Chapter Six: Maria – Calvin

About a week had passed since Lara took us out to the five-star restaurant she had been working at, and not a single nation had passed through the mirror. Things had calmed down considerably; I had convinced Prussia to stop stealing my bed and forcing me to sleep on the floor, Ćerima and Lara had cleared up a skirmish between the two of them about the fire escape, and a few others (Romano an America) had consented to some of out rules.

"Get out of the bloody fridge, you wanker!"

"But I'm hungry!" The daily battle between England and America had ensued.

I ignored them and headed back to my room to work on some papers. For the past three months, I had been taking online classes without Ćerima or Lara knowing, and I had been doing a fairly good job of keeping the secret. I skipped over to my desk and opened the drawer my laptop was in. Correction – supposed to be in. When I reached down to grab the computer, my fingers scraped the bottom of the drawer. I was about to panic, but then I heard someone behind me. Or maybe that just made me panic more.

"Ohonhonhon~! What amusing lines," an all too familiar Frenchman laughed.

I whirled around and glared at France. "Give that back now! What are you looking at on there?"

"Just an old YouTube video!" France whines when I snatched the laptop from him.

"And of all videos," I grumbled when I exited the browser.

"So," France seemed to perk up again, "why won't you say hello?"

"Because we already have five nations living in our apartment. I am done with saying hello." I stalked out of the room and shouted to the other nations, "Everybody shut up! We have another country here!"

"Which one this time?" Lara looked up from a book she was reading.

I paused. "This one might cause chaos. That's your hint."

"Kesesesese! Is it one of my buds from the Bad Touch Trio?" Prussia guessed.

Romano grumbled, "Please don't let it be Spagna."

"AHAHA! It's Frenchie boy!" America guffawed.

Ćerima scowled and shot a sympathetic glance back at England, who was facepalming.

"Bonjour! We have missed you! No one could figure out where you went until I fell through the mirror." France stalked into the room.

"One question," I jabbed a finger at the Frenchman. "Why did you not go out here in the first place?"
France shrugged, "It was a beautiful room. What can I say besides that I am always drawn to beauty?"

"I would tell you to go back through the mirror by looking at its beauty, but I would be lying since it's your face in the mirror," Lara grumbled.

"That is not true! My face is quite stunning!" France struck a pose.

I glared at France again. "Please just shut up and find a place to sleep that is not a couch or a bed? Those are all taken."

"Then may I make everyone some French cuisine for dinner?" France pleaded.

"Please no," England muttered.

"He will take something special too," Ćerima complained.

Russia kolled, "Kolkolkolkolkol…"

"If there even is anything," I snorted, "and you can't leave. We already risked that once. I'm not ready to risk a run-in with Calvin. He'll kill us if he knows you are here."

"Who's the unawesome Calvin?" Prussia asked.

"He is the landlord. We pay our bills to him and he lets us have electricity, running water, and this apartment. He has a nasty temper and is really suspicious of us. If he knew we were housing nations, we would be on the streets and all of you would be in jail. Also, beware when he's drunk. Calvin is always worse then," I warned.

France just shrugged, "Why don't you go to the grocery store?"

"It's a Saturday night, in New York, and I'm a girl. No," I snapped.

"Take Prussia with you. Or me. Ohonhonhon," France winked.

"I just said –" I began, but Ćerima cut me off.

"I just got a text from Calvin. He is coming in twenty minutes to discuss some things about the bills with us."

"In that case, Prussia and I will go out to the store while all the other nations find places to hide." I grabbed my shoes off the floor and pulled them on.

"Where?" Lara puzzled.

I pondered for a moment, then said, "The closets."

"But how will we make sure everyone stays quiet?" Lara continued.

"America in one closet, France in another, Romano in the last, England stays with you two, and Russia will stay with Romano," I replied before grabbing a sweater and walking out with Prussia.

We ended up walking to Target because we couldn't get a cab, and we chatted the whole way.

"Kesesese, so your awesomeness says that beer is disgusting?" Prussia scoffed.

I shook my head, "No, I said that beer looks disgusting and I have never had any before, so I wouldn't know what it tastes like."

"Same difference."

"Sure. Whatever you say."

We kept talking for a while, and at one point, Prussia began glancing behind us and continuously asked if we were almost to Target.

"No," I sighed after the fifth time he asked. "We still have a few more blocks."

"Maria…" Prussia grabbed my arm. All the playfulness and Prussianess had disappeared.

I shivered, "What?"

"There are guys with guns following us."

I tripped over the curb. "What?"

"We are being followed."

I clung to Prussia's arm in fear. "Gosh, no."

"Afraid?" Prussia snickered in my ear.

"Maybe a little, but nothing we can't handle, right?" I smirked.

Prussia glanced back one last time and began dragging me toward where we could see Target two blocks ahead. "Right."

Somehow we managed to make it in without the thugs catching up to us. "Now for food."

"Ja," Prussia agreed, and we headed to the grocery section.

"Okay, we don't need to necessarily get French food, but the staples will be nice," I thought out loud.

Prussia nodded. "I'll get some milk."

"No, I'm afraid Calvin might cut our power so things that don't need to be refrigerated will be better." I shook my head.

"That's unawesome," Prussia whined.

"It's how we live," I responded. "We usually just buy bread, apples, bottled water, and celery. This time we might even drop the celery. I want to get you guys some normal clothes."

"What's wrong with this awesome outfit?" Prussia puffed his chest out.

"It needs cleaning and is strange that you are wearing nice clothes everywhere." I picked up two loaves of bread off a shelf.

Prussia grabbed something else and hid it behind his back. "Ready to get the rest of the stuff?"

"After you tell me what you're holding behind your back." I reached behind Prussia to take whatever he was holding, but he sidestepped and said, "Later. It's a surprise."

"Why can't I know the surprise now?" I complained, but I was still smiling.

"Because awesome people can wait longer than a minute," Prussia grinned.

I rolled my eyes. "Yeah, right. Like you can hide that from me longer than a minute."

"Ja, I can." Prussia took a step back, but I stepped forward and tried to grab the food again. Of course, Prussia was able to keep me from getting it again. So the same thing happened multiple times over until an old lady hobbled over, muttering, "Stupid young people," and rammed her cart into my legs at full force. The force of the hit flung me into Prussia, and the two loaves of bread flew from my arms and sailed through the air, landing in the path of the lady's cart. She ran over the loaves and squished them, then left.

I pushed myself off Prussia and belt to pick up the ruined bread, but he stopped me and grabbed two new lives off the shelf. "Don't get bread tainted with unawesomeness."

I was about to reply when a worker turned the corner and strode toward us. "You have to take the bread you messed up, ma'am."

"I didn't mess it up," I snapped at the worker, "an old lady did!"

"Then take the bread or don't get any bread at all. The store closes in five minutes," the worker replied and walked away.

"Let's just go. We can eat apples and trail mix this week." I ambled toward the fruit section.

Prussia followed me. "He is unawesome too. You should kick him in the balls."

I shook my head. "No."

"Kesesese, it would be funny."

"No."
'Come on. Don't be so unawesome!"

"He's not even here anymore," I grumbled as I grabbed five cans of mixed nuts.

Prussia poked me in the face. "Then chase him."

"No! I shouted, frustrated and close to tears.

"Someone's grumpy." Prussia poked me again, and I grabbed his hand to make him stop. "Stop poking me."

Prussia finally seemed to realize that I shouldn't be messed with, so he just walked with me toward the fruit section, where we bought a couple dozen apples. By the time we left the store, we had bought apples, bottled water, trail mix, salt, and beef jerky. Prussia also showed me his surprise which turned out to be Oreos. This time, we got a taxi, so we didn't have to worry about the thugs.

"I hope everything will be fine when we get home," I slumped in my seat.

Prussia looked over at me. "As long as no one did something unawesome, they should be fine."

I didn't respond; instead, I stared out the window until my eyes drifted shut. I didn't wake up until Prussia started shaking me.

"Huh? What?" I stared up into the red eyed nation.

"We're home," Prussia snickered quietly in my ear.

I unbuckled and opened the door. "Okay."

"So who is the guy by the door?" Prussia asked as he shut his door.

"Calvin," I whispered and stumbled backward, but Prussia caught me.

"Don't die on me," Prussia joked, "that would be unawesome."

I clung to Prussia like a little kid. "You don't understand. H's been drinking

"Kesesese, that's no reason to back down." Prussia began guiding me toward the front door, but Calvin stopped him. It was more than easy to catch the stench of alcohol coming off him, and the middle aged man was swaying from the stuff too.

"Who are you, kid?" Calvin growled.

Prussia grinned, but it was obvious that he was uneasy. "Gilbert. I'm with Maria."

"I don't believe you," Calvin advanced upon Prussia.

"It's true," Prussia countered.

Calvin lunged at Prussia and knocked him to the ground. Prussia attempted to crawl away, but the older man just pummeled him in the face, I shrieked, it was almost too much to watch. Prussia shoved Calvin away after one especially hard blow to the shoulder, and I helped the albino to his feet. Then the two of us rushed over to the side of the building.

"Ćerima!" I shouted when we reached the bottom of the fire escape. I hoped above all hopes that she was outside.

Luckily, she and England were on the fire escape and leaned over the rail to see where we were. Ćerima called, "Why are you going this way?"

"We need your help!" I was now supporting Prussia as the ex-nation slowly lost consciousness.

Ćerima and England rushed down the fire escape and ran up to us. At this point, Prussia was fully passed out, and I was using all my strength to hold him up.

"What the bloody hell happened?" England interrogated.

I tried my best to explain. "It was Calvin. He was there when we got off the taxi."

"Child, calm down." Ćerima tried to calm me down when I started to cry, but it didn't help any. The two of them helped me to drag Prussia back up to our apartment, and when we got up there, I wasn't all that surprised to find that the lights were off. We dragged Prussia over to the couch and set him down.

"What happened to mon awesome friend?" France asked.

I sniffed, "That dumb *** Calvin beat him up."

"Everyone else is asleep in the rooms," Ćerima noted with a somewhat sour tone, so I figured America must have stolen her room again.

I ambled over to the refrigerator. "I'm going to get Prussia an ice pack." But when I opened the fridge door, everything was warm.

"Calvin cut our power just after leaving. He was drunk when he came," Ćerima said, and I sat back down on the floor next to Prussia.

Romano yawned, "Where the heck is everyone sleeping tonight?"

"Someone who is not France can take my bed tonight. I'm sleeping out here," I offered.

England rose. "I'm going to wake that git America up, so Ćerima will have a place to sleep."

"Thank you," Ćerima replied.

"I guess I will take your bed, Maria." Romano disappeared inside my room.

"Okay." I curled up into a ball on the floor and fell asleep, but my slumber was short lived, for I was woken up multiple times because of France and America rambling in their sleep. At one point, I chucked a pillow at America, who complained of "flying hot dogs" in his sleep.

"Shut up," I grumbled, but it did nothing to help.

"Aww, Iggybrows, you're hugging someone," France mumbled, and I would have thrown something at him if I had something to throw. Instead, I just sank back into a shallow and uncomfortable sleep.