Work Text:
Rolli Schmidt hated his new school.
He was an exchange student because his evil mother, rolli scowled to think of her, had decided that she liked tea so much they were going to move to London so she could drink a bunch of tea. However, he spoke mostly German, because he’d never been good at English class, despite it being the only subject he really paid attention to and also his favourite lesson. He had supposed that at least he could have a new start at his new school, but all the other students hated him and the teachers were annoying and boring.
He sighed, burying his head in his hands while looking out the window of his fluorescent yellow bedroom. At least he had a school trip coming up soon..
Three gruelling days of housework [his mother was alllwayys making him do chores, so much so that it felt like he was being assigned homework seven days a week] later, it was the day of the school trip.
He had tried to scramble to the back of the big blue coach, but all the other stupid students shoved in front of him and so he resigned to the second to front seat.
He could feel the piercing gaze of all the other students, hear their whispers that crawled their way into his ears like the snake that had exploded in his living room that one time, but he didn’t understand them. Perhaps they weren’t even talking about him, he had a tendency to perceive people as more hostile than they were.
It also really stank of manky teenagers, because it was 33 degrees and the driver clearly hadn’t heard of a little thing called air conditioning…
He was lost in his thoughts for a while, staring out the window as the coach rumbled down the m25, but was snapped out of it by a presence and then a sudden voice beside him.
“Hallo Rolli!!! Es war ein Menge Zeit nach ich siehst du!!”
{{hello rolli!! Its been a long time since I’ve seen you!!!}}
Rolli whipped his head around to see exactly who he expected to see. He smiled, relieved that he had somebody to talk to, not really considering that it was strange that this weird girl who just randomly turned up sometimes throughout his life had just teleported onto a school coach that was currently moving at about 70mph up a motorway.
“Guten Morgen Rita!!! Wie gehts?”
{{good morning Rita!! How are you?}}
He spoke, ignoring the confused looks from the people around him, assuming it was because he was speaking German.
Rita looked at him with an incredibly joyful grin, before exclaiming
“Ich bin sehr sehr gut!!! Kein nur gut, aber irre!!!”
{{I am veery very good!!! Not only good, but amazing!!}}
Rolli looked confused. As far as he was concerned, life was just misery, work, and boredom, except when he was talking to Rita, so he naturally assumed that Rita had no life outside of talking to him.
“Warum?? Wie?? Mein Leben sind immer so langweilig und furchtbar…”
{{why?? How?? My life is always so boring and awful..}}
He kicked his feet against the brightly coloured coach seat [not quite as brightly coloured as Ritas insanely neon clothes..] in front of him, being quite inconsiderate to the poor teacher in the front, who was currently yelling at a student for some reason rolli couldn't quite make out.
Rita just giggled.
“Heute morgen, zuerst habe ich eine hellgelbe Katze gesehen!! Und dann habe ich zweihundert farbenfroh Meerschweinchen, gesehen, die waren geflogen! Danach habe ich mit manche doof Schuhen unter die Brücke Zigaretten geraucht!!!”
{this morning, first I saw a bright yellow cat!! And then I saw 200 colourful guinea pigs, they were flying!! After that I smoked cigarettes with some stupid shoes under a bridge!!}
“Was?????? Rita was zur Hölle…”
{{what?? Rita what the hell??}}
Rolli gave the strange girl a look of utter bemusement, but she didn’t say anything else for the remainder of their journey. As he kept glancing behind him, he was now absolutely sure that somebody was watching him, someone looking very confused and sightly concerned, in a rude manner.
He shook his head a little, and went back to silently staring out the window. He wasn’t really one for thinking.
As the school arrived at the theme park, and everyone filed out the coach, herded by the teachers through the gates of the theme park, Rolli lost sight of Rita. He supposed that maybe she had wandered off to talk to someone else, and he just walked around the theme park for a while, looking for a ride without a huge 50 minute queue.
At some point, he stopped to look at a large map of the theme park, and that’s when he felt a cold hand on his shoulder.
Rolli leaped nearly a foot in the air in surprise and discomfort, he despised being touched, and caught sight of the person standing next to him.
It was the person who had been staring concernedly at him earlier.
They spoke, concerned but also kind of judging,
“I was watching you earlier, in the coach. You were talking to the air for like a full 20 minutes… that’s like really weird.. are you on drugs??”
Rolli just stared blankly at him, trying and failing to recall what he had learnt in his beloved English lessons.
After a couple seconds, the person got out his phone, and opened google translate, setting it to German, typing in what they had said, and showing it to Rolli.
Rolli was taken aback in shock, and typed into the persons phone
“Was??? Das ist meine freunde, Rita!!! Sie sprecht sehr oft mit mich!!”
{{what?? That’s my friend Rita! She often speaks with me!!}}
The person just gave him a look, snatched his hand away, and walked off muttering about crazy people.
Rolli just ignored him and went to buy an ice cream. One of the things that he had remembered from English class was lucky how to buy ice cream, which had stuck in his head because of how much he loved ice cream.
Unfortunately, while walking towards a rollercoaster with very little queue because people were eating lunch, he fell over some stupid child’s labubu and dropped his ice cream on the floor.
“Oh Scheiße…”
{{oh shit..}}
He stood there, in utter grief, for what seemed like hours, but was probably only a couple of minutes.
Eventually he felt Rita’s presence again, and looked up to see her still cheery face staring deep into his soul.
A singular tear dropped from his face onto his sadly fallen ice cream.
“Ich.. Ich dachte, du wärst nicht echt…”
{{I thought you weren’t real..}}
Rita did not seem to care that he had doubted her existence,[she obviously didn’t care because she indeed was not real]
And she led Rolli towards the house of mirrors.
Rolli was still thinking about what that person had said. Was that why all the other students on the coach had been looking at him weirdly?? Could they really not see Rita??
He supposed that it would make some semblance of sense, because Rita had always seemed to be just appearing near him, she was sort of really weird, and she had the exact same colour scheme of his fluorescent bedroom at home…
The house of mirrors was empty, of course except for the mirrors themselves. Rolli stepped in front of one, Rita next to him, and found himself overcome by a strange laughter.
“Hahahahahhaha!!! Rita!!! Ich habe grüne Haare und rote Augen!!!!”
{{hahahaha rita!! I have green hair and red eyes!!}}
That really was not normal for a hall of mirrors mirror, but Rolli didn’t seem to notice.
Rita was also laughing hysterically, but after a while they explored further in the tent which housed the hall of mirrors, until they discovered a strange oak coffin, with a freaky green mist coming out of it.
It seemed to be compelling him to open it, and Rita shoved him playfully in front of it.
However, before Rolli could open it, the coffin’s lid flew open, and it spoke in a strange voice,
“WAS..IST…DEIN…NAME…”
{{what.. is.. your.. name..}}
Rolli let out a scream of pure terror.
“OH NEIN!!!!!”
{{oh no!!}}
He grabbed Rita’s arm, and sprinted out of the tent, but losing Rita at some point along the way, not stopping running until he reached the toilets.
He ran into a cubicle and slammed the door shut, just staring at the ugly manky floor.
What was happening? First Rita was apparently [he had decided while running to the toilet] not actually real, and now a coffin had yelled at him… his life was getting so weird…
He didn’t see Rita for the rest of the day, and once he had gone home on the school coach at the end of the day, he didn’t see her for days.
Until there was a knock at his bedroom window, about 3 days later.
Rolli hesitantly opened the window, it was 2am and he was deathly scared of burglars.
Rita was there, holding her bright pink phone and sort of levitating somehow. She spoke as optimistically as ever,
“Willst du mit mir Bowling gehen???”
{{do you want to go bowling with me??}}