I opened the goal and dialed my mom’s number.
“Hey, mom, are you coming from work? I’m just leaving Garden, will you pick me up? “
“Okay. So in twenty minutes we will meet in Elephnat park. I still need to get something done quickly. Hello. “
“Hello,” I replied.
Wait twenty minutes? After all, it takes a long time by taxi. I’ll have to run around. I had been running for a long time and was almost at Elephnata when a pedestrian red light jumped on the traffic light. But come on! I pressed the green button to speed up the green at the traffic light. But nothing. Yup… Mom was already parked. I have probably never stood at a traffic light for this long. My phone rang. Perhaps some kind of message? I took it out of my backpack and looked at the screen.
Vivien: Hello. How much are you at home for? I need help with English. Contact me when you arrive.
I unlocked theom display code on my mobile and opened the Messenger. My fingers were already running on the keyboard: In a moment I am home, within fifteen minutes. Come. I am waiting for you. All I had to do was send a button. She wrote back: Oh, okay Emily. I already have only a few percent on my mobile so we will meet at home in twenty minutes.
When? I asked myself. But after all, Vivien wrote at fifteen and not at twenty. I looked at the news again. There was nothing with Vivien’s name except her question of whether she could come to tutoring. But just below was mom. I wrote back to her!
Not.
Not.
Not.
I called my mom, but the lady on the phone line told me one and the same sentence round and round: The called subscriber is temporarily unavailable. The called subscriber is doč…. I took my eyes off my phone back to the road. Mom was already starting. The distance from me to her car seemed like infinity to me. At the traffic light, which did not turn green even after a minute, I patted my foot restlessly.
Yup!
Green!
I flew through the passage at lightning speed and was already halfway through the park. Well, in vain. The yellow car in which my mother was sitting was back in heavy traffic. I stopped and sat down on the nearest bench. I called her again. And again, the lady replied disgustingly as she did last time.
“Can’t you be quiet for a while? “
A passerby looked at me very disgusted. He was also on the phone and probably thought I was yelling at him.
“It’s not up to you,” I replied in a pleasant and apologetic voice. He continued to stare. Other passers-by were slowly approaching, and I still couldn’t reach anyone. Daddy was occupied. And Mike? Mike has his phone hidden in his mom’s closet in a bottom sock drawer for two weeks. They got into a fight with classmate Justin to check their homework. Mike wrote off one homework from Justin and Justin another. And so the class teacher figured it out for them, and no one wanted to confess. And mom knows very well that Mike would far from think of looking into the bottom drawer. I called my dad and mom again and again. Again, nothing.
I got up from a comfortable bench and continued on the centre of London. I walked past the hairdresser’s, where I nodded to the twins. Stella was going to have her kanekalon braided into boxer braids, and Teresa was going to have her hair curled up at a party on a Saturday night. Later, I stopped at the ice cream and looked into the empty leather wallet in amazement. My expression turned into something between astonished and sad. I forgot that I only took twenty pounds for a taxi and also to pay for Mike’s trip on Wednesday morning. I didn’t take any more. Who should have known that mom’s mobile runs out of power, just when I need it most, and it’s more than an hour twenty home. Five full six kilometers. Not so much even former Olympic champion Alfred Tysoe may have ever run.
During my long journey home, I met not only strangers, but also acquaintances. Vivien’s aunt Karin, who was in the flower shop, Mike’s classmate, whom I actually thought about recently, and Mrs. Brown, who was just getting off the bus, but she was far away, so I didn’t want to shout. I nodded to her, but she probably didn’t notice me because she was on the phone and it looked like she was really in a hurry somewhere. It began to get strangely dark.
A few clouds flocked to the semi-clear sky. At the beginning of my trip home, I didn’t notice it, but after a while it couldn’t be overlooked. A fog of dark clouds shrouded London. Rainy, dense and gray. They have just decided that they will expire in this place.
Here and now.
On my hands, where I read messages from Vivien from my mobile, I felt small soft droplets of water. It started to rain. Very gently, but it has begun. In a few minutes, the people around me began to pull out umbrellas. Blue with dots, iridescent, pure black and green with yellow stripes. My favorite ankle boots just came in handy. Just that umbrella would come in handy… It was already raining into huge and heavy drops of water that slowly wetted my denim jacket. My hair also came together like after pouring a five-liter bucket I’ve been walking for at least forty minutes.
Slowly but surely, I crossed the bridge on the Thames. People here are used to the rain, but I haven’t got used to it yet and I’m not able to pick up an umbrella standing right at the door. Damn it! If he was buried somewhere in the upper closet, I don’t even know where I wouldn’t say so, but right at the door?! At least in the locker at school I was able to put it for an emergency, which, by the way, is today.
I started to get cold even on my hands covered under a warm jacket. I was wet to the bone. I gritted my teeth. September and such a winter. It is only ten degrees. Other times, it tends to be in winter – maybe in December, January, but not in September!
One lady – I estimate her a maximum of thirty-five – I literally envied a lavender raincoat and an umbrella. Two things I miss about my outfit. A warm, waterproof raincoat – ideally yellow – and an umbrella. I don’t care what color. Even a raincoat might not be. I sighed sadly. I didn’t even realize how strange I was staring at the lavender raincoat of a lovely lady. But the truth is that she was not nice.
“What are you watching? Do you envy.? ” she said with a triumphant smile.
Yes, I envy. I wanted to reply to her. And to be precise, I envy that dry clothes and dry hair. She left, and I had nothing to admire.
The clouds were still heavy and gray. The sun did not shine through the dark clouds, and today it will not be. By the time I get home, I’ve already managed to fit in. London is an evening full of humor. Laughter and joy could be heard from the restaurants, of course, on the covered terraces. People ate and had fun. It could have been half past five. I went longer than I expected. My phone rang. Vivien called me. All I had to do was pick up the green button with the inscription.
“Well, damn it! ” mI thought I would avoid that word tonight. But I don’t want to tell her to stop, because without ‘Well, it wouldn’t be her.
Surprised, she asked, “When did you want to write me off? Tomorrow or the day after tomorrow. Perhaps in a week. Or perhaps never? “
I heard Vivien’s giggle on the phone.
And that’s when I heard a sibling argument on the phone: “Paige. Disappear from my room! ” she shouted at her sister in a warning tone.
“I’m sorry, Emily. Paige wanted to know where to find mom’s cheesecake recipe. “
“Okay, cool,” I replied with joy.
“I forgot to call you and I was holding my phone in my hand, but then I looked at the amazing purple raincoat… But that’s for a long time…. Yes. You can come. But tomorrow, because by the time I get home, it will also be midnight. “
Silence.
And then laughter.
Loud laughter.
“Something ridiculous? ” I asked in surprise.
“Not only… You’re out and you won’t call me? Well, well, this is not… I’m already starting just give me a moment. I want the name of the disco club you are in. And even how do I reconcile with the people around me. I want at least five puppets around you. Tell me what they’re wearing. Black, blue or green jeans go well with a sequined T-shirt? What do you say? Or do I have… “
Halfway through the sentence, I interrupted her: “I’m not at a disco, but I’m soaked in central London. But I would accept your skoda. “
First. You disappointed me. And secondly. Where are you more precisely? ” she muttered.
“Tower Hill Memorial. “
I’m a little further away, but it doesn’t matter. Nothing else came to mind so quickly.
“So I’m going to get dressed. That is, rather to change clothes. You owe it to me with that disco. I’ve got it with you. Remember! Hey there. “
Passed.
I stopped and turned one hundred and eighty degrees towards the Tower. I gently added to the step because I saw the roof and a small dry spot underneath, where the rain did not reach. There I found my temporary refuge and all I had to do was wait for Vivien. I watched people for a while, but then they started noticing me, so I stopped. I looked into the phone nand the online math assignment sent to us by Miss Helli…
I have already spotted Vivien.
“So first shake like a dog in front of the car, so as not to get wet with my car, and only then sit down, ” she smiled into a wide smile.
And so do I. It would not be possible not to laugh at that. I like her somewhat biting humor. If I had a car, I would also force Vivien to do it. But this is just for amusement. I shook my head and got water out of my soaked hair. Vivien had a good time.
With a laugh, she told me, “I didn’t mean it literally. Sit down! “
She ordered me, still with a laugh in her face. I sat down. I no longer intended to stand in the rain. We drove while talking.
“Let’s leave the tutoring to that today. Tomorrow is also the day and you have to wash your hair. I won’t let you go to school like that tomorrow,” she said in exactly her mother’s tone.
I was thinking about tomorrow afternoon.
Well. So tomorrow at five o’clock. I’m still going to the cinema at two o’clock with Mike. “
By car it is so pleasant. But only on the passenger side…
Perhaps not!?
“Hello! ” I greeted her to leave.
I nodded to her. And by the time I hid my hand back in my pocket, it was already at the end of the street. I snuggled up to the door and felt the spare key on the top frame of our red front door. “I’ve got it! ” I grumbled.
Translated by artificial intelligence from original: Louisa Palffy -Oči iba pre neho
Chapter 7: Sub-band
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