Chapter Text
“What a bunch of idiots.” One girl strayed alone through the streets along the rows of identic houses in the Center Parc. “I should’ve stayed home, just used the bulimia-method once more. But no, Coco pushed me to this awful trip. I should’ve stayed home.” Apparently, this mumbling girl with black hair in a messy bun, dark eyebags and a red hoodie did not enjoy the bright sun and warm weather of the pleasant day in July.
“I want to get out of here. And waiting in the house until this fucking trip is over isn’t an option either because I have to share it with some idiots I don’t even know just because I don’t have any friend group (or friends to begin with) like Coco or Pippi do. I’m stuck with the leftovers, he.” The street was empty; the simple white houses with hedges in between were calm. The only noise came from chirping birds and the irregular footsteps of the annoyed girl.
“When I think about it, it’s not too late for the bulimia-method. I can still pull it off and leave this goddamned place.” Her eyes wandered to the sky and a weak smiled played around her lips. “And I don’t have to stop with simple puking. I could, let’s say accidentally trip and unfortunately break my leg and then, I’m lamentably forced to leave the trip early. Then, dad would get me out of here and I could spend some three and a half days in my room without being disturbed by some idiotic adoptive sisters.” She closed her eyes. “That’d be like a dream. Just some peace-”
Her phone suddenly vibrated. “Please not Coco, please not Coco.” The girl pulled the red cased phone out of her hoodie pocket and held it in her hands. She had received a message from no lesser person than Coco.
The message read: “h0I mAYA1 cAN y0U C0M3 T0 MY H0US3? z03Y’S V0IC3 IS H0arS3, CAn Y0U S1NG IN H3R PLaC3 LaT3R?”
Maya stared at the display in disbelief. Her first thought was: “Who the fuck is Zoey again?” Her second thought was: “No, I won’t do anything for the sole reason that you’re the one asking me for it.” Her third thought revolved around the concert of Running in the Sixties which was planned for this very evening, but this thought was way too clouded with disdain to be expressed in words.
After a short time of Maya staring at the display, a fourth thought formed: “But why… should I be the only one to feel awful?” Her smile turned into a vile grin. “Exactly, I feel awful, but if everyone feels awful then I’ll feel less awful. And if everyone feels awful, no one wants to continue this trip, then this trip will be cancelled on the spot, and we all go home! I don’t have fun; no one shall have fun! A unique opportunity to get back at Coco and Pippi! Ha!” She started to giggle like a nine-year-old maniac.
As she faced her phone once again, her eyes lit, and driven by the result of the fourth thought and with malicious intent she started typing an answer to her sister: “ok. I’ll do it.” After Maya had sent this message, her giggle turned into that of a ten-year-old maniac. “I won’t show up, they must play with an incomplete band! They’ll feel awful as hell, he! And Coco will feel worst of all, that serves her right.” She put the phone back into the pocket of the hoodie and stretched her arms. “That’ll cancel the concert!”
“What makes you think that?”
“Wat” Maya jumped, swirled around and found herself face to face with a boy she vaguely remembered from class, although she had no idea what his name could possibly be. He had grey, almost silver hair and wore a white-blue bobble hat despite the thirty degrees Celsius.
“Didn’t mean to scare you.”, he apologised, even though his bored eyes did not appear apologetic in the slightest way. “What makes you think that?”
“What… uhhm makes me think what?”
“Why do you think the concert is cancelled?” The boredom left his eyes and his gaze pierced Maya like sharp icicles.
“Uhhh… what concert?”
“That band.”
“Ah yes, it’s uhm… it’s… Zoey is hoarse and… apparently won’t sing…”
The boy waited for Maya to add something but as she did not, he said: “That won’t stop them. They will most likely get a replacement for her and play anyway.”
Maya eyed him as if she saw a bear in the distance and did not dare to move a muscle.
“We must take out the replacement.”
Maya looked at him as if she saw a bear charging toward her. Her eyes hastily wobbled and she frantically stammered: “Wait, wait, wait uhhm… it’s like… look, I want to cancel the concert, but… there must be another solution… I guess…”
“And that would be?”
“Steal their instruments!” Maya had said these words without thinking and looked at the boy as if she was facing a bear with raised claws.
The boy with the bobble hat thought about this suggestion. “That will stop them. Let’s do it.” He started walking into the direction of Coco’s house.
For one short moment, Maya remained there frozen in the middle of the street, then she caught up to the boy like a child running after a teddy bear. “Wait, wait! What’s… what are you… why do you want to stop the band?”
He stopped and waited for Maya. As soon as the girl was next to him, he resumed his march and said to her: “I dislike everything that is loud. That band is loud, so I want to destroy their loudness.” The threatening tone left his voice, and he added in a bored manner: “I want to live in quiet and nothing more. That is also the reason I’m walking around here, I could not stand the loud people I share the house with.”
“Heh, just like me. I guess we should get married, heh.”
“I would rather not.”
“It was a joke!” Maya heavily sweated all of a sudden as if her body noticed the thirty degrees just now.
He looked ahead. “We both want to cancel the concert. Let’s bring that band to fall.”
Maya nodded and hoped that the boy would forget this “joke” of hers. She also contemplated if she should ask about his roommates but as she did not even know his name, she was certain that she did not know their names either. The vile grin returned to her face, because Maya realised that her plan to end this trip early by making everyone feel awful has entered its first stage. And the prospect of sabotaging Coco’s despised band filled her with satisfaction.
Thus, the two did not lose a further word as they made their way to Coco’s house, not even losing a word about a plan that would enable them to simply steal all the four heavy instruments out of a house while the four owners of the aforementioned instruments were still in this very house.
As it turned out, they could not set their plan for the theft in motion, even if they had one, because someone spotted them on the way to Coco’s house. It was the slender Sjef, wearing a white shirt, his blonde hair oiled, and with a nervous expression on his face. As soon as he spotted Maya, he walked up to her and the other boy shortly before they reached Coco’s house.
“Heeey, Maya and Stan!”, exclaimed Sjef cheerfully, although his eyes expressed nothing but tense nervosity while sweat ran from his temple.
The two addressed people stopped and looked at the blonde boy who waited for them to respond to his greeting. But as no response came, Sjef continued: “So, Maya, do you…” He stopped talking as Maya looked at him with pure shock, she was not used to being addressed so directly.
He gulped and forced himself to continue: “Well, I was on the way to Coco, but… I think you can help me even better.” He avoided looking at Maya and his index fingers touched each other at the tip. “I may or may not need your help… for a peculiar… thing.” He carefully glanced at Maya and hoped she would understand what he was referring to, but he came to the realisation that she understood him as well as some muisjes. A glance to Stan revealed that the boy also did not know in the slightest what he might be referring to, but unlike Maya, Stan obviously did not care to find out. With a sigh, Sjef said: “Mymy.” Whereas Maya had looked at the boy before as if he was a rock, now she looked at him as if he was a bicycle doing push-ups. “I was denied entry into her house.”
“Why do- do you want into her house?”, she pronounced this question as if she was asking a bicycle whether it could go to the moon.
Suddenly, Sjef screamed aloud: “I’m in-” He interrupted himself and whispered so quiet that Maya could barely understand him: “love.”
Now, Maya looked at Sjef as if he was a bicycle that went to the moon thrice a week. The words echoed inside her and she desperately tried to put them together, but to no result, so she proceeded to stare at this boy in front of her to see what would happen next.
Sjef glanced to Maya, but her face with the open mouth and the motionless eyes signalised that he was not close to get a reaction as long as the sun was still in the sky. He glanced to Stan, but his face emitted nothing except boredom spiced with a little bit of dissatisfaction. He turned back to Maya: “You’re Mymy’s sister.”
Maya slowly nodded, she could follow him so far.
“And I thought that you may or may not tell Mymy… that I admire her and… would like to talk to her…” His eyes wandered through the sky and over the ground, drawing circles around Maya. “You’re Mymy’s sister, Mymy won’t slam the door in your face.”
Before Maya could give the answer she had not prepared, Sjef hastily added: “Please, please, will you help me? I will help you too, really, I’ll do everything if you help me with Mymy.”
Abruptly, Stan’s head turned to Sjef and in his gaze pierced him like sharp icicles. “Everything?”, he repeated decidedly.
“Yes, but I asked for Maya’s help and-”
“Will you assist us in a theft?”
Now, Sjef looked to Stan as if he was a bicycle that knitted bobble hats in its free time.
Maya looked to Sjef, then to Stan, then again to Sjef. Something in her brain finally clicked. “I’ll help you”, started Maya and a sly grin appeared on her pale lips, “if you help us to prevent the band performance.”
Sjef looked to Maya, then to Stan, then again to Maya. Ignoring his confusion, he stated: “Deal.”
The three looked at each, unsure of what would happen next. Sjef took the initiative: “We should go to Mymy’s house first. There, you will convince Mymy of my love” – he mumbled this word so quiet that no one understood it, and everyone simply assumed that this was the word he wanted to say – “for her, then I’ll help you two with whatever you have on your mind.” Before waiting for a reaction or an objection, Sjef started walking away from Coco’s house into the direction of Mymy’s house and Maya and Stan followed his lead.
The way was not very long and after a few minutes the three stood in front of a house which looked exactly like every other house in the Center Parc. A lot of noise arose from the inside, indistinguishable voices gibbering at the same time, an unmistakable indication that this house belonged to Mymy and her friends.
Because of Maya wanting to proceed with the theft as soon as possible to pursue her goal to ruin this trip for everyone, especially Coco and the band, she walked up to the front door and pressed the bell.
Within two seconds the door opened a tiny crack, and half of Mymy’s face appeared in this space. As if she was faced with a stranger, the orange-haired girl said: “What can I do for you?”
It only dawned Maya now that she had no idea what to say. “Uhm… you, I… can I come in?”
The light blue eyes wandered the black-haired girl up and down. After a short consideration, Mymy yelled: “Belgian spy!” And slammed the door in Maya’s face.
Resigned and with a I-told-you-face, Maya turned around to Sjef and Stan. Neither of them knew what to say or do, as if they were three cows on a meadow that had no grass left.