Some things really go by without you noticing anything at all - finishing up Highschool was one of these things for me. Well, to be precise: It wasn't really Highschool since I went to school in a large European country with a different educational system but the idea was basically the same. I learned a lot for my final exams and it really turned out great but somehow on the way I lost track of time and space.
My friends for that matter didn't seem to feel any different - we met every morning in front of the building, talked a little bit about the usual TV shows from the previous evening and shared our ideas about the upcoming topics to be expected in class.
"So, Nico - you've figured out what old Miss Sender meant by 'pay special attention to chapter four'?" Philipp, one of my best friends, asked when he spotted me leaning against the wall just relaxing and watching everyone hasting through the entrance area of out quite boring 70s style school building.
"Nah, I don't now" was my answer "I mean there was nothing special there except the usual examples derivation examples, was there? Sometimes I think she just adds these 'pay special attention' bits to make us pay any attention at all" I smirked. It wasn't that much of an odd comment - almost every hour some of our teachers decided to suddenly become very serious and telling us to 'pay special attention' to a specific topic, meaning something like "I can't give you anything on the record but that's a part most likely to be included in the exams".
It was fun a first thinking to get any special kind of "warning" from your teachers, a sign they really care about you and your results but as the tips became more frequent we soon got the little game they were playing with us. Well, I think the game wasn't new and had been played by generations of students before us and will be placed by generations of students to follow.
"Yeah - but I kind of like them anyway for trying. Anyway, you've seen the 'Nights' yesterday?" Nights was short for 'Special nights for the group' one of the latest TV series focussing on a group of Highschool students not very far away from their graduation and their way of dealing with the usual school terror. Yeah, not that much different from our own situation, as a matter of fact a few of our friends hat been asked to consult the producers upon the challenges real students faced when dealing with this phase of their life. So, in a way, we were all watching ourselves on television - in a thousend percent exaggerated version of course, since we actually did fool around with some of the old furniture we found in the basement but neither did we put them on fire nor did we manage to blow up the headmasters cat along with it. He didn't have a cat anyway.
But I liked the series. It was a nice distraction from work and last but not least the lead character was just damn cute and I would have given anything to just get a little peak into the shower while he was in there. Sadly neither the TV school nor our own had a shower to peek into. Well - that kept much for the night to dream about and more than once my fantasy drifted off to me and Julian 'accidentally' bumbing into each other while showering. Yeah, it sounds like a cheap porn movie but hey, what to you expect from a barely eighteen year old guy fully pumped up with testosterone and nothing but his right hand to get rid of it?
But let's get back to Philipp.
He, by the way, could have jumped right of the TV as well... the sterotype student from around the corner. Just about 1,85 meters height, slim, blond with just the right amount of muscles to make him absolutely adorable without looking like the pumped up bodybuilder from a gym commercial. I knew Philipp since first grade and since that time we had a kind of difficult relationship. Him being the jock constantly on the verge of finding a new sports team to compete with (and finally to compete against) which left him not only becoming a semi professional swimmer but also participating in volleyball, soccer and judo tournaments. I don't know if there was an hour where he didn't think of a new sports tactic or way to win the next game, but that was Philipp - mister supersports. I on the other hand had no real ambitious sport history at all. I tried handball and swimming but neither really didn't appeal to me. So, Philipp and I got into a little fight several years ago about me trying to blame him for not having any time left for his friends after training and for a good year we hardly talked at all. Then, god knows know why and how, he came to sit at my table during a new class (not completely voluntary, though - there was no other place left) and suddenly everything went back to normal within a matter of minutes. We had a good laugh about the whole situation a few months later, when both of us realized that is was quite a stupid thing and should really belong into a soap opera rather than the real life. But we did the right thing and somehow managed to smuggle a sub plot into the TV show (where it of course got blown up to a fist fight, a bleeding nose and several paramedics entering the school - TV is TV and who wanna watch two people just going into silence mode without a fight?).
So, yeah: Philipp is a god damn hottie. But I'd never try anything 'interesting' with him. First because nobody at school knew I was gay (though I expected a few to have read the signs) and second there are some things that simply don't work - and one of the guidelines that sound quite stupid but were real important to me at the time were 'don't fuck the family'. And Philipp was some kind of family for me. Not the brotherlike relationship some other guys pretend to have but just... well just something special.
"Yeah, I've seen it" was my answer "funny, I could have sworn the poem about that equation could have come right out of Mr. Schiffers mouth, don't you think? Anyone put a recorder under his desk when he's preapring for class? I'd really love to see that" I could hardly stop laughing thinking about our ex-math teacher put in that surreal situation seen on TV the previous evening.
"Listen, I've though about something weird. You know we had originally planned to join Patrick and Steffen during the holidays to prepare for biology and chemistry, but my dad has come up with a funny idea".
"Your dad has come up with a funny idea?" I raised my eyebrows - what was all this about?
"Yeah, you know him and his ideas" I really didn't all that much but Philipps father was an accountant and somehow seemed to must make up for his kind of fact daily work by doing something crazy from time to time, like inviting his sun to climb a mountain in Iceland withouth nothing but a tent and some food for a whole week. I mean a whole week in Iceland is like spending a whole week inside the freezer while having the door closed.
"Not that much, but I'm sure you're gonna tell me all about it, starting - now"
"Am I that predictable?"
"Yes, you are. Or maybe not."
"I'm not predictable?"
"No, you are - but I think you'll have to wait a little bit, someone seems to be wanting a priority conversation first"
"What do you... oh well... here we go"
It was Andrea Perk. Daughter of the mayor and something like to school bitch. Don't get me wrong, she's a nice girl and as far as I'm in a position to judge the physical appereans of a girl she was quite attractive, but somehow the overall properties of a woman seem to be distributed equally, so what she had to much in case of looks she lacked in brains. She wasn't completely stupid, though - just a little, well, underdeveloped in case of logical thinking one could say.
"Hey Andrea!"
"Just the sweet two guys I wanted to see"
"What does she want?" Philipp whispered before she was near enough to hear him.
"What do you think?" There was only one thing she'd ever want from us. Homework.
"You know, I've been researching history yesterday for two hours. I started on the Wikipedia Link for 1848 but got a little... well... distracted and..." It's not that I didn't know the schema. You start looking for topic A, which leads to topic B, to C and once you've noticed you're no longer studying the German revolution of 1848 but keep looking at a list of Knight Rider episodes (or something like that).
"Andrea, I don't know what kind of daemon invented the internet, but imagine you'd have to lookup all the information from a good old library - I'd sure like to know how you'd get carried away that way" I was smiling while trying to look through my rucksack for my history map. Once found, I handed her the notebook "I need it back before noon and make sure not to copy every word, I don't want Mr. Esser to blame me again for copying your homework (Of course I had nevery copied from her but somehow a girl always seems to be more thrustworthy in the eyes of a teacher - so much for equal opportunities), you understand?"
"Nico, I don't know what I'd do without you. You're such a nice boy!" I really didn't like the emphasis she put on the words 'such' and 'nice' but I wasn't in a position to argue about that right now. She smiled and went aways as fast as she came into view in the first place.
"Such a nice boy" Philipp teased me while we settled up and went to our lockers.
"Ah, shut up. You would have been called a nice boy yourself, if it were your homework, you know?"
"I am a nice boy - with or without homework"
"Yeah, you are indeed" I mumbled.
"Pardon me?"
"Nothing!" Oops.
"You're a dork" was the phrase I got just a after a small punch.
"Bad luck I guess".
--
So, that's the introductory part of "Off you go". There's a lot more to come - we haven't heard about Philipps weird plan yet, and there are several other of Nicos friends waiting to be introduced, so stay tuned and let me know what you think at zeeqeez@yahoo.com!