The boys are back. Man, they show up and disappear as they please. But I was able to persuade them to sit for a while now. Of course, they all spent Valentine's Day in female company. And before everyone leaves again, I send chapter 12.

Greetings Petit Erik


1.3.2021

From outside the front door a loud toot sounded, which would not stop. At first everyone thought it would stop, but when it still stopped, Jenny went to the front door and opened it. She let out a scream and slammed the door shut again. Everyone looked at her, startled, because nothing could really throw Jenny off her game that quickly.

Carpenter looked at her and asked: "Are you all right? You look so pale."

She actually saw that: her usually rosy skin tone was now cheese white. She could easily have passed for Erik's twin if she were even a little paler. Only for that she would still have to be missing the nose, which she still possessed, however.

"Yes, yes, everything is fine. I was just startled," she shivered.

Taking a deep breath and standing upright, she went to the door once more. Immediately, joyful voices poured in from outside and the remaining boys were tempted to stick their heads toward the door, but refrained because they didn't want to scare anyone. Then Jenny's laughter was heard. It sounded very relieved and happy. A short time later she returned to the house, beaming with joy, with 4 figures.

The gentlemen also cried out in fright and at least half of them pulled out their lassos to defend themselves. Jenny, who had stood in front of the 21 guys to greet them, was immediately pushed behind Panaro, who stood protectively in front of her, holding his lasso in his hand.

"Hey hey, guys, everything's fine," Jenny tried to reassure them.

"Nothing's fine," Panaro hissed, "they're trying to kidnap you, I can tell!"

His response was a raised eyebrow from Jenny, which could mean something like "seriously?".

One of the four figures then spoke: "Here, colleague," she said, pointing to Panaro, "we don't want to kidnap them. We'd like to move in here."

"Move in?!" squeaked Jenny.

"Yes, we heard there were four rooms still available and we'd like to occupy them, so to speak."

Panaro almost lost his eyes.

"Just so we know who's moving in, we'd like to meet you guys. Not to have someone strange move in here."

The remaining 20 nodded gravely. The four figures sighed and took off their disguises.


"Stolle?!" shouted Mackintosh from behind them to the front.

"Mackintosh!" came the delighted reply from the man addressed. The two rushed together and embraced like old friends.

"Should have known you were behind it," grinned Mackintosh.

"Who else?" asked Stolle with an equal grin.

Meanwhile, a second walked up to Crawford and shook his hand delightedly, "Glad to see you, Dad."

He punctuated this statement with a wink.

Crawford was immediately in his element, "It's good to see you, too, son."

A moment later, they both burst into peals of laughter. The others just looked at them in confusion. Jenny, of course, knew what was going on and stood next to the man who had greeted Crawford.

"Gentlemen," she said in an effusive greeting, "may I introduce Crawford number two?"

The others still hadn't caught on.

"Oh man," Jenny said, "this man here is also named Crawford. But the two have nothing to do with each other, except that their names are the same."

Now it clicked with the others, too.

"But then what should we call him so there's no confusion?" asked Borchert.

But before Jenny could say anything, the younger Crawford radioed in: "Brawford. Ben Crawford together: Brawford. Or Crawford number two, whatever."

"Not a bad idea," Crawford said.

"Who are the other two, anyway?" asked Kerik.

Jenny smiled and gestured for the other two people to introduce themselves.

But before they could, Murphy gasped: "Oh no," he cried, "just not you!"

The third of the four men grinned: "Oh yes."

The two faced each other with menacing looks, so that you thought they were going to kill each other. But then they too laughed and lay in each other's arms.

"Roxmouth, you ass," Murphy huffed, "scaring us like that and Jenny."

"But it was worth it," grinned the same.

"You're right," Murphy said, smiling.


"Man, you guys look alike," Jenny suddenly said. Everyone looked at her in confusion.

"Wait a minute..." she said, placing Stolle, Mackintosh and the last of the four gentlemen, side by side. Then she stood in front of the three and made a gesture of consideration. The others stood behind her and looked at the three as well.

"You're right," Little murmured, "they do look alike."

The others just nodded.

"But vocally we don't sound alike," the last of the four men said, "Let me introduce myself: Schaefer. And unlike Roxmouth, much more civilized."

"That's what you think," the latter shot back.

Schaefer just laughed: "I don't scare the viscount backstage on purpose. I don't need to do that at all. He's way too scared of me anyway."

At the word 'scare', Roxmouth blushed a little. In fact, he had often scared Leisy absolutely to death backstage. Either he hid in the dressing room or behind a corner and whenever Leisy came he would jump out or say something so sudden and unexpected that the latter would get a total fright. Roxmouth was always visibly enjoying this game. He raised an eyebrow at Schaefer, but Schaefer just smiled. Soon, Roxmouth's expression cleared and he smiled at his phantom colleague.

"Tell me, are the women already here?" Mackintosh asked Stolle.

The latter nodded: "Sure, Kaley and Ali get along splendidly. They spend a lot of time together all the time."

It had to be said that Kaley is Mackintosh's Christine and she and Ali, who belongs to Stolle, are best friends. Unfortunately, Roxmouth also knew Meghan very well and he loved to tease Murphy about it. But the former loved his Clara and even Meghan couldn't get him away from her, which she didn't want to do.

Julia, on the other hand, was always in a good mood and had a funny disposition. She could make the "most beautiful" fish face Jenny had ever seen. She could squint herself but with Julia it looked even better. Jenny knew that she had once shown this face to Schaefer and he had hidden from her out of fear. Julia had laughed about it and taught him too. In the end, he was proud as hell of himself because he could squint and had shown this to the other 3, who were just teaching it to the others.


"Oh God, this is hard," Piterman said, trying to form his mouth like a fish. Everyone had mastered the squinting well, it was only at the mouth that problems were now occurring. Jenny, meanwhile, walked back and forth squinting while the others were still practicing. Sometimes she startled someone when she passed, but she didn't bother anyone. Some took her as an example and tried to do as well as she did. But it was harder than it looked.

After a while, most of them managed to do it. They sat in the living room while the 4 new ones took off their costumes and put on their normal clothes. Then they returned to the living room. Everyone sat down in an empty seat and talked to someone. Mackintosh sat with Stolle and the two talked together, while Murphy and Brawford sat with the Broadway Phantoms. There had recently been the 34th anniversary celebration of the Phantom of the Opera on Broadway, and of course they were talking about it.

Jenny soon asked: "Say, why were you guys dressed so stupidly earlier?"

Roxmouth, who was sitting next to her, replied: "Well, it's Mardi Gras at your home, isn't it? So we thought we'd dress up and come surprise you."

"You looked like Saw!"

"Looked good, though."

"You can do that shit for Halloween but not for Mardi Gras!"

"Whatever. It still did its job. So, MOOD!"

He then took out some confetti from the pocket of his tailcoat and threw it in Jenny's face. She sneezed and he looked at her with a big grin. She merely shook her head.

"You're stupid," she said.

"Thanks, I know," he replied, still smiling.


"So, where do you guys want to go?", Jenny asked the 4 boys later, so she knew which rooms would no longer be available.

"We were going to take the basement and the second floor," Schaefer said.

"Oh yeah, I can move into the basement with Johnny and the other two can move into the second floor," exclaimed Stolle delightedly.

"Nothing there," cried Jenny, "I want the house to still be standing at the end, so that means you two don't move down there together!"

"Oh Jenny," said Stolle, pouting.

"No!"

"What if I go up to the second floor with Stolle and the other two go down to the basement? Would that work?" asked Brawford.

"I think it might work," Jenny replied, "at least that way we won't run the risk of the house collapsing."

With worried eyes, she looked at the ceiling, fearing that it might collapse at any moment.


"Say, Mademoiselle," Mauer said, happily diverting Jenny's thoughts from the ceiling, "what's that yellow book you left on the table anyway?"

Jenny's eyes got as big as saucers. F*CK! She had forgotten all about that book. Last night she had been sitting comfortably in the living room with the boys, carrying her latest book. Every now and then she had been given a few strange looks as she moved, but no one said anything. Afterwards, she had been so tired and had just forgotten to take it back to her room.

"Uh, my sign language book," Jenny replied a little slowly, still confused by the question.

Mauer's eyes grew wide.

"Do you know sign language?" he asked in amazement with clear interest.

"Yes, of course," Jenny said proudly, "and lormen, too."

"And what's that?" asked Lewis, clearly interested as well.

"The language for the deaf-blind. I have..."

"You're kidding us now, aren't you?!" suddenly rumbled Wilkinson, "DEAF- BLINDED! Are you serious?!"

"Yeah?" said Jenny, visibly startled, and the others in the room had also winced.

"How do you get that to happen?" asked Wilkinson more to himself.

"Well, how did you learn to play music so well?", Jenny asked him.

"A lot of practice. Practice and patience."

"You see. It's the same with me."

"Still, it's madness and amazing."


Soon everyone was poring over the dining room table in the kitchen, looking at the sketch of the Lorm alphabet. Everyone had been badgering Jenny until she got the sheet from her room and brought it downstairs with her.

"Is it very hard?" asked Kari.

"Nope, not really. I learned it in two days. Once you know the dots, everything actually puts itself together," Jenny answered his question.

"Okay, busy learning then, gentlemen," Crawford said, and off they went.

Jenny, meanwhile, went back into the living room and continued practicing with her book. She didn't do it in order. She just looked for words in the appendix and then tried to memorize them. Sometimes it worked but sometimes she had to look again. Some people might ask: Why sign language for deafblind people? Well, not everyone at Jenny's work was deafblind. Some only had tunnel vision or blurred vision. That's where she had to use tactile signing. But she was going to teach the boys that later. First, the lormen.

She spent a few hours in the living room over her book while the opera minds in the kitchen taught each other to lormen. Sometimes she would go into the kitchen to ask the boys if everything was all right. But they just nodded and turned back to the page. For lunch, however, they took a little break.

The leaf was put in a safe place for lunch until the meal was finished. Because there would be something that would definitely leave grease splatters on the leaf.

"So, how many pancakes should I make?" asked Jenny.

"Lots please. Erik loves them," the latter said, already lurking with greedy eyes.

"Okay, I will," Jenny replied, and Erik fell around her neck giggling like a little kid. Then he hopped out of the kitchen with glee. Jenny threw him a raised eyebrow with a grin, but he didn't catch it. She made her way into the kitchen and soon the smell of fresh pancakes floated around the house. A couple of phantoms were already greedily standing in the kitchen.


Jenny sighed with a smile and turned to them: "Guys, it's going to take a little while as I have to make many. But how about you guys pass out the applesauce?"

The three squealed with delight, went to the refrigerator, tore it open, took out the applesauce and distributed it in bowls for everyone.

"Don't snack so much!" shouted Jenny to them from the stove.

"No way," Jones said, licking his finger.

He grinned and Jenny just shook her head.

Then, when everything was ready and the applesauce was enough for everyone, the 26 people sat at the big communal dining table in the kitchen. Of course they talked about the Lormen. Many had grasped it well and were eager to continue practicing. They wanted to do this until coffee time.

Jenny had decided to divide up the forms of communication. This meant: lormen in the morning, signing in the afternoon. The OG's were surprised at the strict schedule. But Jenny just shrugged her shoulders and said: "You were the angels of music and I am the angel of communication. So, good division. Now let the teachers learn something."

2 days later it turned out that the learning had paid off. On the evening of the third day, everyone was able to read the Lorm and sign alphabet without any mistakes. Of course, many wrote words into each other's hands or tried the finger alphabet and these words were then to be guessed. Jenny watched them and was proud of herself again. She had been taught and had taught herself and this knowledge she could now pass on.