"We're all a little weird. And life is a little weird. And when we find someone whose weirdness is compatible with ours, we join up with them and fall into mutually satisfying weirdness - and call it love - true love." (Robert Fulghum)
Moving to boa...
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Without another word, Luke gets to his feet and we all leave for... well, I don't know. It's the last day of vacation and it's the first time in my life that I don't want it to end. The school was never "a prison" for me, contrary to my colleagues, the only thing I couldn't stand at it were the students. The teachers knew me as an ambitious person with fairly high grades, who struggled to have the highest average possible. Admittedly, I wasn't the first in the class, because I had a classmate whom everyone called a nerd because he was always on top of his assignments and projects, always raised his hand to answer, offered to erase the blackboard and... wore glasses. I felt sorry for him when the others made fun of him and when he refused to give them the homework and they took pictures of the notebook without his permission. I felt kind of bad for him, but when I tried to approach him, he directly accused me of taking advantage of him, just like the others. It was obviously an unfair accusation, but his opinion of me coincided with the opinion of the class, which was that I was only looking to win out of a situation, all starting from the kinship revealed by Jia.
"Do you want to go somewhere?"
I immediately come out of the dream that had engulfed me, reminding myself that this is neither the time nor the place to let myself be led by memories into the world of transposition into the past. I ignore the looks from the others wondering why I was staring blankly and refuse to answer them without making it clear to them.
"I don't have anything to do," admits Raine.
Luke is thinking. It's Nevin who gets carried away this time, and I can swear I know why.
"Do you want to play something? We have playing cards."
"I agree," I say.
Nevin is not paying attention at all. He walks dejectedly, with his hands in his pockets and his eyes on the ground. I playfully punch him in the shoulder. I, too, am amazed that I allowed myself to do this, but it was just a momentary gesture, not thought through in depth. He flinches and looks at me puzzled, raising his hands in the air in question.
"Cards?" I ask.
"Cards," he replies, giving a small smile.
Fate has other plans for us, however, so we don't get too far from the fire when a state of agitation spreads faster than the plague, causing screams and terror. We instinctively turn to find out the cause of this disturbance in the air, and our primitive impulses emerge, causing us to be absorbed in this terror and to participate in it. Raine is gone in seconds, not giving me time to follow her, and Luke, selfless in his own right, goes in the direction of the fire whose flame has spread far into the sky, whizzing past the trees, which I'm sure will consume if action is not taken soon. Nevin is the only one who stays by my side, pulling me by the hand in the opposite direction of the unleashed atrocity. I don't react for the moment, but remain frozen, not understanding how careless and meticulous some teenagers can be who do illegal things, against the rules. If I were to do something forbidden, I would take a lot of precautions. I certainly wouldn't get carried away, making a fire using so much wood, and I would definitely make this event a small one, because word travels very quickly and can easily reach the high school management. The principal is probably turning a blind eye. Too much freedom.
