Dropping the Bomb

Eva and Genevieve drop the news on their fellow peers about the news they recently received from their parents.

I stared at the gate of the school and walked forward with Gen. I wanted it to be a normal a day, the best that I could make it at least. We walked forward into the school and to our separate classes, we're two classes apart as Gen is 15 and I'm 17. 

"Good luck Gen" I said as she began to walk away.

"Thanks" she smiled, "You too." I returned her smile and went to my class. As I entered I was greeted by some friends who were all glad to see to me.

"Eva! Hey! How are you? Aren't you glad it's Friday? I was so ready for this week to be over" exclaimed Shannon.

"Oh yes. I agree it's been quite a long week." I smiled and went with the flow, not ready to drop the bomb just yet. I sat in my seat and pulled my books out as I continued to converse with Shannon about how happy she was the weekend was on its way. I tuned her out some, not on purpose, just so many other things running through my head, which honestly all seemed made up. I let her continue to talk and would just nod my head in agreement to almost everything she said, after about five minutes she caught on though and ridiculed me for zoning. Really wasn't a big deal, I apologized and she forgave me due to it "being Friday". 

Our math teacher, Mrs. Pierce then walked in and greeted us good morning. We were instructed to take out our math books and turn to chapter five. We've been working on calculus lately, not the easiest of things, and honestly I don't understand most of it to save my life. I try, should probably get some extra help, but who wants to waste their time doing that? I'll pass, it'll be okay! Like Shannon, I tuned our teacher out to dream about whatever my mind decided to come up with, this was quickly a large mistake.

"Eva! Would you please solve the equation on the board?" asked Mrs. Pierce. I froze, not knowing what to do. "You weren't even listening were you?" she then questioned.

"No, I'm sorry." I apologized. She shook her head, made me go up anyway and walked me through the problem. It was a pretty terrible seven minutes, but I made it through and was just ready to change subjects. 

Ten minutes after, the bell rang, math is actually not the worst hour of the day, and we had five minutes before Mrs. Ballash walked in to instruct English, that's the worst. This year we're focusing heavily on American Literature and nothing against America, but it's boring me to death. Then again I just don't care for English class. The reading and writing thing was just never something I caught on to. Although I've had moments in my life where there were certain books I just had to read, mostly due to popularity or surprisingly, interest were such as: The Tail of Emily Windsnap, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone and The Twilight Saga. I've been meaning to read: Eragon, The remainder of Harry Potter, The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. Time is not really the issue, it's just that I like fast paced things and to sit down and read makes me tired. I even used to write poems when I was younger, now that's my least favorite form of literature. If I write my papers than I'll pass my class and not have to worry.

"Hey why do you look and sound so down today?" asked Shannon, "You're normally so happy."

"Yeah what's going on Eva?" asked Sam, another friend of mine.

"I'm fine, really! Just a down day I guess." I smiled. Mrs. Ballash than walked in with her obnoxious smile and Huckleberry Finn book. I must say Sparknotes has been my best friend for this class because I'm not sure if I've fully read any of the books I've ever been assigned.

"Good Morning everyone!" said Mrs. Ballash with her American accent and wide smile, "I hope everyone is looking forward to a nice weekend, the weather is so nice. Is anyone going to see To Kill A Mockingbird at the playhouse? I am! It's going to wonderful I bet." No one raised their hand to that, "Oh okay well, you're all missing out. It's a great American classic." I just stared waiting for her to finish. Mrs. Ballash is part of some teacher exchange program this year, our normal English teacher is at her school this year in the USA. I thought to myself about how that slightly related to my life at the moment, going from one country to another for a long period of time. Only difference is that at least she speaks the language of the country she decided to go to. I think the only German I'm going to be able to say is "Guten Tag" or "Danke", at least I hope that's German. My mother speaks German and I've heard her on the phone before with family and that sounds familiar, she just never taught us growing up because she wanted our family to be strictly British, because she moved to England from Germany due to falling in love with the culture, then stayed because she met my father. Which means my mother also had a similar connection. Anyways, even though they're not super strong connections, it still amazed me actually on how brave they both were to leave their home countries and go somewhere totally new, I wonder if I can do it too.

English passed, French ended and so did Chemistry, so it was time for an hour lunch pause. I went with Shannon and Sam to grab some food around the corner from our school, nothing like a "traditional British kebab", no doubt was this my favorite street food, I bet Berlin won't have anything even close. I ordered my favorite platter with kebab meat, fresh vegetables and sauce, probably going to be the last time I have it for a long time. So why not splurge! I even got the large! After I waited for Sam to get her food, Shannon brought her own sandwich. We walked back to the school court yard and sat down at a small bench. I dug in right away!

"Sheesh Eva, you're acting like you're never gonna eat that again." Sam laughed, "Skip breakfast? That's awfully big." I pulled my next bite of food from my lips back to the food container, staring at it sadly. "Oh no! I'm sorry! I didn't mean to upset you! It was just surprising, you don't normally order that much." I looked at her and Shannon trying to smile.

"It is the last time I'm going to have it," I began to sulk, which was horribly embarrassing over food.

"Are your parents making you cut back?" questioned Shannon looking utterly puzzled.

"Not quite, I'm not going to be near one anymore," tears started to fall down my face and I placed my food beside me.

"Eva, I don't understand. You're not making any sense," The tears fell harder down my face, my face was feeling flushed and heavy. "Oh sweetie! What's wrong??"

"I'm moving," I barely choked out between trying to breathe.

"Moving?? To Where!?!?" they both yelled simultaneously. I took a deep breath.

"Berlin"

"Germany?" Shannon asked shocked, then letting her mouth hang partially open, "Oh my god." she paused, "When did you find out?"

"Last night" I whipped my tears from my face.

"When are you leaving?" asked Sam.

"That's the worst part. Tomorrow. My father is being transferred." I turned back into a waterfall and Shannon wrapped her arms around me. Neither of the girls knew what to say or how to take the news, they were honestly taking it much better than I was last night. I guess my plan of having today being awesome, failed. Yet I knew I would have to tell people the news anyway, I just wish it had gone a bit smoother. I finished my lunch and we all went back to class, I was begging that my face had returned to a normal color and thanked the world for waterproof mascara. 

Before I knew it, my news had traveled around almost the whole school. Even people I didn't know were coming up to me and wishing me good luck on moving. My teachers didn't bother giving me anymore classwork, my actual friends were shocked they weren't finding out from me and upset there was no time to really wish me goodbye. I only tried to smile, say thank you and apologize for such short notice. Let's just say my day officially sucked.

School was out by 16.30 and I was calmed down dramatically but still pretty sad inside, I won't lie. Gen found me staring at the school by the gate waiting for her.

"Sounds like you had harder time today then I did" she said calmly.

"Yeah kinda," I replied turning to look at her, "I expected it to go more smoothly that's for sure" I laughed. Gen smiled back.

"Yeah, let's go home. We have a lot of packing to do." I nodded and we turned to walk up the street and to the train platform. 

We waited there not too long before the train showed up. We boarded and headed home, walked the five minutes to our little house, grabbed some boxes and headed upstairs. I hooked up my iPod to the stereo because it's just more fun to do things with my tunes! It was strange though emptying my dresser, leaving only one outfit for the morning. My suite case was stuffed and the cardboard boxes full. My bed was already dismantled and shipped to our new home earlier in the day, in fact most of our furniture was already gone. The house looks so empty. My parents came home about 20.00 with Thai takeout as it made no sense to cook the night before having to get up early to be on a plane. Plus the dishware and utensils were already packed, we used the plastic cutlery the food came with and ate out of our own box of noodles. 

About 22.00 Gen and I went upstairs to sleep on our blankets and pillows, it was an uncomfortable evening, mostly because I'm used to sleeping on a mattress, not the floor. It was not easy to fall asleep that night. At 4.00 the alarm on my phone went off, practically screeching in my ears. It should be illegal to be awake so early in the morning. I quickly turned off the alarm and slowly got out from with under my blanket. I went to the bathroom to put in my contacts and brush my teeth, I returned 10 minutes later to have to shake Gen to get her out of bed. It soon worked and she got up, after maybe another 10 mins, she's difficult. I threw on a pair of sweat pants, a comfortable t-shirt and some flip flops for the airport. Our flight is at 8.00 and we have to be there three hours early as it's international, so we had to leave in an hour. After I got dressed I put my long blonde hair in a ponytail and walked over to my body length mirror on my door. I stared at my tired self directly into my green eyes thinking "damn, I don't want to leave". I then collected my suite case and boxes downstairs to the door.

I found my mother and father sitting on the couch talking about the plans for the day.

"Good morning" I said interrupting my father mid-sentence.

"Oh good morning Eva. How are you?" he asked.

"Just fine I suppose. Yourself?"

"Rather tired. Where's your sister?"

"Gathering herself. She should be down shortly."

"Good, we need to leave shortly. The postman should be here to get the boxes in 10 minutes and the taxi in 45, to head to the airport" said my mother.

"Ok" I waited on the stairs with my phone scrolling through Facebook reading all the posts off my wall of people saying goodbye and wishing me luck. The postman came to get the boxes, which meant next was the taxi. Gen came downstairs finally with her suite case and sat next to me. We were both tired as could be.

"Oh Genevieve, good to see you're not dead" said my father walking by. She gave him a tired sneer in response, then lied her head on the wall closing her eyes. I did the same but moved two steps up from her. It felt like only seconds past before I heard a knock on the door. I got up to go open it and it was the taxi driver, my heart sunk, it was time to go. I got Gen up and we all grabbed our things and took them to the car. I looked at our little house one more time and began to tear up, I would miss that little white house, the small fence, creaky stairs and all. My father gave me hug and said it was going to be okay, that it wasn't the end and we'd visit England, this was just a new chapter in our lives and it will be an amazing adventure. I tried to smile, then got in the car. It pulled away slowly, I couldn't bare to look back.

Fifteen minutes later we arrived at the airport. The whole ride I had just looked out the window observing my precious London, my home. We grabbed our things out of the car, paid the driver and walked inside. I looked around at everything, the last time I was here was when I flew to Denmark with my class last year, so I had an idea of where things were. My mother directed us to the proper desk to obtain our boarding passes. I asked to look at them and read "Departing London.....Arriving Berlin", Gen looked at it over my shoulder and  sighed. I then handed them back to my mother. We walked over to baggage check which took forever to get through! No wonder they say to get there three hours early, luckily we had no issues though. Once we got to the secured area my parents found a small cafe, got each of us a small breakfast sandwich and a cup of tea. I think we were there about 45 minutes just sitting and talking to random other people about where they were going before we looked for the terminal.

"Flight 94 to Berlin boarding in fifteen minutes. Passengers please proceed to terminal C-12" some woman announced over a load speaker. I groaned sadly, because this meant it was time to get on the plane. I got in line with my family and waited to hand the lady my boarding pass and present my passport. It only look five minutes in line before I reached her and was cleared to enter the plane. My heart was beating quickly as I was nervous about this whole thing. I looked for my seat, put my carry on above me and sat down. Gen was next to me and my parents were on the other side of the aisle. It was another 20 minutes before the doors shut and safety announcements began, I didn't talk during the whole time as I was deep in thought. I strapped on my seat belt and heard the engine start to roar. Goodbye London, goodbye England.