Chapter 2: Pirates Vs. Vikings
Antonio's parents allowed him to go to World Academy. Really, it was a no brainer. It was a famous academy and they were getting Antonio in for free! And because they lived close enough to the campus they didn't even have to pay for student housing. It couldn't have worked out any better.
Antonio already loved the new school. One thing he loved about it was the lack of uniforms! Romulus said he wanted the kids to be able to express themselves through clothing. He fit right in with the other students; hardly any of them spoke English as a first language. Antonio's English had improved immensely though, and he could even have decent conversations with others now! Antonio had also been able to make some new friends.
Francis Bonnefoy was a flamboyant young boy from France. Francis was staying in the student dorms, his parents still in France. And Francis's roommate Gilbert, an albino self-proclaimed 'Prussian' (he was really just German) also made it on the list of 'friends'.
And of course, there was Lovino. Antonio hardly ever got to see him at school (considering he was in first grade and Antonio in third). But Antonio found himself visiting the Vargas household quite often. He found out that Lovino had the cutest little brother named Feliciano, who was three years younger than Lovino. And Mr. Vargas (Or Romulus, as he requested Antonio called him) would give both Lovino and Antonio extra English lessons! The only way to get Lovino to participate was to turn it into a game. Honestly, Lovino just really liked being able to beat Antonio. Antonio didn't mind, as long as Lovino was learning English. It gave him an incentive. If they both knew English they could actually talk to each other and Romulus wouldn't have to translate for them! And Antonio was pretty sure half of what Romulus translated was wrong anyways (because there was no way Lovino would say such nice things).
And within two years, they were both practically fluent. Antonio, now in fifth grade, was super excited about moving up to the middle school! The only downfall being that Lovino would still be in the elementary building. But they lived close by so it was okay!
One day during recess, Lovino's class got to come out and play at the same time as Antonio's! Excitedly, he scampered off the playground (ignoring Francis and Gilbert yelling at him) to go grab Lovino.
"Lovi!" He called, bounding up to his friend. "Come play with Gil and Franny and I!"
"No, I don't wanna. They're both stupid." Lovino said, making a disgusted face.
"Please? We're playing pirates! We need someone on lookout!" Antonio took his hand and led him over to the big red jungle gym.
"That's stupid," Lovino spat. "You're not pirates. You don't have a boat or anything."
"Yes we do! This is out boat!" Explained Antonio, walking onto the structure.
"Boo, why'd you have to bring Lovino!" Gilbert whined. Then he turned to Lovino. "Go away; play with the other little kids."
"Gladly ya' bastard," huffed Lovino, jumping off the structure and onto the woodchips. He started walking over to the swings.
"Gil, that was mean!" Antonio whined. "We could have played together!"
"But he's rude!" Gilbert protested.
"You're rude." Antonio countered.
"Would you two knock that off!?" Francis yelled from his spot at the top of the structure, where the slides were. "We have to defend our ship! Those stupid Vikings are going to try and steal it again!"
Immediately, Gilbert and Antonio were drawn back into their fantasy world. They looked across the playground to the blue structure. It was smaller than the red one, and only had one slide instead of two. Another group of kids were playing on it, but instead of being pirates they called themselves Vikings. Mathias, the self-proclaimed leader of the group, was standing at the top of his 'ship' and eying Antonio's. (Antonio considered the red ship 'his' because he was the captain.) Mathias was an energetic kid from Denmark with gravity defying spiked blonde hair.
"Hey guys!" Antonio, Gilbert and Francis jumped and turned, startled to find Tino, one of the Vikings, had infiltrated their ship. Tino was a small blonde boy from Finland. He had a wicked long and confusing last name that Antonio could never pronounce.
"Intruder!" Gilbert yelled, "Get off of our ship!"
"Can't!" The boy said happily, "I have a message from Mathias. He says that since we have the biggest group, we should have the biggest ship!"
"No way!" Antonio said, standing in front of Tino and trying to look intimidating. "We won't hand over our ship!"
"If you won't see it our way then we'll just have to use other methods to persuade you!" The blonde kid said before running up the steps past Francis and sliding down the slide. Once down the slide he ran over to his group.
Antonio, Gilbert and Francis all exchanged worried looks. What did those Vikings have up their sleeve? They decided to ignore it and went back to fighting imaginary battles with their imaginary swords (they tried to use sticks once but the teachers yelled at them). Suddenly, a call from the other side of the playground interrupted their antics.
"Give us the ship and we'll give you the kid!" Mathias yelled. Antonio gasped, noticing that they had captured Lovino! He was sitting on the blue structure with another boy from his class (they were sharing a bag of pretzels and honestly didn't seem to care what the older boys were doing). If Antonio remembered correctly, he was a silver haired boy named Emil from Iceland.
"What do we do!?" Antonio asked his crewmates.
"We can't give them the ship, but we have to save Lovino!" Gilbert said.
Antonio frowned, "I thought you didn't like Lovi?"
"I don't, but I'm a nice person who won't let innocent bystanders be put in harm's way!" Gilbert said proudly.
"We need to find a way to distract them, and then we can rush onto their ship and save the bratty Italian!" Francis said enthusiastically. They all agreed and got to work brainstorming. How could they get those Vikings out of there? Antonio and his crew were greatly outnumbered. The Vikings consisted on Mathias, Tino, a Norwegian boy named Lucas and a Swedish boy named Berwald. And of course little Emil, who was Lucas's younger half-brother.
"What if we 'abandon' our ship?" Antonio suggested, making air quotations when he said abandon. "We leave, and when they come over to take our ship we grab Lovino! Then we run back to our ship and chase them away!" Francis and Gilbert both agreed, stating it was a flawless plan (and for a bunch of fifth graders on a playground, it was).
So they all jumped off the red structure and made their way quietly around the playground. After a few minutes, Mathias, Tino and Lucas left their ship to go see where the 'pirates' had run off to. That meant only Berwald had been left on the ship! (And Emil too but he wasn't a threat.)
"I know how to distract Berwald!" Gilbert said proudly. Quickly, the three kids boarded the Viking ship.
Berwald stood up and towered over the three pirates. How was a fifth grader this tall!? The three stopped in their tracks, Francis and Antonio turning to Gilbert. "So, what's your plan?" Francis whispered into Gilbert's ear.
"U-uh," Gilbert stuttered. Gilbert had underestimated just how intimidating the tall swede was. Taking a deep breath to calm his nerves, Gilbert walked up to Berwald, snatched his glasses off of his face, and started running. Immediately, Berwald chased after him.
"Wow that was actually a good idea!" Antonio cheered as he climbed up to the tallest part of the blue structure, where Lovino and Emil sat. "Lovi! I've come to rescue you!"
Lovino turned to look at him, unimpressed. "Why?"
"Because we're friends!" He took Lovino's hands and tried to tug him up, but the moody Italian child refused to move. "C'mon Lovi let's go!"
"Why should I?" Lovino spat. "They gave me pretzels!" He said, pointing to Emil who was holding the bag now. Emil was nibbling on a pretzel and watching Gilbert get chased around.
"I'll give you tomatoes! You like tomatoes more, right?"
"Make it three and you have a deal."
"Yes! Deal! C'mon Lovi!" Antonio said, pulling Lovino down the slide with him. Francis followed after, and soon they returned to their ship. Mathias, Tino and Lucas were now helping Berwald chase Gilbert.
"Gil, come back we saved the kid!" Francis called.
"Oh good!" Gilbert yelled. "Here, you can have these back!" Turning on his heel, Gilbert chucked the glasses at the Vikings.
"If you broke them we'll kill you!" Tino threatened, picking up the glasses and dusting them off before giving them back to Berwald.
Once the pirates were safely on their ship, they ran about and yelled taunts at the Vikings. But their celebration was cut short when the 5th graders teacher blew the whistle, signaling the end of playtime.
"Nooo," Gilbert whined, "I don't wanna go in!"
"We have to make sure we get outside before the Vikings tomorrow." Francis advised. "We need to defend out ship!"
"Yeah!" Antonio agreed. He turned around to look for Lovino, only to see the Italian child was already walking back over to the swings! (The third graders didn't have to go back inside yet). "Ah, Lovi wait!" Antonio called after his friends. With a loud sigh, Lovino turned around.
"What do you want now!?" He spat.
"Let's meet in the forest after school!" Antonio said, grinning. He watched as Lovino's face turned red.
"O-Only if you bring the tomatoes… Stupid."
Antonio beamed. "Of course! By Lovi, see you later!" Then the small Spaniard scampered off to join his class where they were lining up, waiting to go back inside.
Lovino huffed and turned to go back to the swings, only to find there were none of them were free. "Augh, stupid Toño… Now I don't get to swing."
~XXX~
After school Antonio quickly grabbed a few tomatoes and stuck them into his backpack, before running out into the forest. His parents were okay with his forest outings as long as he came home before dark, and were even considering buying him a cellphone so he could contact them. When Antonio could hear the soft gurgle of the stream he felt a familiar spark of joy in his chest and hurried to reach his and Lovino's cottage. It didn't look too different from the first time they found it, covered in leaves and ivy. There were more wildflowers now and even more green and Antonio was convinced that someday they wouldn't even be able to see the base of the house. With a wide grin Antonio ducked into a crack on the side of the cottage and was met with the sight of Lovino sitting in his favorite patch of ferns and doodling on some papers nestled in his lap. Lovino had brought his backpack too, they often worked on their homework together.
"Hiya Lovi!" Antonio greeted, sitting down next to his friend. "What are you doing?" He peered over at the papers in Lovino's lap.
"Math," The child spat, glaring at the papers in his lap like he wanted them to burst into flame.
"I could help," Antonio offered brightly. He was pretty good at math. Numbers were basically the same in Spanish and English. Lovino picked up his papers and plopped them into Antonio's lap.
"Knock yourself out."
"No I meant like I'd teach you! I won't do it for you, you have to learn yourself." Antonio scolded, but scanned Lovino's work to see what he was learning. He wasn't surprised however to find that Lovino hadn't actually started and the page was full of drawings. Some tomatoes, some turtles, some flowers… Antonio grinned. "Your drawings are pretty."
Lovino's face turned a familiar red at the compliment and he ripped the papers out of Antonio's hands. "If you aren't going to help me then shut up!"
"Ah, Lovi!" Antonio cried, "I'll help, I'll help!" But Lovino had already stuffed the papers back into his backpack.
"Where are my tomatoes?" Lovino asked, "I was promised tomatoes."
Antonio rolled his eyes and dug into his backpack for his friend's favorite food. Carefully he placed the red fruit into the Italian's waiting hands and watched him closely. Lovino inspected the tomato, turning it over in his hands and scrunching up his face in confusion. Antonio couldn't keep the grin off of his face.
"Why is this tomato different?" Lovino asked suspiciously.
"How is it different?" Antonio inquired, watching with anticipation.
"I dunno, stupid!" Lovino huffed, annoyed. "It just is! Don't ask me stupid questions! And stop looking at me like that! Just tell me what you did to the damn tomato!" Suddenly he looked horrified. "Did you poison it!?"
"No!" Antonio interjected, "Of course not! Why on earth would I poison my best friend!?" Antonio was horrified at the thought. "It's a special tomato is all, and I want you to eat it!"
Begrudgingly, Lovino took a hesitant bite. He chewed slowly and swallowed, and Antonio waited with bated breath for any form of reaction. "Well…?" He prompted, after a few seconds of silence.
"It tastes like a tomato."
"But was it better or worse than the usual tomatoes!?"
"It tastes like a fucking tomato, what more do you want!?"
Antonio groaned. "It's a special tomato! It's one of the first ones that finally grew in my garden! I need to know if it tastes better or worse than the ones we get at the market."
"It tastes like a tomato." Was Lovino's final answer.
Hello again guys! I'm sorry this chapter is so short, but I really wanted to get it out before I left for camp. Thank you so much for reading!