Disclaimer: I do not own Hetalia.

A/n1: So! Upcoming Monday, my school's starting. I'll be going to school part-time (I'm not sure how people in other countries call it), so I'll only have school on Monday and Tuesday evening. The rest of the week, I'll work – well, I hope I'll work, it all depends on certain things. But anyway…
I wonder how it will be. I mean, I've been away from school for a whole year after I graduated. Will I like it? Will I dislike it? Will things be easy for me, will it be difficult? I have no idea – I just hope I'll have a good time. I am a bit nervous, though!

A/n2: Let's talk about something personal.
My mother has always hated that I don't really care much about my looks. She used to give me preaches every darn day about how much more beautiful/female/adult-like I could be, if I just paid a bit more attention to how I look (note that my mom is a very beautiful woman that always spends lots and lots of time to the way she looks).
Now of course, I spent the past years simply ignoring her whining. It's MY life, MY body, MY choice. Deal with it!
But now, I'm starting to realize she's right – and ughhhhhh, I never like it when she's right. I'm not getting any younger, you see. I should get dressed like people my age, I should act a bit more like people my age and I should try and find more, new interests. Because, well – it's good for me, I think. Good for my personal development and such. I'm a grown woman, after all. It's time to actually show I am.

A/n3: Lots and lots of explaining in this chapter. Also, at least two pretty (unexpected?) revelations. Plus, for your own pleasure, an incredible lame, awful and downright sadistic cliffhanger that actually isn't a real cliffhanger but just a very bad way of ending a chapter. Huzzah! I'll be sitting in the air-raid shelter if you're looking for me. *crawls away*

~~ And Three Makes Five ~~

Chapter 65:

Some people discard their childhood like an old hat.
They forget about it like a phone number that's no longer valid.
Erick Kästner
(German author, poet and satirist)

Francis stared at America, just like the rest of us. He looked all kinds of terrified. His pupils were dilated and his face looked like it had dried up – twisted and mangled, as if something awful had happened to it.

'You... you don't know what the PPSS is?' he managed to get out.

America gave him a blank look and pointed at his own face. 'France, does this look like a face that knows whatever the hell that PPSS-thing of yours is?'

France had no words and simply stopped responding.

Hungary, for some weird, optimistic reason, thought America was fooling around and laughed nervously. 'Now now, come on, America, you silly man! I know you have a very interesting sense of humor, but – but now's not the time to make jokes. Especially not about a subject like this. Don't you agree, England?'

'I don't know what the devil you're talking about, Hungary,' England said, frowning his brows. 'Did we miss something while we were at home? Bloody hell, I knew I should have checked my mailbox…'

Now it was Hungary's turn to become pale.

'I-I don't understand,' Femke then stuttered, 'A-America, you… you knew everything about the PPSS! Everything! You broke into their headquarters this very week!'

'Really?' America said.

'Yes, really!' Lovino butted in as well. 'You were looking for answers – you were trying to help us, since England didn't want to tell us what he knew about the kids! So then you—'

'Kids? What kids?' America looked so very troubled that I almost felt sorry for him – if my heart wasn't starting to race like mad, somewhere in the upper parts of my throat.

My god. He didn't know. Oh my god. He didn't know anymore.

'The kids!' Gilbert shrilly and desperately cried out. 'You know! My and Mattie's Emile! Franz' Desiree! Anton and Romano's… orphanage! And your own! Your and England's Johnny!'

England's eyes widened. 'M-my and America's… what?'

America rubbed his chin, for a very long, tense time, before flashing a quick smile Gilbert's way.

'I get it, I get it – is this some sort of dirty joke? Because I love dirty jokes!'

Gilbert blinked. 'W-what?'

'No no, don't tell me the punch line – I'll figure it out! I'll—'

'There is no punch line! There is NO FUCKING PUNCH LINE, you stupid ASSHOLE!'

Lovino was shaking with frustration. He fisted his hands and pounded one of them against the solid wall next to him. It wasn't effective. We didn't hear a sound and it had hurt him, since his hand ended up trembling and cramped up, but he gritted his teeth, ignored the pain and glared at America like the man had given him a brutal slap in the face.

'A-A-America, for the love of God – don't tell me… you've forgotten all about him as well. Don't fucking tell me. I swear I'll… I'll…'

Lovino stopped talking without ending his sentence and let out a strained groan. I instantly came into action, cupped his hand with my own hands and urgently muttered he should calm down – before he'd break his own bones.

'You dolts are starting to freak me out,' England slowly said, exchanging a worried look with America.

But America, though confused, wasn't as panicky as his English partner. He seemed to think, watching all of our group – consisting out of a stressing Belgian, a concerned Austrian, a quivering Hungarian, a frozen Frenchman, a stoic Dutchman, a quiet Russian, an unstable Prussian, a hurt Italian and a bewildered Spaniard – in silence, as if he was mentally going through about all kinds of possibilities, options and other absurd things.

Right on the moment he looked like he was going to say something, I suddenly felt a strong pat on my shoulder. I managed to tear my gaze off the still-pondering American and looked at the man with the sunglasses, a complicated-looking telephone headset and black tux in barely-hidden annoyance. 'What?'

'Spain.' The man nodded. 'I'll ask you and your group the same question as my co-worker has just asked the entire room: please pay attention to what's being said right now. It's important.'

I looked at him in horror. The PPSS logo – a black and white picture of the Earth, being carefully held by several hands while the letters PPSS surrounded it all – was on his headset and it was stitched onto his jacket.

Oh.

This wasn't an European nation or an ordinary human. This was a PPSS-member.

The man coughed, as if he felt a bit uncomfortable. 'Not me, Spain – look over there. Mr. Pita is speaking right now.'

I didn't reply – but I immediately looked away from him, staring into the direction the man had just pointed his finger at.

Then I saw it. On top of a small, but high podium, a middle-aged man with an average height and weight was standing behind a slim, wooden table. There was a microphone on top of it, and once again, the logo of the organization was stuck to the table. A color picture, this time. The background of the image was dark blue, the Earth was green and light-blue and the hands, surrounding the Earth, were in all kind of colors – varying from black to pale-white.

They paid attention to the importance of diversity, at least that was something, I found myself thinking – I didn't know what else to think, really.

Thankfully, the man, who looked like the most important one because of his striking, silver-colored suit and powerful, self-confident posture, didn't give me much time to think anything else.

'Dear personifications of Europe – and Canada and the northern part of America,' he started with a strong, loud voice, 'I hereby welcome you all to this extra meeting. Allow me to offer you my deepest apologies, for making you all wait this long for an explanation for all that has happened over the past months. I assure you that today, everything will become clear to you. Now. There are about sixty nations here, and there are just two broad doors that lead to the Hemicycle, where our special meeting will take place. I therefore suggest you follow the instructions the other PPSS-members will give you.'

I automatically looked around me, just like most nations did. Indeed, there all of a sudden were men and women dressed in black tuxes and skirt suits gathered into the hallway, as if they had been casually scattered in-between the personifications. They all wore wireless telephone headsets and sunglasses. It was like we had just been thrown into a very bad gangster movie.

Eventually, I looked up at the man they called "Mr. Pita" again. I had expected him to say something more, but he didn't – he turned off the microphone and said something to the two men next to him. He'd continue his talk inside the Hemicycle, I presumed. However, all of a sudden, the silver-clad man glanced into my direction with a thoughtful, impatient expression.

At first I thought he stared at me, which crept me out – but then America's excited voice made me realize he wasn't looking at me at all.

'Don't worry, guys!' America hastily whispered to us as the rest of the nations around us started to move, 'I'm not sure what's going on, but man – I can't wait to figure it out! I'll get to the bottom of this, right away!'

It should have put me at ease that America was still the same helpful and enthusiastic America – but it actually only made me more concerned. He really didn't know what was going on. Had he seriously forgotten everything? But how? And… why?

'What are you going to do, then?' Austria asked America as our group started to walk into the direction of one of the doors as well.

America grinned, happy to be in the center of attention once again, and opened his mouth. But before he could even utter a gasp, one of the PPSS-members, a woman this time, grabbed his arm.

'America, I'm sorry, but I've just received a call from your Boss. He wants you to return to Washington D.C. right away. Something about inspecting the grass of the White House on grasshoppers.'

'Whaaaaaat?' America whined, trying to yank himself free. 'But I checked the grass on freaking grasshoppers this morning already! I found 142 and a half grasshoppers in total – I even made a funky chart of it since it was so boring!'

'142 and a half?' England asked.

America nodded. 'One of them was split in half – I suspect the perpetrator was a cat. Poor, grass-loving critter never saw it coming.'

'Also,' the woman next to the couple went on, 'your Boss wants you to bring England with you to keep an eye on you, since he thinks you slacked off during your counting activities.'

'Oh bugger,' England sighed.

'I just went to get a coffee halfway!' America complained. 'One cup of coffee!'

'I'm just passing the message, America.'

'Can't they stay for a few more minutes?' I surprised myself by suddenly speaking up like that. 'It's important.'

'No,' the lady firmly answered in America and England's place. 'They need to leave this instant. Please mind your own business, Spain.'

'This IS our business,' Lovino pointed out – I could tell he was quite irritated, but he still tried his best to keep a polite tone, since the annoying lady was, well, a lady.

'I'm sorry,' the woman sternly said, adjusting her sunglasses. Then two other PPSS-members appeared behind America and England and started to friendly but determinedly drag both America and England out of our sights.

'Don't worry!' America cried over the heads of the other personifications one last time, while our group was being forced to walk to one of the broad doors. 'I'll find out what's going on! I promise you! Bro's before… Bosses! Hahahahahaha!'

'Drat,' I heard the woman mumble as she fumbled with her headset. 'Chef, we have a problem – it's a 14-18. Yes, USA seemed curious. Yes. Yes, he's being taken back to the laboratory. We took UK as well, just to be sure… yes, we told him that. He bought it. Thank you. He'll be taken care of. Again. Oh – I-I'm sorry, one moment, please…'

The woman paused her conversation to give me a shocked look, probably noticing the unsettling fact I must have looked like I was on the very verge of getting a heart attack.

'What are you going to do with them?' I asked her with a voice that didn't sound like mine.

The woman hesitated, but then smiled apologetically at me, like she was pitying me. After that, she turned around and resumed her conversation with her chef, whoever that was. She also walked away.

'Wait,' I called out to her, 'wait – tell me what's going on! Why are you taking them? What are you going to do with them – hey!'

'Leave it.' I felt Lovino's closed his (good) hand around one of my wrists. 'It's no use, Antonio – those fuckers aren't telling us anything. Just… just do what the rest does, for now.'

'But-but America… and England!' I stammered as I reluctantly allowed Lovino to take me with him, further into the mass of walking and confused nations. 'They've done something to them… I don't know what, but… they don't know anything anymore!'

'I-I'm aware of that.' Lovino swallowed. 'And that's why I tell you to please just mimic the rest. Panicking or standing out too much won't do us any good, so… please, Antonio – please try to act normal.'

'B-but…'

'For me. Can you… can you do that for me?'

He looked at me hopefully and softly squeezed the arm he was holding on to. His eyes told me he was in just as much panic as I was – and that he needed my support and comfort more than ever now.

I understood the situation, forced myself to calm down and gently slid Lovino's hand off my arm. I then grabbed it tightly with my own hand and gave him a small, but hopefully reassuring smile and a nod.

Lovino instantly seemed to get a bit less nervous and smiled thankfully back at me – right before the both of us got some accidental but hard pushes in our backs. It took a lot of my strength to at least keep Lovino by my side as we got dragged into the next room; I had noticed that the others that had stood with us had been separated from us already.

But like hell I was going to let go of him. I could lose my dignity, my power and all of my dearest friends – but I wasn't going to lose him, not even in a stupid, fearful crowd full of nations that didn't know what was going to happen to them. I simply refused to let that happen.

Eventually, and still holding on to each other, we entered the Hemicycle.

/0o0\

The Hemicycle was a big, round room with a high, never-ending ceiling, a podium in the middle, a broad, large white screen on the wall behind the podium and a lot of school-esk, brown chairs and tables, on different levels – encircling the entire room.

I knew nothing about architecture, but the room looked old. It smelled old, even. Old and dark – the lights were on, but it still remained frightfully dim and obscure in here. I found myself wondering whether they had kept this room so dark on purpose – you know, as a way to calm us down. I mean, they must have noticed that most personifications looked like they were about to get executed.

You must have seen the look on Norway's face, for example. That guy barely showed any emotions most of the time – but now… whoa. Not to mention Belarus, who most of the time seemed to enjoy awful meetings, but currently looked like she was being forced to be here. Or that poor, poor Latvia… or Liechtenstein… or even Croatia…

And then I noticed the tiny flags.

Oh.

There were a lot of tiny flags, neatly lined up on the tables.

…

I guess we were supposed to sit where our flag was?

Upon realizing that, I felt fear strike me once more – did this mean Lovi was going to be pulled away from me anyway? Oh god, I couldn't handle that right now – I really couldn't handle that, he needed to stay at my side – I didn't know what would happen if he wasn't—

'You may sit here, Spain.'

A PPSS-woman with a Spanish flag on her chest, right underneath the PPSS-logo, smiled coldly at me from underneath her sunglasses as she took a step back. She gestured to the wooden seat in front of her. At the same time, I noticed the small, Spanish flag on the table, and the small, Italian flag, on the table next to mine.

Oh thank god.

As I took my seat and tried to calm down, again, there was a PPSS-man with an Italian flag on his chest that told Lovino the same thing as what his female co-worker had told me. All Lovino could do was nod. In the first place because he was just as mesmerized by all of this as I was. In the second place because Feliciano had already been sitting down at the table.

'Veee… hi, big brother!' he whispered against Lovino as the latter sat down when the Italian PPSS-man had finished talking to him. 'Long time no see! How… um, how are you doing?'

Lovino, however, still hadn't quite forgiven him for ditching him and breaking Germany's heart, and didn't even look at him as he resolutely turned his back on his brother and looked at me with angry, confused eyes.

'See?' I said, carefully sliding my hand under his (wounded) one. 'I told you he'd be here.'

'Whatever,' Lovino mumbled. 'I had expected to catch a glimpse of him – not to be just… put next to him, like he didn't do something unspeakable nasty.'

'Well, you both are Italy,' I explained, while I saw Feli looked so very lonely and remorseful it almost made me feel sorry for him. 'It's normal they put you together.'

'I don't give a fuck about that.'

'Lovi…'

'No.' Lovino bit his lower lip and shook his head. 'I don't want to speak to him – I didn't even want to be next to him. Not now already. I'm still pissed at him. I'm still… ugh, I don't know, but not yet. I can't speak to him. Just not yet.'

I nodded; I knew what he meant.

'It's okay, Lovino. Do what you want, my love.'

'Thanks.' Lovino breathed out softly – and kept on ignoring Feliciano, but with a lighter heart this time.

Maybe I should have felt bad about… somewhat encouraging Lovi to treat Feli like a dirtbag. Maybe. But in all honestly, Feli had it coming. Remembering the evening when Lovino had practically destroyed a whole room, just because he thought had lost his brother forever and couldn't stand it anymore, still made my blood boil in helpless frustration. Even I hadn't forgiven Feli for that yet. Still, here he was, right there, right next to Lovino, in a sophisticated suit, seemingly in good health, and he hadn't even got the decency to say sorry.

…

Well, maybe Feli was planning to say sorry, but couldn't, because Lovi was ignoring him like this.

You know what? It was not my business. This was something between Feliciano and Lovino and I should just support Lovi and stay out of it otherwise. It was my role as his friend and lover, and so that was what I was going to do.

Wanting to change the subject, I pointed out to Lovino that most countries had taken their seats by now.

'Looks like we're about to start, huh?'

'Yeah.' Lovino nodded. 'Hey, you see all those PPSS-members with the little flags on their chest? Do you think they're the contact persons between the organization and a nation?'

I sneakily glanced over my shoulder. 'Yes… I guess that "Miss Spain" person that has contacted with me before a couple of times was that lady.'

'Which means that guy behind me is the "Mister Italy" that has spoken to me before,' Lovino said. And probably Feliciano as well, he hesitated to add - I could tell - but he didn't.

'They're probably spies,' I muttered as I wrapped my fingers around his.

'You think?' Lovino murmured. 'Ouch – careful.'

'Sorry. But yes. I think they know all about us – thanks to people like "Miss Spain" and "Mister Italy". I don't know what to think about that.'

Lovino shuddered. 'Well I do.'

'Well I don't, Lovi.' I looked at him. 'Maybe… this might sound weird from somebody who almost soiled himself from the pure stress of all of this but… maybe we should just hear them out and then judge them.'

Lovino snorted and shrugged. 'I guess. Just don't expect me to trust them.'

I smiled faintly. 'I don't, because neither do I.'

Then we both got silent, since we didn't know what to talk about anymore. Well, of course we had a lot of subjects just begging to be talked about, but it felt wrong to do that now. As if it would provoke bad luck or something like that.

So we sat, held hands and watched, until finally all the nations were seated.

Then, all of a sudden, a few surprisingly bright spotlights were put on and shone down on the podium in the middle of the Hemicycle – and Mr. Pita appeared. He smiled and bowed respectfully, and the immortal audience before him murmured restlessly in response.

I felt Lovino attempting to grip my hand, without much success, and I exhaled slowly.

It was starting, wasn't it?

/0o0\

Mr. Pita stretched out his arms, as if he wanted to give the entire group of suspicious, cautious nations a big hug.

'Welcome, welcome once again, dear personifications of Europe and Canada! I'm very pleased to see that all of you were able to come. This is a very special and important meeting, after all. You all have the right to know the information that's about to be told to you, and you will get the answers you've been waiting for, like promised.'

I frowned. This President/Director guy seemed to repeat the same things over and over again, without giving us new information. It was pretty annoying – but we couldn't do much more than just wait and hope he would just hurry up already.

Thankfully, he did. He had some clicking-device in his hands that he used to show us the beginning of what appeared to be a slideshow of a very professional looking powerpoint, on the huge white screen behind him. Meanwhile, the many other PPSS-members that were in the room, standing next to the screen, below the podium, next to the walls, next to the exits, had caught my eye as well. There were at least a hundred members here. I wondered why exactly.

'Right!' Mr. Pita said, using one of those little red laser… pointing-things to go through all of the list that was now shown on the screen. 'Let's quickly talk about what I will tell you about:

1: THE PPSS – WHO AND WHAT ARE WE?
2: THE PPSS – WHAT DO WE DO?
3: THE PPSS – LEADERS/BOSSES
4: THE PPSS – THE BEST FOR THE CONTINENT AND WHERE IT WENT WRONG
5: THE PPSS – THE SOLUTION

And… that's it, I guess. We could have put more noble points on this agenda, but I don't want to say anything unnecessary or pointless. You're here because you want to know what is going on – not because you'd like to be shown around the greatness that is our organization.'

'Where have they taken America and England to!' someone somewhere in the audience suddenly yelled. There were supportive cries like 'yeah!' and 'let them go!' audible here and there, while most other nations just gave the nations next to them worried looks.

Mr. Pita, a calm, relaxed man that seemingly hadn't ever heard of things like distress and despair by the looks of it, patiently waited until the noise subsided. By doing that, he actually forced us to be completely silent – he simply didn't say another word before that had happened.

'Now. America and England have already heard our explanation yesterday. They were merely here for the purpose of showing you they are perfectly fine. They didn't need to be here for the rest of the meeting, so they were asked to leave. Besides, there were more things they had to take care of today. It's very simple, really.'

I clenched my free hand to the side of my table. I wanted to stand up and scream that they weren't asked to leave, they were dragged off with a stupid excuse, they were going "back to the laboratory" or something and that… that it just wasn't as "simple" as that asshole-Director claimed it was!

But I couldn't pull the words out of my throat – I couldn't. It was like an iron claw was wrapped around my throat and I was too afraid of what that iron claw could do if said the words I wanted to say.

'Moving on,' Mr. Pita said, pressing on the button of his clicking device. Instantly, a new slide appeared. On the slide, lots and lots of photo's showed up and got covered by new pictures. The first few photo's were very old – taken centuries ago, so it seemed. The logo of the organization flashed through the screen every once in a while, in-between the men with the top hats, canes, old-fashioned dresses and creepy machinery – wait, they invented machines and the like as well?

I didn't have time to think about it a bit more – the pictures on the screen kept on piling up. The photo's got clearer by the passing of the years, and the newest ones looked so real and detailed, it was like the screen was a window we could look right through.

'Point one on the agenda: who and what is the PPSS? Well! To make a long story somewhat shorter – we are the Personification Protection Security Services, the organization that exists to protect all of the world's personifications. We were unofficially founded many, many years ago – roughly around 195,000 BC, presumably, when the life of one of our organization's ancestors was saved by a personification of that what could be called a "country". The man was so thankful that he swore to dedicate his life to the personification. However, he was just one man – he needed to have more people that shared his vision to be of actual use to the personification. And he got them. He even managed to convince people from other "countries" to join his group. Slowly, the group got bigger and bigger, and finally, more than many thousands years later, the nameless organization that anonymously and secretly operated for the well-being of all the personifications in the world, they felt it had grown big enough to be officially founded in England – by one of my forefathers.'

I glanced around the round room. Most nations were listening to him with weary looks in their eyes. They probably had no idea what to think of this organization. So far, it sounded like a fairly "good" organization, however. Just a bunch of overactive humans that wanted to serve their country's personification.

'We're just humans,' the President continued as he started pacing around the podium. 'We don't have the power to do anything marvelous or to protect you from real dangers. Yes, I suppose we could catch bullets for you and fight wars for you – but we can't heal you when you're sick. We can't save dying nations. Also, since we swore secrecy, we can't even tell you who we really are. We all have fake names – me, too. But trust me when I say we are very normal people. We have families. We have lives. The only difference between us and other humans is, however, that we dedicate all of our lives to you. We watch you, we protect you, we serve you – forever. Death doesn't stop us; we pass our legacy to our eldest children. From the age of twelve, we are taught to do everything a good PPSS-member has to do in order to keep his or her nation safe and sound.'

'Fucking creepy,' I heard Lovino mumble beside me. I merely patted his hand.

'Now, there are many roles, jobs, titles and directions inside our organization. You should see our organization chart – it would make you nauseous, haha! Talking about all these people and their work would take hours, so instead, I'm just going to point out the jobs of the people standing behind you.'

Maybe it was a stupid, Pavlovian reflex, but I immediately looked at the lady behind me. She seemed familiar to me, somehow.

'We call them the Misses and Misters of the Nation. Like Mr. Turkey and Miss France. They have the most important job of all of the people working here – it's their duty to guard you, each and every day of their lives. They live close to you, they might even talk to you on a daily basis – hell, maybe they even befriend you. But their alternative identity, as a PPSS-member, stays hidden, in the shadows, as much as possible,' Mr. Pita carried on. 'Because they are the ones that give us the most information about you.'

I stared at the face of the woman as Mr. Pita talked in the background.

Wait a minute…

Wasn't that…?

'Blanca?' I breathlessly said. 'Is… is that you?'

The lady didn't even twitch – she kept looking to an invisible point in the distance, like a living statue.

I could vaguely hear Feliciano a few meters away from me gasp as well – 'Armando… but-but you work in a restaurant, you can't be a PPSS-member!' – but Lovino, who didn't seem to know the guy that well since he barely communicated with humans in the first place, didn't utter a word.

Since Blanca didn't say anything either, I slowly turned back – only to witness all of the other personifications around me staring at or attempting to talk with the man or woman right behind their seat. It looked like they all were at least acquaintances of the nations. Germany, who sat a couple of rows below us, even glared at the woman behind his seat like she had betrayed him – and in a way, those PPSS-members had.

I mean… Blanca was a PPSS-member. But how was that even possible? Blanca was the mother of Raquel and the wife of Diego – annoying, irritating Diego! She couldn't be… or…

…wait, didn't her mother also use to live in the house next door? And her grandfather, too? And his grandfather as well?

Also, did this mean Raquel – innocent, energetic Raquel – would eventually be trained to become a PPSS-member? Was that why she always snatched our newspaper – because her mom told her to, to test her abilities, or… or…

Oh god…

I don't know how much time it took us this time to become quiet again – Mr. Pita was a strict man, he really didn't speak a word before everybody else shut up – but this time, it felt like an entire hour had already passed when he finally resumed his explanation.

'So anyway.' He cleared his throat. 'There are people like the Misses and Misters that watch you, but there are many, many more. We study you, we try to help you and we report all of the problems right back to the organization – or to your Bosses, if that's needed. With this, I suppose I've also partly explained what it is that we do already – you don't need to know the fine details – so let's skip point 2 and move on to point 3: the connection we have with your Bosses, or, as we like to call them, the Leaders.'

He waited for a response. Nobody said a word, though. We learned fast. That's what you do when you want answers.

Mr. Pita nodded, satisfied. 'As I was saying… over the flow of the years, we managed to maintain great contacts with the most of the Leaders of the World. In other words – the people that officially rule your nations, one way or another. Although we started this organization on our own initiative, the Leaders of the World are currently the ones that give us tasks, missions, instructions and, of course, problems to solve. Ever since a century or three, four, they pay us for our work. So though we still love to protect you and help you out as much as we can, I can't deny that it feels great to get paid for what we do.'

Somebody raised her hand – I thought it was Femke.

Mr. Pita noticed and beamed a bright smile to her. 'Ah! Belgium. You have a question – and may I say that you look absolutely endearing today?'

'What kind of tasks do you get?' Femke asked him, without paying any attention to the compliment.

'All kinds of tasks,' Mr. Pita said. 'You name it, we do it.'

'But what if we get sick?' Femke continued, not satisfied with his casual answer. 'You just told us you can't do much to help us when we're sick. So…'

'We can't. We haven't studied for that.' Mr. Pita put his hands in his pockets. 'But the personal doctors your Leaders and this organization have chosen for you, can.'

There was a collective gasp going through the room, and I heard I was part of it. Lovino even kept on gasping.

'They're not real members of the PPSS, since they're not trained to be one from a young age,' the Director made clear, 'but they do work for us. Well, and for your Bosses and you, of course, once they get chosen to be your personal doctor.'

He said more things about the jobs and things of the personal doctors, but I couldn't hear it anymore.

Guillermo worked for the PPSS. Dr. Tosca worked for them as well. No wonder they didn't seem that surprised or shocked when the kids appeared – they knew already. It was old news to them. It was old news.

My stomach was starting to ache. Did Hernández know as well? I was going to be sick. Oh god, I was going to be sick all over my table.

Mr. Pita waited once more until everybody had calmed down again – and with "calm down", I meant "shut their mouths". When the President of the PPSS felt like he could carry on talking, you could still sense the quiet panic in the room, the lingering desperation, the sheer, bone-chilling feeling that was called uncertainty and maybe even paranoia.

But at least the countries didn't say a word, so Mr. Pita continued his tale. He pointed his red laser light to the big screen, onto the fourth sentence.

'Now before I'm moving on to the next point on the list – the best for the continent and where it went wrong – I think it's time I told you about a certain, super-secret assignment our organization got from the Leaders of Europe.'

We simply gaped at him, unsure what else we could do at this point.

He folded his arms on his back, furrowed his brows and started to walk around again.

'As you all are no doubt aware of, Europe has been having a pretty heavy economical crisis over the past… well, decade. Lots of countries suffering from lots of financial problems. European nations on the verge of going bankrupt. People suffering, unable to find work or another way to have a decent income or life. Arguments with the neighboring countries that can't seem to get solved with words. Rich nations forced to pay for the nations that are in need of money – lots of money. The distrust between countries. The reliability of Europe faltering because of all of this. I could go on forever, to be frank, but I won't.

Situations and problems like that are not good for a continent, let alone for one single country living in that continent. We know how many hardships you all have had, for the past ten years. Some personifications lost a lot of weight, some were sick all the time, others pretended they were doing fine while they really weren't – it was a very tough period. Things are starting to look better, thanks to the effort of all the countries in Europe, but…

…

Look, I'm not going to beat around the bush anymore: the Leaders of Europe fear that we might lose you one day, because of all the hectic and chaos that's been going on. And let's face it – some of you personifications have been around for centuries. It's no wonder you might get… tired of it all one day.'

My stomachache got worse. I didn't like the way he sounded – I didn't even like the way he kept on glancing around the room, as if he wanted to make sure nobody would try to make a dash for the exit.

'So…' Mr. Pita said, '…together with the Leaders of Europe – and with the Leaders of North America and Canada, since these personifications seemed to have a close relationship with at least two European nations – we had several meetings to discuss this matter. We really wanted to give you guys a break already. We wanted you… well, I guess you could say we wanted you to retire.

But a nation can't "retire" without a suitable… let's say "heir". After all, when the Roman Empire disappeared, there were at least two grandsons left to continue his work – or at least attempt to get as great as he was. Grandsons – family. Direct family, even. They carried on living as countries in their grandfather's place. But how was that even possible? Personifications of countries are unfruitful – they can't have children, not with other personifications, nor with humans. So how could the Roman Empire have…?

Well, we couldn't figure it out. We had no idea. We were very agitated, because that could have been the ideal solution: replace the older nations by fresh, healthy ones, ones that could have given, say, the economical status of Europe a great boost! But nobody knew what to do, so we all decided to try and think of something else.'

Mr. Pita paused and let his eyes glide over us nations one more time. Carefully.

'Fortunately enough, right on the moment we wanted to throw this "create new nations" thing off the table, Mr. England had something interesting to tell us. Something about England, having made a wonderful, astounding discovery. Now we all knew the poor guy was struggling with his inability to have children – but we never knew he would actually make enough progress on his feverish research that it could be… used to our advantage.

Needless to say, this pleased us greatly.'