Chapter 5

Teenage Drama

Felix slumped miserably at his desk. It was now Thursday, fours days after his second mysterious episode. By some miracle he hadn't blacked out then and when the pain passed he somehow was able to drag himself back home. The rest of the weekend had been Hell on earth for him. He had been so tired and hungry all the time that his mother was seriously considered calling in the town doctor to look him over. Felix did his best to convince her that it was just an average bug that had him under the weather, but she was never entirely persuaded. But by Monday he seemed to have recovered enough to go to school so his mother dropped the issue. Now he was back in school and rather unhappy about it.

But things were starting to improve. In five minutes school would be out and for a few precious hours he would be free of direct parental control. Then he would be free to wander about town and do nothing. Felix sighed silently and lowered his head to his desk. There was never anything to do here. Aside from the three local beer halls there were no restaurants of any kind. All the stores in Winzeldorf are family owned affairs that are small, traditional, and stubbornly resistant to change. There are no strip malls, mega malls, or large shopping centers of any kind. In a landslide decision the town council kept a small movie theater from being built in Winzeldorf and all the other adults agreed with them. There were no arcade games or any other sort of teenage hang out for miles and miles. To a teenager Winzeldorf is a hellish dull dump full of old backward people. And Felix and his friends were trapped in it.

A bell sounded dragging the exhausted Felix back to the present as class was officially dismissed for the day. Slowly he rose from his seat and dumped his notebook back into his backpack. He trudged lethargically out of the classroom, down the stairs, and out of the building. The bright sunlight made him wince, lately he'd become sensitive to bright lights like the sun. He muffled a yawn and made his way home to drop off his bag and collect some more food. He stumbled over his own feet as a new wave of pain lanced through his system. Ever since his last attack the minor pains had grown stronger, more frequent, and harder to ignore. If Anna was right and this was just part of his mysterious change he hoped that it would hurry up and finish so he didn't feel so crappy anymore.

After depositing his bag in his room and fixing himself several large sandwiches Felix left to find Wolfie. After recovering from his minor flu Wolfie had seemed quite distracted lately and during their lunch break he had suddenly asked to meet with him after school. Felix found this quite odd. Unless one of them was sick in bed he always saw Wolfie after school. Whatever was on Wolfie's mind must be really serious. So with sandwich in hand and several in his pockets he set off to find his troubled friend. It took a bit longer than he had expected it would, Wolfie wasn't in any of his usual places. But Felix didn't give up and eventually found him leaning against the musty old library.

Poor Wolfie looked upset about something. His shaggy looking mop of dirty blonde hair appeared messier than it normally was. His green eyes were distant and unfocused as he was obviously off in his own world. Felix padded up to him and munched loudly on his sandwich to see if Wolfie could hear him. Wolfie didn't react in the slightest; he simply continued to stare off into space. Felix finished his first sandwich and sighed. He reached up, grabbed Wolfie's shoulders, and gave his friend a good solid shake. Wolfe yelped and looked around in alarm.

"Relax Wolfie, it's just me." Felix said soothingly.

"Felix, don't sneak up on me like that." Wolfie panted.

"I'm sorry Wolfie; I didn't try to sneak up on you." Felix sighed. "Now what is it that is troubling you?"

"Well you know Heidi Feder?" Wolfie began nervously.

"Of course I do Wolfie. Everybody knows everybody here." Felix replied patiently.

"Right, well there's this rumor that I heard that she likes someone." Wolfie continued.

"Ah, I see." Felix muttered.

Now he understood what the problem was. Heidi Feder was arguably the prettiest girl in Winzeldorf. With her smooth fair skin, pale gold hair, and deep blue eyes she was the ideal Aryan girl according to Herr Hitler. Thankfully that insane dictator was long dead so she would be left to whatever man could win her instead of being assigned to some handpicked SS officer. And Heidi had more going for her than just physical beauty. She is also arguably the nicest, sweetest girl in Winzeldorf. All the boys around her age had had some sort of crush on her at some point, well, except for Felix. And at the moment, Wolfie was under Heidi's spell. But now Heidi allegedly was interested in a local boy, something that had never happened before. No wonder Wolfe was so upset.

"Where did you hear this rumor?" Felix asked after a moment.

"Well, it's not exactly a rumor yet. I was eavesdropping on the girls at lunch a few days ago." Wolfie admitted. Felix sighed.

"So why are you telling me this?" Felix asked.

"I was hoping that you could ask around for me and find out who it is that she likes." Wolfie haltingly asked. Felix looked at him incredulously.

"You can't be serious!" Felix sputtered.

"Oh come on, please?" Wolfie begged.

"Nein." Felix stiffly replied.

"Come on Felix, it's not like you have anything better to do." Wolfie pleaded.

"No." Felix snapped; his mind was made up. He crossed his arms and walked away.


"Wolfie, please remind me why I'm doing this again." Felix sighed tiredly as he downed the last bit of his last sandwich.

"You're doing this because you are me best friend in the whole wide world and you love me." Wolfie replied soothingly.

"Right, that's it." Felix muttered as he left Wolfie's company and headed for a knot of other teenagers.

Agnes Luft, Beate Thal, and Elke Schuh were clustered together against the chill air on a corner. Agnes Luft was a bit on the chubby side but not enough to make her unattractive. She had curly brown hair held back by hair pins and her brown eyes were slightly hidden by her glasses. Beate Thal was more slender than Agnes and taller too. She wore her black hair almost scandalously short by Winzeldorf standards and her hazel eyes seemed to see through everything and everyone. Elke Schuh was the final member of the trio and in-between her two companions in height and weight. Her long dirty blonde hair was bound in its usual set of complex looking braids and her dark eyes could look black when she got mad which tended to happen a lot. They were all friends of Heidi's and would know the identity of her love interest.

"Guten Tag ladies. How are you all today?" Felix greeted wondering how in the hell he was going to find out what Wolfie wanted to know.

"Guten Tag Felix. We are doing quite well despite the weather." Elke replied. She was their leader when Heidi was absent and she was speaking for all of them for the moment. "Now what do you want?" She asked bluntly.

"Who says that I want anything?" Felix asked trying to sound offended.

"We're not stupid Felix. The only time that you talk to a girl is when you want something from her." Elke stated and Felix knew it was true. He sighed in defeat at all three's stern expressions.

"Alright, I need some information." He reluctantly admitted.

"Go on." Elke urged.

"A friend of mine overheard something concerning Heidi and he wishes to know more." Felix began evasively.

"What did he hear?" Elke demanded moving to stand directly in front of his face and looking very serious.

"He heard that Heidi likes someone and he's curious about who it is." Felix replied sounding more cool and confident than he felt. Elke gave him a hard look before retreating back to her friends. They huddled together and whispered for a few minutes before Elke returned.

"We can't tell you that. If you want to know who it is ask Heidi yourself if your friend is too afraid to do it himself." Elke declared and before Felix could protest the three of them walked off.

Felix sighed in frustration. Now he had to track down Heidi herself to get the answer that Wolfie desperately sought. He spun on his heel and walked back towards the spot where Wolfie waited for him. When he reached Wolfie he was forced to shake his head at his friend's hopeful expression. Disappointed, Wolfie fell in step behind him as Felix began to comb the small town in search of Heidi Feder. He knew that Wolfie was curious about what had happened with the girls but he didn't stop to enlighten him. He wanted to get this thing over with as soon as possible so that he could go home and get some more snacks. Then near the town's central, and only, fountain he found her.

"Hallo Heidi!" He called cheerfully as he approached her. Wolfie had faded behind a corner to wait out of sight leaving Felix alone once again in his task.

"Hallo Felix." She replied shyly with a blush. Felix stopped a yard short of her and stared as a feeling of foreboding washed over him. Heidi had never ever blushed when she spoke to him and he found this to be a very bad sign.

"How are you today?" He asked politely as he seated himself on the edge of the fountain next to her.

"I'm very well." She giggled and batted her eyelashes flirtatiously. Felix struggled not to wince. This is not happening…

"That is good to hear." He muttered. "Well there is a question that I have for you. A friend of mine overheard something, but he lacks a certain detail that you can help me with." Felix evasively explained.

"A question? Go ahead and ask it and I'll see if I want to answer." She replied suddenly looking very nervous.

"He overheard some talk that there is a boy that you like but he didn't hear who it was exactly. So first is it true and if so who is it?" Felix asked bluntly. Heidi blushed again and she couldn't meet his eyes.

"Well, yes there is a boy that I like." She answered finally still not looking directly at him.

"So who is it?" He pressed. She squirmed a little before she seemed to gather her nerve and look him straight in the eye. She opened her mouth and said one word.

"You."


Felix trudged along back home alone. After hearing Heidi's answer he'd made up some excuse that he had chores or homework to do so that he could leave. Heidi managed to extract a promise from him that they would talk more about things between them later before he left. That future meeting was not something that he was looking forward to. Heidi was very pretty and nice but he didn't care for her in the way that she seemed to be beginning to care for him. Most boys would kill to be in his position but he didn't want it. He simply didn't feel attracted to her, he never had. Why that was, was a mystery to him, that's simply the way it was.

When he ran into Wolfie he didn't know what to say. He'd read about a love triangle once in some book whose title he could not recall but he'd never imagined that he would be part of one. Wolfie like Heidi, Heidi liked him, but he didn't like Heidi that way and was Wolfie's best friend. Add that all together and the only result can be a big mess. How could he tell him that Heidi liked him and not some other boy or even that she liked Wolfie. So he lied to Wolfie and said that Heidi had refused to answer him when he questioned her. Never in his life had he ever lied to Wolfie. It left him feeling sicker than he already did.

And there was a final complication. While he had interviewed Heidi Wolfie had been approached by Arnold with a proposal. Arnold and some other boys were arranging one final camping trip before the snow came and made it impossible. Arnold's parents supported the idea and had presented it to all the other parents earlier in the day and most liked the idea. The few who objected were not Wolfie's parents or Felix's so the trip was open to both of them. Wolfie had eagerly agreed and promised to tell Felix about it. Feeling bad about his lie Felix agreed to go camping with him that weekend despite his feeling awful and the memory of his dream concerning a campfire…