Egbert

Ferenc

Yes, Mondays suck. Usually they are the dreaded cloud looming over the sunny weekend, or perhaps the spikes at the bottom of the slide. Either way it's universally disliked by the western world. Unless you're that preppy person who enjoys having to go back to work, because maybe you have your life together and you enjoy what you do. In which case, I hate you. But I understand you today. Call it a revelation or the death row effect but suddenly I understand the sadistic allure of a Monday.

I'll get to go to school and see Scarlett in an environment where my parents won't be able to interrupt suddenly. So maybe it's not so much Monday that I've come to like but what it holds. I take it back, I don't like Mondays.

But I will miss them here. I'll miss returning to Vikram's house in the morning after having spent the majority of my weekend there anyway, free to actually hang out rather than do school work with his father looming over us. I'll miss stepping over the threshold, toast in hand because I'd rather munch it here, uncomfortably splaying crumbs on my finger, than at the quiet kitchen island at the manor. Having the smell of lighted incense waft over me as I narrowly avoid Preeti who is inevitably yelling about something or the other as Vikram and his father passive aggressively share the hallway mirror, heading straight for the living room to sink into the leather armchair, stealing the remote from Aadit. He only drools flaccidly as I switch to Rolie Polie Olie.

"I take it you didn't sleep well. Wedding jitters? I hear that's not normal. Usually that's a sign that there's something wrong." The deposits that have been made could easily be refunded with a push from me. A little nudge to help him figure out if this is really what he wants won't hurt. Even in his drowsy state he can still narrow his eyes at me, I guess he can see right through my meticulously veiled manipulation.

"No actually, I stayed up late on the phone to Myra. We... uh... we talked for hours Eg. She's nice, I like her. I like her a lot." He wipes his hand over his messy hair in as a pale substitute for a comb.

"But is it love?" I keep my gaze on the cartoon, watching his reaction from the corner of my eye. He doesn't jump to his own defence, but sighs gently instead. This is something he's mulled over for hours himself.

"It could be, isn't that enough? It was enough for mum and dad and look at them."

They're the best couple I know. Yes, they argue, they fight but at the end of the day they still love each other. It's not a passionate and fiery love like my parents. It's a, bandage up your hand when it bleeds and kiss it better, wake up at 5am to make you breakfast before work, let you sleep in every once in a while, while I take care of the kids, kind of love. It's quiet but it's stronger. A stone cottage compared to a glass mansion.

"It could be." I reply to him.

Vikram pops his head through the door to usher me into the car.

"wHat the Frick frack, paddy whack, give a dog a bone kind of shit is this?"

Well I had to tell him sometime and break was the only opportunity I had without Hans melting all over Vikram. His response is exactly as I feared and hoped. He'll miss me. He's heartbroken.

"I don't have time to pack, or even tell my parents." He huffs.

Scratch that. I sense a delusion coming. "Ram... you're not coming with me..."

He slaps my back and lets a chuckle. "I know that Egbert, I'm not an idiot."

Oh thank god, that made things easier.

"Obviously I'll join you a week later." So close.

He continues on, "obviously I haven't got a place so I'll stay in the village nearby- there must be one that you can visit on weekends, there always is. And we'll set up some sort of situation where you're in danger then I swoop out of nowhere to save you. Out of gratitude the headmaster, a lovable old man with a lengthy beard, will give me a place at the school. But don't worry, your friends will only revere me for a while and then I'm sure things will go back to normal."