The Team // A Formula One AU

Pierre

"Drizzle. Very light rain," Someone in the middle of the room reads from the dictionary. It's been drizzling all day and it's still drizzling now. Drizzle. I add it to my mental list.

I'm sitting in the lounge amongst some other people who don't speak great English yet. Charles, Carlos and Max scream distantly as they try to push each other down the bank into the muddy puddle at the bottom of it. I know what they're doing because I went out with them at first, and I can still hear them through the cracked windows.

Those who speak English natively have banded together and gone into the town centre, I think. I'm not sure how much there is there to do. Seven of them went so they're sure to find trouble somewhere.

I pick up the magazine in front of me. Tom suggested we sit in here so we can practise speaking English and being together but I'd rather just read. I'm sure it's educational.

"Hey! Uh..." Someone yells then stops abruptly. I hear a couple of whispers. "...Pierre?"

"Yes?" I answer and look up. I have no idea who that person is.

"Can you pass magazine?" He asks and a few people laugh quietly behind him. I look at the table to hide my confusion.

"This one?" I reply and hand one to him. It has a car on it.

"Yup that does fine." The quality of this guy's sentences makes me think Tom's severely misjudged our education levels. I watch as the tanned boy starts carefully tearing pages out of the magazine and then folding them together into the most intricate paper airplane I've ever seen. He throws it across the room and it doesn't descend an inch until it hits the wall behind me and falls neatly into the bin. Everyone applauds.

"Guys, it's time to eat." The engineer, Peter, pokes his head in and announces cheerfully. We all stand up and file into the corridor with its wall which is just one big window. The three who went outside burst through the glass doors caked in mud and screaming together. They rush ahead to the canteen and manage to wipe their shoes on every surface by the time I get there, including the table. The others arrive back from town and chat excitedly. I sit across the room.

"Hey Pierre, why are you sitting along? Come sit on this bench." I'm not sure on the name of the guy but I have to go and eat with him amongst pieces of the pitch. I smile at his group as I thread my legs under the table.

"Come on boys, it's not waitress service you know," one of the lunch ladies snarls suddenly from behind the counter. We start moving towards her window and her eyes bulge as she sees the mess.

"Can I eat... What is it? That one." Carlos points at the food in the trays. "Please?"

"You!" The woman bellows. "You're the one who's got mud all over my wooden benches!"

"Um..." Carlos bites his lip. He turns towards the Mexican guy. "No entiendo."

"Preguntarle de nuevo."

"Will you stop speaking gibberish and answer me!?"

"What's going on here?" Tom demands from behind them.

"These boys have messed up our whole canteen and don't even have the decency to-"

"Will you just serve them their food and I'll sort it out afterwards, thank you," he replies curtly. 

"I've never heard such insolence in my life, these snobby little children waltz in here with their demands..." She continues to mutter as I edge towards the front of the line, answering with only a grunt when each person orders. I don't know how someone could keep up such a constant stream of abuse. I finally sit down at the table with my food.

"Maybe you should take off your boots," Erik suggests quietly to the muddy ones and they do but it only creates more mess. It's safe to say we won't be allowed in here straight from the outdoors anymore.

I'm sitting across the table from Lewis, one of those who just got back from town. I haven't heard him speak much, so I wonder if he could be as shy as me.

"Did you go shopping?" I ask, wishing my voice was louder above the noise of dinner.

"We did," George answers, cutting in ahead of Lewis, "We just found a Sainsbury's and got more snacks and drinks."

"I bought rainbow laces!" Lando says at his usual loud volume. Carlos sits between us but I still heard him perfectly, and the look on Lando's face tells me he wants nothing more than to finish his meal and start snacking. Today's food is slightly better than usual, although it's still pasta. I'm not sure if Tom realises the value of a healthy diet when trying to become a professional athlete.

"Where are you from, by the way? I've forgotten," George looks at me, tilting his head to the side. I think I must have repeated this story fifteen times so I just give him the short version.

"I'm French, I've actually raced against Esteban and Charles before so we kind of know each other."

"I've raced against Nando, too," Carlos says. It turns out the three English guys on the table also knew each other before they arrived here, as well as Alex.

"So that's great then, we all came here with friends."

"Actually, me and Esteban don't get on..." I say, staring at my plate. I push my last piece of pasta around in circles.

"Come on, you have to tell us the story," Carlos nudges me and I shrug, not wanting to think about it.

"We used to be friends when we were young, but then there were a few... Incidents. He was too aggressive and we couldn't work it out off-track."

I feel claustrophobic in the silence after I finish speaking, just the clack of people's cutlery to listen to. Lando gets up to take his empty plate back to the kitchen so I'm not sure he was really listening.

"It happens," George finally says, swallowing his last mouthful. "If you couldn't work it out off-track then you probably weren't meant to be friends anyway. I wouldn't worry about it."

"Yeah, and I can make new friends now anyway," I reply.

"Damn right."

We chat for a long time after we finish our meals, comparing favourite teams and trying to work out if we've ever raced on the same tracks. Lewis is the first to go to his room to rest but the others don't seem to want to. In the end Mick and Daniel join our table too, although they sit at the opposite end from me. Just as I'm starting to feel left out of the conversation, Charles sits down in Lewis' old seat.

"Hi," he smiles. "Is anyone sitting here?"

"Hey, no, you can sit here."

"Great."

He puts down his chopped fruit pudding and makes himself comfortable on the bench. He holds out his bowl to offer me some apple and I take a slice gratefully, nibbling on it as I listen to Daniel tell the story of how he broke his arm. I may have lost one old friend, but George is right, this is the place to be to make new ones. And as Charles pushes his bowl to the centre of the table between us, I think maybe I've got an old friend back as well.