Suddenly, Ojo felt a tug on her iPad.

She looked at it to see a drawing of a girl with a bowler hat, watchmaker’s loupe, suit, and tie smashing a cuckoo clock the size of a house with a mallet.

She showed it to Grandson Clock. “What does this mean?”

His eyes widened when he saw the picture. “That’s the House of a Thousand Clocks here in Triberg. It’s one of the largest cuckoo clocks in the world.”

“And who’s that girl?”

Grandson Clock’s eyes widened. “Samantha Schnoozelnein—my nemesis.”

“Nemesis?”

“She doesn’t want anyone in the world to know what time it is. It’s more fun that way, she says. But without clocks or time, I’ll be out of a job.”

“What are you waiting for, then? Stop her!”

“I can’t, Ojo. I’ve tried at least 25,913 times already. But she always wins.”

Ojo suddenly posed dramatically with her stylus. “Not without me.”

Grandson Clock blinked in surprise, then smiled warmly. “You’d really help me?”

Ojo nodded with determination, her grip tightening around her stylus. “Of course. With your time powers—“

“Clock powers.”

“Sorry—clock powers—and my ability to draw the future. Samantha doesn’t stand a chance.”

Without wasting another second, they raced out of the Airbnb, weapons in hand.

Ojo didn’t need her super intuition to know that this was the beginning of a new adventure.

Chapter Text

10:10 a.m.

The fresh morning air of Triberg greeted Ojo and Grandson Clock as they dashed through narrow cobblestone streets, weaving between curious tourists and towering half-timbered houses.

Until Grandson Clock put a hand on Ojo’s shoulder, stopping her in the middle of the town plaza.

“What is it?” asked Ojo, a little annoyed.

“Shh,” said Grandson Clock, putting a finger over his mouth. “Do you hear that?”

Ojo immediately focused her heightened hearing on the sounds around her. “I don’t hear anything.”

“Listen carefully.”

That’s when Ojo heard it. The ticking of a clock sounded faintly from a nearby house—then a wooden crashing sound echoed and the ticking stopped.

Her ears then focused on the neighboring house. A soft ticking sound emanated from it, only to stop with another wooden crash.

Then the ticking from the next house stopped the same exact way.

“Sounds like someone’s destroying every clock in Triberg,” concluded Ojo.

“You just read my mind,” affirmed Grandson Clock. “Let’s go catch ‘em.”

The heroes dashed to the end of the row of wooden houses. They tried bursting through the door—but it was locked.

“Not a problem,” said Ojo. She grabbed her iPad and opened the “layers” menu on Clee Painter. She deactivated a layer with a drawing of a door, and the real door disappeared.

“Whoa,” mouthed Grandson Clock in amazement.

The heroes burst into the house just in time to see a figure with a bowler hat and suit dashing out the back door.

“Ugh, we’re too late!” complained Ojo.

But Grandson Clock didn’t answer. He was more focused on what Samantha destroyed—a pendulum-powered wall clock in the living room.

“This was an antique 30-day Regulator from the 1890s,” he said sadly, holding up a piece of the clock’s octagonal frame. “There are less than a hundred surviving examples of this in the world.”

“Can’t you fix it?” asked Ojo.

“I’m afraid my power only allows me to reset clocks, not physically repair them.”

Ojo felt a flicker of inspiration. “Maybe I can try.”

She quickly sketched the clock on her iPad. The drawing shimmered, and the clock on the wall re-materialized, ticking as if it had never been destroyed.

Grandson Clock’s jaw dropped. “Ojo, yo—you’re amazing!”

She grinned. “Told you we make a great team.”

Grandson Clock observed the ticking clock for a few moments, checking the speed of its pendulum against his pocket watch.

There was no difference—but he was still worried.

“Ojo, look,” he said, pointing to the clock’s hands. “It’s already 10:14. According to your drawing, Samantha destroys the House of a Thousand Clocks at exactly 10:30!”

“What’s wrong with that?” asked Ojo. “We still have”—she counted on her fingers—“sixteen minutes.”

“The clock is on the other side of town! We can’t run there in time!”

“Not without thinking outside the box,” Ojo replied with a determined grin.

She swiftly opened a new canvas on her iPad and sketched a motorcycle with a sidecar.

“Hop on!” she shouted.

Grandson Clock didn’t hesitate. He leaped into the bike’s sidecar, gripping the front grill. Ojo gave him—then herself—helmets, then zipped away.

They rocketed down the streets of Triberg at furious speed, spooking both locals and tourists. Pine trees and shop awnings alike fluttered wildly in their wake.

“Do you even know how to drive this thing?” asked Grandson Clock, trying to be louder than the roar of the engine.

“Of course!” replied Ojo. “Where I come from, kids don’t just drive—they design vehicles!”

She dramatically tilted the bike’s handles, and the vehicle skidded to a stop in front of a huge cuckoo clock-shaped building with a sign reading “House of a Thousand Clocks.”

The heroes entered the building. The name didn’t lie—there were literally at least a thousand mechanical clocks all ticking in perfect harmony inside. Needless to say, Grandson Clock’s eyes widened, as if he were staring at heaven.

But of course, he knew that this paradise wouldn’t last forever.

He made a perfect imitation of a cuckoo call, calling the attention of all the tourists inside—obviously because it was 10:18, far from any time a clock should normally ring.

“Evacuate the building, everyone!” he shouted. “In exactly eleven minutes and forty-nine—forty-eight—forty-seven seconds, the place will be destroyed!”

Most of the shoppers ran in terror, but a few stayed behind.

“How are you so sure, Swiss boy?” asked a tall, balding man, who from the accent was obviously an American tourist.

“My friend Ojo here drew it,” said Grandson Clock, motioning to Ojo showing the drawing of the clock’s destruction on her tablet.

“So you’re saying your little drawings can tell the future?” teased the man’s wife.

“Yeah,” agreed Ojo. “That’s exactly my special power.”

The man huffed. “I don’t believe you.”

“What if I told you that a supervillain will come around that corner and smash every clock at 10:20?” said Ojo, showing the tourists a drawing that just materialized on the tablet. 

“Wait, what?!” gasped Grandson Clock.

Before anyone could answer, a loud smash erupted from the very direction Ojo pointed to. Everyone turned to see Samantha Schnoozelnein swing around the corner, dramatically posing with her mallet.

“No more clocks, no more time, just more fun for Schnoozelnein!” sang Samantha, smashing every clock right in the face.

The tourists finally left, leaving Ojo and Grandson Clock to face the villain on their own.

“Ah, if it isn’t Grandson Clock,” said Samantha teasingly. “Who’ve you got this time? Your girlfriend?”

Ojo and Grandson Clock stared at each other awkwardly, obviously not knowing what to say.

“I’m his partner,” said Ojo. “In crime.”

“And what’s your superpower?” asked Samantha. “Spending time with a Swiss boy?”

“I have the power of art and time on my side! Not only can I draw your future, but I can also bring my drawings to life—now!”

Ojo quickly sketched a number of ferocious monsters—snake-like creatures with two clawed legs and octopus-like tentacled creatures with a single reptilian eye on a stalk.

With swift swipes of her fingers, she threw them out of the screen—only for Samantha to swing her mallet at them mid-launch, throwing them right at the clocks on the wall, which promptly smashed.

“I don’t get it,” said Ojo, erasing the monsters. “The Heroics had to work together to get rid of these guys.”

“Let me try,” offered Grandson Clock.

He narrowed his eyes. He made clocks go off randomly across the shop, intending to distract Samantha so that Ojo could swipe her mallet.

But Samantha was more observant than he thought. She always evaded Ojo’s maneuvers as if she was the one who should’ve been named “eye”.

In the end, both heroes were unable to stop her from destroy every clock in the shop.

Not giving up, they followed her to the outside of the building, where a huge clock face ticked loudly under a similarly oversized cuckoo door.

Samantha watched in silence as the minute hand moved across the 29 position.

“Now’s our chance,” whispered Ojo.

The heroes charged at Samantha, but before they could reach her, the clock ticked to 10:30.

The cuckoo bird called once—and Samantha promptly struck the clock in the face, destroying the main mechanism.

Grandson Clock collapsed to his knees, his expression devastated. “No…”

But Ojo wasn’t ready to give up.

“We can fix this,” she whispered, putting a hand on Grandson Clock’s shoulder. She opened a new canvas on her iPad and sketched the grand clock furiously, detail by detail.

As the last stroke connected, the real clock shimmered, returning to its former glory as if nothing ever happened to it.

Grandson Clock stood up, his hope rekindled.

They then went inside, swiftly moving from clock to clock. Ojo sketched repairs while Grandson Clock reset each timepiece, synchronizing them with utmost precision. In minutes, the House of a Thousand Clocks was reborn, ticking in perfect harmony once again.

But Samantha wasn't there.

Ojo sighed, frustrated. “She escaped.”

Grandson Clock placed a comforting hand on her shoulder. “Don’t worry. We’ll get her next time.”

Just then, Ojo’s iPad buzzed with a new drawing materializing on the screen.

It showed Samantha boarding a sleek train, mallet slung over her shoulder, with the distinct silhouette of a clock tower in the background.

“Where is that?” asked Ojo, showing the tablet to Grandson Clock.

He zoomed in on the image. “That looks like the Central Railway Station Clock Tower in Helsinki, Finland. But that’s in a different time zone. We can't get there in time!”

“Not with… my iPad,” Ojo finished, determination gleaming in her eyes.

She quickly sketched an airplane. At first glance, it looked like a normal biplane, but inside, it was powered by advanced, easy-to-use technology straight from the brilliant young minds on planet Ogima.

“Ready to stop Samantha once and for all?” asked Ojo excitedly, settling in the pilot’s seat.

“Ready,” nodded Grandson Clock, sitting in the passenger seat.

Ojo docked her tablet into the console that replaced the traditional flight instruments. Instantly, a drawing of a plane’s instrument panel appeared, together with a cartoonishly large, colorful button labeled “Start.”

She tapped it with her stylus, and the plane’s engines started themselves.

And just like that, they took off from the streets of Triberg.

Chapter Text

11:22 a.m.

Over the Baltic Sea.

Ojo and Grandson Clock’s plane zipped through the cold northern air, sailing thousands of feet above the water below.

“So, how do you fly this thing, Ojo?” asked Grandson Clock, obviously bored.

Ojo flashed a confident grin. “Easy! I just draw what I want the plane to do. Like this.”

She quickly sketched a flight path on a drawing of a map. The plane adjusted instinctively, following the drawn route as if guided by invisible strings.

Grandson Clock’s eyes widened. “Incredible! You don’t even need to steer.”

“Exactly,” replied Ojo, tapping her stylus against her tablet rhythmically. “But I like to keep my hands on deck—it makes me feel like a real pilot.”

Grandson Clock chuckled, but his laughter faded as he glanced at his pocket watch. “Are you sure we can make it to Helsinki in time?”

Ojo’s face grew serious. “We’ll make it.”

The plane burst through a cloud, and Ojo could now see land below—the southern coast of Finland, dotted with thousands of lakes.

And right in front of them, in the air, was a wall of bluish-white light that seemed to follow the country’s borders.

“What is that?” asked Ojo, pointing ahead.

Grandson Clock’s eyes widened. “That’s the border of a time zone. My grandfather told me all about them. If you pass through, your internal clock goes ahead or behind a few minutes. I thought no one outside our family can see them.”

“Then how come I see them?”

“Either because you have super-senses… or because my energy is rubbing off on you.”

Ojo couldn’t help but chuckle.

The plane zoomed through the time zone. There was a flash of light, and the time on Ojo’s iPad advanced one hour. 

Grandson Clock’s pocket watch did the same thing. The hour hand moved independently from the minute hand, changing from 1:18 p.m. to 2:18 p.m.

“We are now two hours ahead of Coordinated Universal Time,” announced Grandson Clock, showing his pocket watch. “That gives us a head start.”

The plane slowed down as it reached the city limits of Helsinki.

It landed itself in a narrow alleyway near the Central Railway Station, just dark enough for no one to notice. Ojo and Grandson Clock hopped off, clutching their super tools tightly.

“Okay,” said Grandson Clock, checking his pocket watch. “Now to find Samantha.”

Suddenly, a loud cackle erupted through the streets.

Ojo spun around, pointing at the clock tower behind her. “There she is!”

The heroes raced through the busy streets, weaving between pedestrians. The sound of their hurried footsteps blended with the symphony of city life—trams clattering, birds calling, and distinct announcements echoing from the station.

When they arrived, Samantha Schnoozelnein was already scaling the clock tower, mallet slung over her shoulder like a warrior’s weapon.

“Over there!” gasped Grandson Clock.

Ojo wasted no time. She sketched a grappling hook on her tablet, pulling it into reality. She threw it at the tower, and the hook latched perfectly onto the ledge.

“Hold on!” she shouted, grabbing Grandson Clock’s hand as the device hoisted them upwards.

They landed just in time to see Samantha leaping away, hopping onto a train to who-knows-where.

“Ugh, we’re late again!” grumbled Ojo.

But Grandson Clock didn’t answer. He just looked up at the clock curiously.

“What’s wrong?” asked Ojo.

Before she can answer, a loud chime reverberated around her. It was the song Grandson Clock sang when she first met her—which she realized was probably the standard top-of-the-hour chime for clock towers. Four bars, each of four notes, followed by three deeper gongs.

“Wait, is it three o’clock already?” asked Ojo, confused.

“No, and that’s the problem,” replied Grandson Clock. “The clock’s running too fast.”

Ojo watched the clock herself. The minute hand crossed five minutes in less than one—then just as quickly slowed to a crawl.

“Now it’s too slow,” she commented.

“Something’s definitely wrong here,” realized Grandson Clock. “Ojo, can you sketch a door so we can see the mechanism?”

Ojo nodded. Without saying a word, she drew a door on the tablet, which materialized as an emergency exit beneath one of the clock’s giant faces.

The heroes went inside. The clock’s mechanism towered above them, with a huge pendulum swinging back and forth to stop and start four sets of gears.

Grandson Clock inspected the mechanism closely. “The pendulum’s running at perfect speed, so it shouldn’t be this slow.”

“So what’s wrong?” asked Ojo.

Suddenly, the mechanism lurched violently. The gears sped up, and the clock advanced to 3:14.

Grandson Clock’s eyes widened. “Looks like Samantha broke the gears in just the right places to make them speed up and slow down at random.”

“What are we going to do?” asked Ojo. “I’m not sure I can draw ourselves out of this one—the clock’s outside isn’t physically damaged, and I don’t know which gears to fix and how.”

Grandson Clock thought for a moment. “…Actually, you can. Draw a microphone and four speakers—one for each face of the clock.”

Ojo drew the items without question—a sign of her growing trust in her partner.

Grandson Clock cleared his throat, grabbed the microphone, and began singing “Ievan Polkka”—lyrics and backing beat at the same time, just as he did earlier in Germany.

With each “pol, pol” he articulated, the gears and pendulum glowed slightly, their swings and ticks slowly stabilizing. Soon they were running at the exact tempo they needed for perfect timekeeping.

But halfway through the song, the clock ticked to 3:15, triggering a loud chime.

For some strange reason, the young clock expert was taken aback. He forgot his place in the song, only sputtering random syllabes.

“Are you okay?” asked Ojo.

“Yeah,” panted Grandson Clock. “Stay right here. I need to get some water.”

“But what about the clock?” Ojo could see the gears starting to slip loose again.

“Go ahead. Finish what I’ve started. I’m parched.”

Ojo didn’t know what to do. Although she knew the song from memes she watched with Rhiannon, the lyrics were like gibberish to her. She had no idea how to sing to make sure the words made sense.

But nothing was impossible for a girl with a superpowered tablet.

She burst out the door like a mechanical cuckoo and put on a lyric video of the song.

She did her best to pronounce the words. As she did, she focused her thoughts on the clock’s mechanism, trying to establish a mental connection with it.

As the song went on, she noticed people on the ground pointing up at her. They looked surprised not only at her presence, but also at the fact that she was singing one of their folk songs.

So she sang with more confidence.

The people on the street soon joined in. Teenagers on their way to the park tapped their feet to the beat. A Turkish street drummer added his own beat, charming his white pet cat. A vendor in a cart kept time by spinning a sprig of leeks.

By the end of the song, it was as if the entirety of Helsinki was singing along.

Grandson Clock arrived just in time to see the clock’s mechanism stabilizing itself. “D… did you do this?” he asked, dumbfounded.

Ojo grinned, her face flushed with both exertion and excitement. “I… guess I did.”

Grandson Clock moved closer, his eyes reflecting both admiration and awe. “Y—you’re incredible, Ojo.”

“Thanks,” she replied, blushing slightly.

Grandson Clock touched the mechanism with his clock key, resetting the hands to the proper time—2:30.

The clock rang its half-hour chime, and the crowd below cheered in victory.

“What do we do now, Ojo?” asked Grandson Clock.

Ojo checked her tablet. A new drawing materialized—one of Samantha posing for a selfie in front of a clock tower above a red brick fortress. In the distance was a church with towers topped by colorful, teardrop-shaped domes.

“I know this one,” said Ojo. “This looks like Moscow, Russia.”

“She must be after the Spasskaya Tower, the clock tower above the Kremlin,” added Grandson Clock. “We have to stop her!”

Ojo cast her grappling hook back to the alleyway, ziplining her and Grandson Clock back to their plane.

She drew a flight path directly to Moscow’s Red Square, and just like that, they took off.

Chapter Text

5:45 p.m., UTC+3.

Moscow, Moscow Oblast, Russia.

Ojo and Grandson Clock’s plane landed on the cobblestone streets of Red Square, halfway between the colorful spires of St. Basil’s Cathedral and the stately walls of the Kremlin.

“Okay, now to find Samantha,” said Ojo, disembarking from the plane with her partner.

But that wasn’t as easy as it looked. The grounds were filled to the brim with students, tourists, and the occasional street performer.

Something about a particular performer caught Ojo’s eyes—and then she saw her.

Samantha Schnoozelnein.

She was taking a selfie in front of the Spasskaya Tower, posing the exact same way as in Ojo’s drawing.

“There she is!” shouted Ojo, pointing.

She and Grandson Clock immediately charged in Samantha’s direction. Samantha, ever the observant one, immediately blended into the crowd.

“Now where’d she go?” asked Grandson Clock.

They looked around for a few minutes until they heard a loud cackle.

“Over there!” cried Ojo, pointing to the suited figure leaping up the side of Spasskaya Tower like a mountain goat.

“How’s she even climbing like that?” asked Grandson Clock.

“I don’t know… but we can too.” Ojo sketched her and Grandson Clock in springy boots.

The two heroes then bounced after Samantha. They had difficulty using their new footwear at first, but they quickly got used to it.

They jumped from loose brick to loose brick, trying to evade the guards below as if they were in some kind of video game.

At the top of the tower, just below the clock face, the battle began.

“Samantha Schnoozelnein, stop this at once!” shouted Grandson Clock, holding his clock key in front of him like a sword.

Samantha only giggled. “Why would I stop, Swiss boy? Time is an illusion. Clocks are useless. People should stop letting their lives be dictated by them!”

“Time isn’t an illusion. It’s the thread that holds our lives together. Without it, there’s chaos. And clocks aren’t just useless devices. As my grandfather said, they’re also works of art. Clockmaking is one of the most beautiful forms of art.”

Ojo was a little touched by those words. Although she was the artistic type, she never really thought of clockmaking as an art. And seeing her partner so passionate about it, in the same way she was passionate about digital art, only made her respect him more.

“Clockmaking? An art?” taunted Samantha. “Well, it’s a useless art. Just like the ones your girlfriend makes.”

Ojo growled in frustration. She was about to show Samantha that her art was anything but useless.

Samantha could only watch in fright as Ojo’s cute exterior gave way to a fierce determination. Ojo quickly sketched a giant, tentacled, octopus-like monster, straight from the depths of the planet Ogima.

In one fell swoop, the monster swung its tentacle at Samantha, sending her falling onto the Kremlin’s garden below.

“Well, that was easy,” said Grandson Clock.

“Something tells me this isn’t the last we’ll see of her,” commented Ojo.

They looked down at the garden, and sure enough, Samantha was there. She growled at the heroes, pointed at her eyes, then at the heroes’, then finally ran away.

“Where do you think she’ll end up next?” asked Grandson Clock.

Ojo checked her tablet. A new drawing materialized before their eyes—a short, narrow clock tower with a small face and Arabic writing.

“Where is this?” asked Ojo.

Grandson Clock squinted at the drawing. “If I’m correct, that’s the Markar Clock Tower in Yazd, Iran.”

“Never heard of it.”

“It’s really minor compared to the other clocks we’ve visited. It’s only 13 feet tall, and its only claim to fame is that it’s in the exact center of Iran.”

“Then why would Samantha go after it?”

Grandson Clock thought for a moment. “Ojo, can I see the drawings of the clocks you made?”

Ojo tapped the folder of clock drawings she made in Clee Painter. There was the House of a Thousand Clocks in Germany, the Central Railway Station Clock Tower in Finland, the Spasskaya Tower in Russia, and now the Markar Clock Tower in Iran.

Grandson Clock grabbed his chin. “Look at this. Germany, Finland, Russia, and Iran are all in different time zones. Maybe she wants to destroy one clock in every time zone on Earth—and since Iran is in its own time zone, she has to have a stop there.”

“Good thinking, partner,” complimented Ojo, tapping his back.

“Let’s not waste another second. We have to stop Samantha!”

With that, the two heroes bounced off the clock tower and landed in Red Square.

Ojo erased their springy boots, allowing them to run normally back to the plane.

But when she passed in front of a public microphone, she stopped. “Wait!”

“What’s wrong, Ojo?” asked Grandson Clock.

“I, uh… have to charge my tablet.”

Grandson Clock watched in confusion as Ojo dashed to the microphone—far from any café or any place with a charger.

She sketched herself in a red-and-white costume, a red-and-gold striped cape, a pointed conical hat, and a long, braided brown beard.

Then she drew herself five animated companions—three men wearing green, black, and blue, and two women wearing red and yellow. They looked like the Power Rangers crossed with Mongolian and Russian nobility.

And finally, she scrolled through her music library and played “Moskau” by Dschinghis Khan.

The moment the first notes hit, Ojo jumped forward, unfurling her cape dramatically. Her animated companions then followed suit, performing extragavant moves that mirrored the song’s 1979 music video.

The tourists in the square stopped and turned to watch. Some of them even took pictures and videos.

At first, it seemed like a normal flash mob, but the kicker came when the song’s bridge played.

As the lyrics about vodka and its life-extending properties boomed from nearby speakers, Ojo’s tablet glowed brightly. At a nearby café, some students drawing on their iPads suddenly stood up and joined the dance, twirling their Apple Pencils like swords.

Grandson Clock thought the performance would end there, but it didn’t.

Ojo played the song from start to finish again. And just like earlier, when the bridge played, all the iPad artists in the area joined the dance as if the words had a kind of spell over them.

Next she played the song in English—twice. This time, when the chorus played, the dancers erupted into a simultaneous kozachok, and the bridge saw the artists giving their iPads to random tourists as if to convert them to digital art.

Then the song played in Cantonese. This version was marked by the spontaneous appearance of people dressed as Russian and German soldiers, some on horseback, that reared, jumped, and charged through the crowd.

Finally, the song played in Japanese. All the artists, soldiers, and dancers combined their moves for a grand performance that rivaled even the most popular concerts.

After that, everyone in Red Square applauded. Several of them threw money at Ojo, her dancers (which she erased), and the artists and soldiers, who seemed to have snapped out of a trance.

“What was that all about?” asked Grandson Clock, watching Ojo approach with a sackful of rubles.

“I charged my tablet,” replied Ojo, pointing to the “100%” at the top-right of her tablet screen.

“By putting on a show?”

Ojo leaned in to Grandson Clock’s ear. “Don’t tell this to anyone, but, ‘Moskau’ does to me what ‘Ievan Polkka’ does to you. It boosts my powers.”

“I see. But how exactly is ‘Moskau’ connected to art? ‘Ievan Polkka’ at least has that timing factor.”

“I don’t know. But that’s what Rhiannon taught me.”

“Who’s Rhiannon?”

Ojo showed Grandson Clock a picture on her tablet. “Rhiannon Rodriguez. Daughter of Robert Rodriguez, the famous movie director. She may be fifteen years old, but she already works as his concept artist. She gave me my iPad and taught me how to draw on it.”

Grandson Clock nodded in understanding. “She must’ve known the iPad’s true power all along.”

“Maybe,” Ojo replied thoughtfully, glancing down at her tablet. “But right now, we’ve got a mission to complete.”

Without further hesitation, they boarded their plane once more, setting a new course towards Yazd, Iran. Ojo sketched the flight path, and the aircraft responded as if it were an extension of her will.