"Alright everybody! Lunch time!" their teacher called out as the children flooded the cubby space, searching for their lunch boxes. Liz grabbed hers quickly and headed outside; she sat down at her normal spot on the cement wall and waited.
"YO~" she heard a voice call out as her comrade also climbed up onto the wall.
"I brought the most awesome lunch today!" Gilbert exclaimed "Waffles and a fruit roll up!" he said, his eye lighting up as he lifted out the fruit roll-up. Elizabeth sighed.
"Those things have no nutritional value you know!" she states as she bit into her Peanut-butter and Jell sandwich. Gilbert scowled.
"Well…you face has no nutritional value! Ha!" he states, laughing at his own joke. Hungary just shoved him.
"That insult made no sense!" she called out, he grinned again.
"Your mom makes no sense! HAHA!" he was rolling now, Elizabeth just sighed, he was hopeless.
"Ya know what we should do after this? We should play tether-ball." He said munching on lukewarm waffles from a zip lock. Elizabeth nodded in agreement, pulling an apple out of her blue lunch bag. The two sat and watched their classmates do the exact same thing that they do everyday. Alfred, Arthur, and Yao were busy playing foursquare while Mathew sat on the sidelines and watched. The creepy Soviet siblings claimed the spot underneath the red slide as their domain; no one neared it if you wanted to stay alive. And the Italia twins, Antonio, and Ludwig were all just running around, doing random stuff.
This was class 3-C at World conference elementary, it was a relatively small class and their teacher was kind and gentle. An average third grade classroom with drawings covering the walls. But lunch time was when the normality would end, and the absurdity would start.
Once they had finished their lunches the duo walked to the tether ball court and began to play. Gilbert and Elizabeth had proclaimed themselves "Knights of the Playground". Which basically mean if anyone had a problem with any other student picking on them in any way, all they had to do was find the knights and they would take care of it. Gilbert served but Elizabeth was quick, and smacked it right back, this is when they heard a pitiful voice call out from behind them.
"Knights of the play ground! Can you help me?" Mathew said quietly, tears brimming his eyes. They stopped their game and immediately neared the small blonde boy.
"Sure Mathew, what's wrong?" Elizabeth asked. He sniffled and pointed over to the play ground area.
"S-s-she took my bear! But I'm too scared to go over there!" He cried out. Elizabeth nodded.
"Which one was it?" Gilbert asked as he scanned the playground, he didn't see anyone scary.
"I-it was…" he motioned for them to get closer so he could whisper it.
"It was Natalya!" he whispered, oh now they understood. Elizabeth swallowed hard and looked at Gilbert, he nodded.
"Don't worry Mathew; we'll get your bear back." Gilbert said "Stay here." He instructed, Mathew did as he was told and sat down. You knew the Knights mean business when they put on their hood, which both had drawn their "crest" on the left side in sharpie. The pair kept their cool as their neared the slide, but everyone else on the playground knew that some serious shit was about to go down, so they ran back to the concrete to observe from afar, they always got a crowd when they were summoned. Quietly they came up to the slide, scared to peek underneath just like everyone else. But they were knights! They had to be brave! Gilbert took the left side while Elizabeth took the right, and at the same time the both jumped underneath. There sat Katyusha, Ivan, and Natalya. All quietly eating their lunches. Katyusha was the first to speak; she was the only normal one in that family.
"Can I help you?" she asked in pure curiosity.
"Yes." Elizabeth stated, clearing her throat. "We have come to retrieve Mathew's bear." She called out. Prussia immediately began searching under the slide, no slight of the bear.
"We know you took it Natalya, where is it?" he tried to sound threatening, but I just came off as scared. The scary girl looked up and him and scowled, she didn't speak a word.
"Natalya it's not nice to steal things! Give it back!" her elder sister scolded. The blond girl just looked down, then Elizabeth saw her pull out something shiny, her reflexes took over.
"Look out Gilbert!" she cried as she tackled him to the ground, causing him to narrowly miss Natalia's knife, but Elizabeth wasn't so lucky, she cut her leg. But she couldn't think about that right no, they had to get that bear. Gilbert then jumped up and whipped out his wooden sword, blocking the girls swings. That's when Elizabeth saw a glimpse of the bear; it was under Natalia's ankle length skirt. Quickly Elizabeth leapt at Natalya's feet, successfully knocking over the crazed girl and revealing the bear. Without hesitation she grabbed the bear and grabbed Gilbert as she ran.
"C-mon!" she cried as they hauled ass across the gravel. The crowd gasped, having missed most of the battle scene. Luckily Natalya didn't chase after them.
The knights walked to Mathew and handed him the bear. He smiled and hugged it tightly.
"Thank you so much knights! Oh, um here!" he said as he fished fifty cents out of his pocket. The duo smiled and split it so each got a quarter. Then Prussia noticed Liz's leg.
"Geez! Are you ok?" he asked as he looked down at it, it was little, but I was bleeding.
"Yea, I'm fine." She said with a smile. Lets go get a band-aid." She said as they walked back into the classroom, lowering their hoods. They were done for today.
Prussia tapped his pencil on his desk impatiently as he stared at the clock, waiting for the bell to ring.
"Gilbert? Gilbert!" the teacher called, he snapped back into the real world to see his teacher leaning over his desk. She had a stern expression on her face.
"Have you finished your math homework?" she questioned.
"Yes." He lied. She gave a skeptical "hmm" and walked off. He turned his attention back to the clock, two more minutes. These were the longest ten minute of his life!
"Alright class, listen up! Don't forget to finish your math homework tonight ok?" she asked, a set of"ok"s were fired off in return. She smiled sweetly. "You guys have a good day ok, I'll se you tomorrow. She said as the bell rang. Gilbert jumped up and ran for his cubby, shoving his binder into his teenage mutant ninja turtles backpack and slinging it over his shoulder. Then sidled up next to Elizabeth, who was taking forever.
"Hurry up Liz! I don't want to miss Zoop again!" he whined, impatiently jumping up and down in place.
"Will you relax! I'm almost done." She said as she zipped up her purple back pack and slid it on. Quickly he grabbed her by the wrist, dragging her out the door.
'It starts at 4! We have to hurry!" he exclaimed as he climbed onto his bike, waiting for Liz. She quickly jumped onto the pegs attached to the back wheel and held onto his shoulders. Then they sped away towards Elizabeth's house, that's were they always hung out after school and watched Zoop, a show of science experiments, demolition and cooking.
Within a few minutes they pulled over on Liz's lawn.
'See, it's 3:47, we're fine!" she said with a giggle.
"That's cause I'm awesome and pedaled really fast!" he reasoned, Elizabeth responded with a sarcastic "Mmmhmm" and unlocked the front door, no one was home yet. Without hesitation Gilbert ran to the couch and turned on the T.V, it was already on the correct channel.
"Gilbert! Shoes!" she yelled, he ripped off his shoes and threw them at her. Elizabeth scowled and walked into the kitchen to get a soda, she reemerged with a coke in hand and plopped down next to Gilbert. He looked down at the beverage.
"Where's mine?" he asked.
"Get your own, lazy." She stated as she took a sip. He groaned and ran into the kitchen, practically flying back onto the couch.
"Shh. It's starting!" Liz hissed as their show began.
Gilbert often spent the night at Elizabeth's house, and vice versa. They had been best friends since kindergarten so their parents didn't mind. As usual Elizabeth was in her bed and Prussia was in a lime green sleeping bag on the floor. Neither was asleep yet.
"I'm not tired.' Gilbert said randomly.
"Me neither. What should we do?" Elizabeth asked, rolling to the edge to look down at him. Gilbert pondered, and then an idea struck.
"Let's tell ghost stories!" he suggested.
"Ok!" Elizabeth exclaimed. Gilbert crawled out of his sleeping bag and flung himself up onto Elizabeth's bed, they sat facing each other.
"I'll start!" he exclaimed, Elizabeth nodded in agreement.
"Long ago there lived a young boy who liked to wander out into those woods at night." He said in a spooky voice as he pointed out Elizabeth's window to the small grove of trees that lay behind her backyard, they cut through it every morning to get to school.
"One evening, he went out by himself. And he met an old woman who took him back to her house for cookie. But once he got inside the lights went out and…" he paused getting closer and closer to Liz's face.
"SHE ATE HIM!" he yelled right into Elizabeth's face, the squeaked and covered her eyes. Gilbert just sat and laughed.
"That was lame!" she pouted, crossing her arms.
"How could the awesome me make a lame story?" he questioned.
"I bet I could do better! "Liz claimed.
"Oh yeah, try me" he dared, so she began. They kept on swapping stories until they both fell asleep right there. They stayed that way until Elizabeth's mother, Emese, woke them for breakfast.
"Damn, it's gonna rain!" Gilbert pointed out as they neared the entry to the woods. Elizabeth turned to him in confusion.
"What makes you so sure?" she asked as she looked up at the sky.
"Hello? The grey clouds! Duh! Plus it smells like rain!" he pointed out, Liz sniffed the air.
"Huh, I guess your right." She agreed as they made their way into the woods. They could hear the creaking of eh branches and the sounds of the birds flying through the trees, I didn't scare them anymore. Fall was in the air, all of the leaves were beginning to turn color ad some had even fallen. Then Gilbert stopped. Elizabeth looked him confused.
"What is it Gil?" she asked.
"Look at that tree!" he exclaimed as he ran up to it, Elizabeth fallowed. It was huge, and the only tree to have lost all of its leaves, there were million's coving the ground, you couldn't see any of the dirt underneath.
"I wanna climb it!" Gilbert said excitedly as he stepped up to it.
"No Gil! We're already running late!" she pleaded.
"Don't worry so much Liz! I'll be quick!" he said as he pulled on the nearest branch. To his surprise it bent down, and the sound of turning gears could be heard. Both looked shocked as Gil let go of the tree limb and stepped back next to Elizabeth.
"What is tha-"she was cut off by the ground disappearing beneath them, they screamed as they fell into the earth, fallowed by a waterfall of yellow leaves.