Home Sweet Home (REVISED)

Chapter 13

The next day was Friday, and Saturday they were forced to go camping. The four friends were all gathered around Tommy's camera, sitting in Vince's white leather couch ‪at two A.M.‬ Vince yawned, looking at their finished movie along with the three others one last time, before deciding on passing it on to the teachers in the morning. "So we're giving it to the teachers tomorrow then?", Vince asked tiredly. "U-huh...", Tommy mumbled, struggling to keep his eyes open. "Mick, if you don't want to, you don't have to go camping with us tomorrow", Nikki said, "I bet you have more important stuff to do, now that the movie's finished". First thing in Mick's mind was: Hell yeah! But even though he would rather be working than spend one more day with this blonde girl, a football freak and a nervous wreck, he felt bad for those fuckers, so he decided on going with them to camp anyway. "Well, I don't have anything better to do", Mick sighed, "So I'll go". Tommy looked up from the camera. "Really?", he said, "That's so cool, dude". After turning the camera back off, Tommy fell asleep on the arm of the couch, and started snoring. "Hahaha!", Vince laughed, "Nikki, you have to live with that for a week!" Nikki just shrugged; he didn't mind. Tommy was kind of cute in his sleep, and besides, his snoring wasn't that loud, it was a small price to pay for getting to stay at Tommy's place for an entire week. Nikki was looking forward to it.

‪At nine A.M. all the students were crowded in front of the buses that were taking them to the camp. The sun was shining and it wasn't a single cloud on the wide blue sky. Still, Nikki was shivering, keeping his backpack tight, and holding the handles so hard his palms were aching. "Are you cold?", Tommy asked, trying to manage the heat outside by dabbing his cold bottle of water against his face, "I'm burning up". Nikki shook his head, a little amused by Tommy's attempt to keep himself cool. "No, I'm just nervous", he replied. Tommy didn't understand how anybody could be so nervous all the time, it must be exhausting. "Why?", he asked, chuckling, "I don't really see anything for you to be nervous about". Nikki looked over at the football team, then at Mick, then back at Tommy. He was scared of the football team for obvious reasons, and he still felt slightly uncomfortable around Mick, and Tommy... well, he felt weird around Tommy, as if his whole world would just start spinning. "Ohh...", Tommy said, suddenly realizing the trouble. "You know, I don't think the football team will bother you again", he said, "They get tired after a while, and moves on to the next person". And if they didn't, Tommy would make sure they didn't lay a single finger on Nikki, he would protect him this time. "And Mick, well...", Tommy went on, "He's Mick, he's cool. You don't have to be nervous around him. Mick doesn't care how you look, he only judges people by personality, and you're doing just fine". The only thing Tommy didn't mention was himself, and that was the thing Nikki was most nervous about: ruining anything between the two of them.‬

After Vince had given the teachers their movie-tape, and everybody had found their seats, the teachers walked around counting all the students, in case they had forgotten somebody. Each one of the three classes had their own teacher, one for the A-class, one for B and one for C. The teacher for the B-class, Nikki and Tommy's class, Mr. Powell, walked up to the two other teachers, who were done counting already. "Hey, does anybody know where that guy comes from?", he asked, whispering, nodding in Mick's direction. The two others shrugged and shook their heads. "Maybe he's a friend of one of the students?", the A-class teacher suggested. "Yeah, we said it was OK to bring friends, didn't we?", the C-class teacher added. Mr. Powell nodded understandingly. "But I didn't think that anybody would bring a guy like that", he stated, "He scares the living shit outta me".