Endless Summer II - Festivalen
The next morning I was woken up by, you guessed it, a call from Mathias. Disturbing my lie-in like that... is there nothing he won't do to make my life hell?
He'd decided to wake me up at this unearthly hour to remind me that the festival he wanted to drag us all along to was this evening. Because I'm completely unable to remember things for myself, clearly. Oh, and for some strange reason we had to meet up in town before the festival. Why? Well... Mathias thinks we need matching outfits. Goodness knows why he thinks that, but that's just the way his mind works, I guess...
We all gathered at the station again. It's easy for everyone to remember, and it's fairly central, so it's easy to get to where you want to go. Mathias led the way to the shop. Presumably he already had some kind of idea...
'Here!' He'd stopped. Hmm... black suit things? 'And we're all getting different colours! I'm red, of course!' Well... red did suit Mathias very well.
In the end, we ended up getting those. Mathias' shirt was red, like he said. Tino got a yellow one, Eirikur got green, Berwald ended up with blue and I chose a purple-ish colour. Shame. I would have liked the blue one, but Mathias insisted we can't have the same colours as each other. Maybe one day I might actually be able to understand his crazy head.
On the other hand, he did look great in that...
Anyway, once we were all in the appropriate attire, it was time to head to the festival. I don't even know what they're supposed to be celebrating. Some people will give any excuse for a party...
There were stalls absolutely everywhere. Know what else was everywhere? People. The place was completely packed, and like I said before, crowds don't agree with me. With maybe the exception of Mathias and Berwald, it's really difficult for me to talk to people I'm not familiar with. With Mathias I wasn't expecting much of a response anyway, and the silence with Berwald was just too awkward.
But anyway, back to the festival. Mathias immediately dragged me over to where some Italian guy was selling pasta. He seemed like a cheery fellow, at least. The stall next to him had a plentiful supply of both churros and tomatoes. Can't say I'm too fond of tomatoes, actually. The churro stall was manned by two people. One of them was the kind of ditzy, eternally-cheerful person you often got at stalls because they can sell stuff, but the other one looked like he was there under sufferance. Poor guy.
After one or two rounds of pasta, I finally managed to escape from the Danish idiot and catch up with the rest of the Brigade. Tino'd found his goldfish-scooping, although he didn't actually manage to catch any. Shame... I'm sure Mathias would have loved a clubroom pet. I found Berwald at a mask stall.
'Hei, you wanted one of them?' I asked.
'...mm.' The faintest of nods. I'd got pretty used to noticing his tiny movements. '...tha' one.'
He pointed to a Moomin mask. Didn't know he was into that sort of stuff, although I will admit they are cute.
'Yours for one hundred kroner, da-ze!' This salesman was... odd. And I keep bumping into people with these weird haircurls. Why has Mathias not noticed them yet? Was it really that traumatising that Midsummer..?
But yeah, Berwald bought the mask, and we met back up with Mathias and everyone else.
'Have to say, they sell some really nice food here!' Mathias was cheerful as usual. 'Hm? What's with the mask, Berwald?'
'...bought it.'
'Well, yah, but why that one?'
No response. Hm.
'...mmm, ok, then... Hej! There's a bunch of stuff over there we haven't seen yet! Let's go!' And without a moment to respond, the collar-grab technique had returned. So that's why he insisted on the outfits. It's much harder to pull someone along when they're just wearing a T-shirt or something that doesn't have a collar.
We spent the next few hours wandering around the remaining stalls. Berwald failed to work out how the pellet guns worked, although Eirikur managed to shoot a very large box of liquorice off the shelf. Lucky bastard. I had no luck whatsoever.
We got tired of walking around after a while, so we sat ourselves on a bench. Nice to take the weight off your feet, I guess... and a great place to sit and watch the sun set. It's really late...
'Here, Nor.' Hm? Mathias was holding out a tray of pastries. And for once, he was smiling normally, not that stupid grin he usually wore.
'Ah, takk.' Mmmm... tasty. Tasty Danish...
'Tasty, nej? Ok, we've seen just about everything now. So we're going to shoot off some fireworks!' Actually, that's not a bad idea. It'd make a nice end to the day.
One of the stalls sold fireworks, so getting them was easy enough. The guy at the stall looked oddly familiar... I think I may have seen him around school somewhere? Eh, I'm sure it'll come to me.
Do you know just how much fun waving around a sparkling stick around is? Much more fun than it sounds. It's dark, and the sparks are pretty... Eirikur was the one setting up the bigger fireworks. Just as well, really, since Mathias would probably end up blasting one of us in the face... most likely me. And that would really ruin my day.
Oh, and when Mathias had the insane idea of attaching a bunch of rockets to a bicycle? I ended up being the one riding it. Not that I minded. Who cares if it's dangerous? I get to cycle at full speed and yell random words without looking like a complete moron! And the fireworks are pretty!
Ok, ok, I still look like a moron. But I'm a moron with style. Yeeeaaah.
Soon, the last sparkler fizzled out. Mathias got out his list and ticked off both the festival and the fireworks. Then I thought of something... vaguely important.
'Hej, Mathias? Hate to ruin your... tremendous fun, but have you actually done all your homework?' Because I haven't. Yeah, hypocrite, I know. But be quiet.
'Of course! Can't have something like that getting in the way of our fun, can we? It was only three days' worth anyway!'
'Th-three days?' Seriously? How can an idiot like him take three days to do all that? It's not like the teachers let up on us or anything... maybe I'll have to reconsider calling him an idiot all the time...
'Yep! So tomorrow, we're going bug-catching! And the winner... hmm... gets to be brigade leader for a day!'
Why? Just... why?
Oh, I forgot. Rule number one of the SOS Brigade. Thou shalt not question Mathias Køhler, for he thinks you are nothing but a slave to his superior will. That, and he'll destroy the world if he gets too angry.
So yay. Bug catching. See my excitement. Woohoo.
Oh, who am I kidding?
A/N: I'm sorry! I'm sorry! We're back to full-time imprisonment- I mean, lessons, so updates will slow down.
Most people associate Moomins with Finland, but the guy who wrote it was actually Swedish. According to TVTropes, anyway. Also, count the cameos! Italy, Spain, Romano, Korea, Hong Kong... [tasty Danish... nom nom nom *shot'd*]
EDIT: I've been corrected on the Moomin point - thankye to SomeSnowInShell~ She was a Swedish-speaking Finn. I'm an idiot who can't read. Sorry ^^' I'm currently going through the fic and adding accents and other non-standard letters which I was too lazy to add in before. I've also rewritten one or two things so it fits better with later sections.
Next chapter finishes the summer in style. Sort of.
Until next time, annyeong~
