Daydream

5. Escape without grace

Out of all the different responses you can have to a situation, panic is seldom a good one. Sadly, in this situation that required careful coordination, Miguel panicked. Both the people in the audience as well as the others on stage stared at him and he needed to get away. Carlos still had a firm grip around his wrist, but Miguel forgot about it in the moment. He turned on his heels and dashed back the way he came. However, because his hand was holding Carlos's, he pulled his friend with him as he ran. Carlos was surprised by the sudden sprint and fell backwards. He crashed into the drums and the music stopped. Miguel was halfway off the stage with his back towards both the audience and the band, but he could feel everyone's eyes drilling into him.

Carlos was swearing, he said much worse things than Zezilia ever had in front of them, and pulled his head out from the drum. It was a big hole in it. A few in the audience laughed, they probably thought it was a part of the show, but Miguel saw the band members moving around the wreckage towards them. He didn't dare look them in the eyes, but he did catch a glimpse of their faces which were twisting with anger and fury.

"Warn me next time." Carlos said as he stumbled back on his feet. Then he grinned at Miguel. "That was quite a scene, right? You think Karen's going nag about this forever?"

"I'm going to remember this forever!" Miguel grabbed Carlos and they ran before the musicians could get them.

"Ha! Ha! That's a nice one!" Carlos laughed and Miguel was too panicked to explain that he hadn't meant it as a joke.

As they jumped off the stage Carlos made a grimace at the ones chasing them. This made them angrier and Miguel stared at his friend as if he had been replaced with a clone.

"Why did you do that?"

"We needed them to chase us, right?" Carlos answered calmly.

"What if they hurt us?" Miguel saw the reddening faces of the chasers. "What if they kill us?"

"We're fourteen, practically kids. They're not going to do anything too bad to us." Carlos said with confidence.

"Are you sure about that?"

"Yes." Carlos said with less confidence. "Besides, we only ruined the drum set, that's nothing to-"

The two ran into a wall. Miguel clutched his head. It hurt. But not as bad as he first thought it would. He glanced over to Carlos.

"Are you okay?" He asked. Carlos nodded but had his hand covering his mouth. Had he bit his tongue? Then strong arms grabbed Miguel and lifted him up from the floor.

It was a tall man with tattoos and a big moustache, the receptionist. The man looked at him with an emotionless, cold stare and held both Miguel and Carlos up in one hand each. The band members were shouting something behind them, but Miguel was focusing on escaping and couldn't hear what words they were using. He struggled, scratched the tattooed arms and wriggled his legs and body, trying to loosen the grip. That was when it happened. The one thing that he never wanted to happen. His trousers fell off. His yellow boxers with pink rabbits were on display for everyone to see.

The colourful boxers were apparently something no one expected. They all stopped and turned quiet while taking in the scene before them and the receptionist grip on Miguel loosened. Miguel, with more determination than ever to get away from everyone before they could make fun of him, used this opportunity to get free. He bit the receptionist's hand who then let go of the two teenagers. Miguel swiftly pulled up his trousers, took a hold of a disoriented Carlos and ran back to Karen and Ernest.

"How did you do that?" Carlos asked while running.

"Do what?" Miguel glanced behind them; the receptionist had begun to move again towards them.