Chapter 8: Brass and Banjo
It was briefly past noon. Lori and Marisa sat in Lori's car. Lori was driving on the country road to the suburb where Tatiana was living. Marisa was holding a Tupperware in her hands.
"I said hold it firmly." Lori said.
"I do." Marisa answered.
"Yeah but I don't want any chance of wan tan soup being spilled across everything here."
"Why did we even take wan tan soup with us?"
"Because I said I bring Chinese food with us."
"And I have to hold it of course."
"I am driving here. I don't want this Tupperware to do a breakdance in here." Lori said.
"Why didn't she cook if we meet her at her home?"
"Because I try to be nice with her."
"Fair point. Why wan tan?"
"She and Quinn ate that together sometimes. Both loved that."
"Quinn was the chubby with the bunny?"
"Yes. I wonder how she is today."
"You tried to contact her?"
"Nah. They are somewhere I don't know and I have no idea how to look for them. A wonder that I found Tatiana."
They arrived at Tatiana's home. Lori parked her car on the driveway, and got out with Marisa. Lori rang on the doorbell. Tatiana opened the door.
"Welcome." Tatiana said.
"Hi. We brought the food." Lori said.
"Wan tan soup." Marisa said.
Tatiana took the Tupperware with a forced smile.
"Yes… Thank you." Tatiana said.
"All okay?" Marisa asked.
"Yes. Just enter." Tatiana said.
Lori and Marisa entered the house. Tatiana closed the door, and went with Lori and Marisa into the dining room.
"I warm it up." Tatiana said, and went into the kitchen.
Marisa and Lori sat down.
"She remembered Quinn didn't she?" Marisa whispered.
"I am pretty sure she did." Lori said.
"Was that why you choose wan tan?"
"Maybe?"
"Why?"
"I have no idea myself."
"She didn't seem to like it." Marisa said.
Tatiana came with the wan tan soup into the living room. She put it on the table and then took some dishes. They started to eat.
"Is it good?" Lori asked.
"I didn't have wan tans since a long time." Tatiana said, and ate one.
Took a spoon full of the soup.
"I remembered them much more horribly."
"So you're happy with what I brought?" Lori asked.
"Yes." Tatiana ate another wan tan.
"Where did you get it?" Tatiana asked.
"At a Chinese restaurant at fairway. Very good located. The final tram destination is at the university, and you have only one destination to take." Lori said.
"That's not bad."
"It is. Right Marisa?"
Marisa nodded. Marisa looked at Tatiana.
"What happened after Halloween? You said you did something after that?" Marisa asked.
"We wanted to know more about this station. So we went to the local radio." Tatiana said.
"I can remember something really well." Lori said.
Saturday, November 2th 2013:
Lori, Tatiana, Quinn, Jane and Betty, Carol and Ava were in the town of Royal Woods, standing in Front of a modern building that had a facade made of glass, with the red letter "RadioRW1" on it. Betty looked at the building and then at Jane. She moved her hands. Jane nodded.
"What did she say?" Lori asked.
"She thinks that radio isn't something for her." Jane said.
"Why?" Quinn asked.
The girls gave Quinn an odd look. Quinn understood.
"Oh. Right."
"We go in?" Carol asked.
"We go in." Lori said and nodded.
The girls went into the building. A man was at an office writing something on a computer.
"Hello?" Lori asked.
The man turned around.
"Yes? How can I help?"
"Where is the studio?"
"In the upper floor. But don't enter when Gabriela is on air."
Lori nodded. The girls went to an elevator, and got in. The elevator took them upwards. They got out and immediately stood in a floor, with a glass wall on one side. A woman with long blonde her sat at a desk with a computer, a big microphone, at ton of sliders and a headset on her head.
"Is that the studio?" Quinn asked.
"Looks like it." Carol said.
"She looks busy." Jane said.
The woman was speaking into the microphone with a lot of gestures. Lori saw a red glowing sign that said "On air".
"We have to wait." Lori said.
"How long?" Tatiana asked.
"I don't know." "I hate waiting."
"Me too." Jane said.
The woman took some sliders back, took the headphones off, stood up, and came through the door.
"Hi. My name is Gabriela. Can I help you?"
The girls looked at each other.
"We want to know something about a radio station." Lori said.
"Sure. What do you want to know about Radio Royal Woods?" Gabriela asked.
"No. Not this one. Another one." Carol said.
"Okay? Wich one?"
The girls looked at each other.
"Did frank mention a name?" Jane asked.
"Yes. But I only remember that it has a number." Tatiana said.
"100.30 FM?" Gabriela asked.
"No. It's not a normal radio. It buzzes." Lori said.
"I… don't know what you mean." Gabriela asked.
"It buzzes all the time… It comes from Russia, and it says random names and numbers." Carol said.
"Uh… I never heard anything like that before." Gabriela said.
Betty looked at Gabriel's red t-shirt, the black leggings and brown boots, with the back length blonde hair. Betty moved her hands. Jane looked at her, and nodded.
"What was that?" Gabriela asked.
"She just told me something." Jane said.
"Okay…"
"So you can't tell us anything about this Russian radio station?" Lori asked.
"Uhm… No… I just work in the studio." The girls felt down.
"Uh… This is not what I needed today." Carol said.
"Does anyone here know more about this maybe?" Tatiana asked.
"Maybe a technician. They are mostly in the technical room or at the TV tower." Gabriela said.
The girls were a little bit surprised.
"The TV tower?" Quinn asked.
"I don't know much about radio but I know that we transmit from there." Gabriela said.
"That's odd." Lori said.
"Ah, I need to go back to the studio. Have a nice day."
Gabriela went into the studio, put on her headset and continued to moderate the radio.
"This was a waste of time!" Quinn said with a mad tone.
"Kinda. She said that maybe a technician knows what we want to know." Lori said.
"I check if a technician is here." Ava said and walked through the aisle of the building.
Ava disappeared behind a corner.
"So we have to go to the TV tower?" Jane asked annoyed.
"This thing is on a hill in the forest. I'm not really willing to go there again." Quinn said.
"Do you want to know something about this radio station or not?" Lori asked.
"No one there."
Quinn got a heart attack and looked behind her. It was Ava.
"Oh my god…" Quinn said.
"Did you find a technician?" Lori asked.
"No. But is anyone of you interested in becoming famous?" Ava asked and gave Lori a flyer.
"Brass band wanted... You think that's funny?" Lori asked annoyed.
Ava shrugged.
"Uh. Maybe that's something smart we can do." Lori said and put it in her pocket.
"So we have to go to the TV tower?" Tatiana asked.
"Yes."
The girls left the building and walked to the giant TV tower, that was uphill in the big forest. They went down concrete stairs to a big metallic door. A van stood on a parking lot.
"Okay. And how do we get in?" Jane asked.
Lori looked at the door, and spotted a doorbell.
"A doorbell." Lori said and pressed it.
He was wearing a red business shirt, blue jeans and brown leather shoes.
"Hello. Can I help you?"
"Yes. We want to know something about a radio station." Lori said.
"Sure. Wanna come up?" The technician asked.
"Up?" Lori asked.
"Come with me."
The girls entered through the door. An elevator was in a room. The girls got shocked a bit.
"An elevator?" Lori asked.
"We go… up the tower?" Jane asked.
"Exactly."
The technician pressed a button and the elevator opened. The girls got in. The doors closed and the elevator moved upwards.
"It's a tall tower and the observation level is around hundred and twenty meters above the ground. My name is Thomas by the way."
The elevator stopped and they entered a room with many tables, and a glass wall, which let them see all over Royal woods, from the forests at the other side to the river and the power plant, and the big corn fields near the river. The girls got stunned by the view.
"Oh Kurwa." Tatiana said.
"I've never imagined it like this here." Lori said.
Betty moved her hands. Jane nodded and translated.
"Betty thinks radio is great now." Jane said.
Betty continued to move her hands.
"But she still likes television more."
"How does she even know what is going on on TV when she can't hear the dialogue?" Quinn asked.
"We watch with subtitles. Sometimes I mute the tv and we both just watch with subtitles." Jane said.
"Kind from you." Carol said.
Jane smiled.
"So, what are the questions you want to ask?" Thomas asked.
"So, we were told about a station. It buzzes all the time, says random names and comes out of Russia. Do you know anything about this station?" Lori asked.
"The buzzer?" Thomas asked with a slightly surprised smile.
"You know something about it?" Carol asked.
"Yes. A channel marker with a buzzing tone that comes from Russia. Why do you ask?" Thomas asked.
"We were told by someone who knows about a lot of this stuff." Lori said.
"At Halloween." Tatiana said.
"We want to know more." Carol said.
"Okay. What are your questions?"
"Have you ever heard ghosts show up there?" Ava asked.
"No. To be fair, I never heard it in the US. That's rare. I was on an Europe trip with a friend. His name is Frank, and we heard it in Europe really well. Even at day when we were in Estonia. There it is really strong, and I only heard one voice message." Thomas said.
"You clearly don't know what Frank told us in his story." Lori said.
"We talk about the same Frank. The one with the giant antenna on his roof?" Thomas asked.
"Yes." Carol said.
"Okay. I'm sure he told you the same I would tell you."
"What do you usually talk about?" Quinn asked.
"Hmm. The last radio connection I had with him was over a repeater in two meters, and we talked about how hard it is to replace headlights on a car. About the station, we talked about that a lot." Thomas said.
"My dad loves his van. He does some fixes by himself." Lori said.
"Fix things you can fix by yourself. I don't know how old Frank's TV is but he fixed it so many times." Thomas said.
"And about the buzzer, there are no ghosts?" Ava asked.
"No. It's called a ghosts station because it doesn't exist officially. People argue about its use. But it's really just a noise and code station. But not a true number station like one that we call the English man. It's random and not scheduled. That makes the buzzer special. The buzzer shares the same behavior as its sister stations the pip and the squeaky wheel. By the way, it's normal to hear odd things about shortwave." Thomas said.
"What are those sister stations?" Jane asked.
"Those are stations that are pretty much the same as the buzzer. The pip for example, it just makes a beeping sound all the time. Then it transmits codes in the same order as the buzzer. And the squeaky wheel does the same. It sounded like a wheel of a bike that was squeaking. Now I think it's… Three repeating tones? I think. In any case, they all behave the same. They are kind of an oddity but I heard much weirder stuff."
"And the odd things?" Carol asked.
"Yosemite Sam." Thomas said.
"What?" Quinn asked.
"On one frequency you heard Yosemite Sam saying a phrase. You know, the little red bearded cowboy from looney tunes."
"Thats just weird." Carol said.
"I can't argue with that. It is." Thomas said.
"Thank you for answering our questions." Carol said.
"No problem."
"We would like to leave." Lori said.
"Alright."
They went to the elevator, got in, and went down the tower. They got out of the elevator and walked out of the lower concrete building that was under the tower and underground. Thomas waved at them and closed the door.
"That went good." Lori said.
"Not bad." Tatiana said.
"I think frank told us all he knew." Quinn said.
"No ghosts." Ava said.
"It's creepy already. This thing doesn't need ghosts." Jane said.
"Ghosts would make it better." Ava said.
"Let's go somewhere to talk about this further." Lori said.
"Where?" Jane asked.
"The park."
The girls left the place of the TV Tower and went back to Royal woods. It took them a good while. Eventually, they reached the park, and sat down on a bench.
"Okay. We're here. And now?" Jane asked.
"Well, we have a good place to talk about all of that." Lori said.
"We couldn't do this like, when we were walking here?" Quinn asked.
"No. Anyway… I think we just came to the weirdest topic."
"Ah. You mean, after buzzing radios and Yosemite Sam it couldn't be weirder?" Jane asked.
"It is weird." Tatiana said.
"I ask, why a buzz?" Quinn said.
"Why a squeaky wheel?" Carol asked.
"Uh. This topic…" Lori said.
Lori looked at Betty.
"Jane, what does Betty think of it?"
Jane looked at Betty, moved her hands and spoke what she asked.
"What… do you… think… of that?"
Bett started to move her hands. Jane nodded and translated.
"I don't know… I like TV more." The girls laughed.
"Okay. Fair point." Lori said.
"I wonder what Ava thinks." Tatiana said.
The girls looked at Ava.
"TV or radio?" Carol asked.
"Depends. To the Russian station, I think we know everything there is to know. A buzzing keeps the frequency clear, for messages that follow sometimes. I think it's as simple as that." Ava said.
"So that's all you mean?" Lori asked.
Ava nodded.
"Well, seems like that's all." Carol said.
Lori nodded.
"Well, we talked about it. I go home now." Lori said.
"Okay. See you." Jane said.
Ava got up.
"Bye."
Lori and Ava walked off. The rest of the girls said goodbye and each other, and then went home.
Saturday, 11th April, 2020:
Lori, Marisa and Tatiana were about to finish their wan tan soup.
"You went quite on a Halloween trip." Marisa said and put the last wan tan in her mouth.
"We just wanted to know what this thing was about. And then, yeah, that was it." Lori said.
"We just wanted to get some details. We had them already." Tatiana said.
They finished their lunch. Lori, Marisa and Tatiana put their dishes into the dishwasher in the kitchen.
"I turn that thing on tonight. Anyway, I need to show you something." Tatiana said.
"What is it?" Marisa asked.
"I found some photos on a hard drive." Tatiana said.
"Really?" Lori asked.
"Yeah. Come with me."
They went into a small room where a computer was standing on a desk. Tatiana put some chairs in front of the computer and they all sat down. Tatiana opened a folder, and showed some photos. The first photo showed Lori, Tatiana, and Jane and Betty. They were in the park and Tatiana was chasing them.
"That's me, the twins, and Lori." Tatiana said.
"Who is who?" Marisa asked.
"The one on the is Betty I think, and the one on the left is Jane. I was able to hold them apart… Too long ago." Tatiana said.
Lori looked closely at the picture.
"I only could tell them apart because one spoke and the other didn't." Lori said.
Tatiana pressed a arrow button and showed another photo. It showed Ava, sitting on a bench with spread legs, looking from an upper angle into the camera with her right eye covered by her hair.
"Wow. She really looks goth." Marisa said.
"She loved to pose like this." Lori said.
"Yes. And she looked always good on the photos." Tatiana said.
"Was her hair often covering her eye?" Marisa asked.
"On some days yes." Lori said.
"That was her style. And it looked really good." Tatiana said.
"Didn't that bother her?" Marisa asked.
"Nah. I think she liked that." Lori said.
"She was interesting for sure." Marisa said.
"She was." Lori answered.
Tatiana pressed the arrow button and the next photo got showed. It showed Quinn, Carol and Ava in the park. Carol was saying something and Quinn and Ava were listening.
"I am sure Betty made that photo. She always made photos of us doing random stuff." Tatiana said.
"Who made the other photos?" Marisa asked.
"Not sure. We had one small camera, that was Jane's one. She asked one morning for a camera and got it in the afternoon." Tatiana said.
"Her parents gave her everything she wanted." Lori said.
"That made me always jealous." Lori said.
"Me too. But I had enough stuff." Tatiana said.
Tatiana pressed the arrow button and the next photo was being showed. It showed all the girls except Betty with musical instruments.
"Wow. What's that?" Marisa asked surprised.
"Ah. That was in the December of that same year. We started band." Tatiana said.
Tuesday, December 3th 2013:
The girls were walking to the choir room. They all had, except Betty, instrument cases in their hands. Jane and Betty had their beautiful red hair again.
"It's so awesome. You know, this can help us all to get a even better gang." Carol said.
"You said that already." Jane said.
"Maybe Carol, but Betty is always sitting in the corner and reads Donald Duck comics. I don't think that benefits her like you hope it does us." Lori said.
"No. It actually doesn't." Jane said.
"We need to find something Betty will have fun with too." Tatiana said and put her hand on Betty's shoulder.
Betty looked at her and smiled.
"I'm sure there is something she will like." Carol said.
"What is in your mind?" Quinn asked.
"I don't know."
"The camera I asked for is something she really enjoys." Jane said.
"I think no one enjoys that camera as much as Betty does." Quinn said.
"I've never seen someone being that happy about a camera like Betty." Lori said.
The girls entered the choir room. They took out their instruments. Lori had a tuba, Tatiana a trumpet, Carol a French horn, Jane a Trombone, and Quinn a tin flute. The girls looked at Ava.
"Take it out. We don't make fun of you." Lori said.
"I hate my family." Ava said, and took a Banjo out of the Instrument case.
Betty moved her hands. Jane nodded.
"Betty says she will read her comics now." Jane said.
Betty went to a wall, sat down and opened a Donald Duck comic book. The girls looked at Ava.
"Come on. Last time you played it you did very well." Lori said.
"We learn the instruments. You already play it." Carol said.
"I hate that my family comes from Florida." Ava said.
"And? You play it damn well." Quinn said.
"I wanted to play the organ and not a banjo." Ava said.
"Wich song do we Play?" Quinn asked.
"Gdzie Jest Biały Węgorz?" Tatiana asked.
"Jesus that title. How do you even manage to pronounce that?" Jane asked.
"I just can."
"Okay. Then get ready, and one two three four."
The girls started to play the melody of the song Tatiana asked for. They blew into the Instruments, with Ava accompanying the beat with her Banjo. Lori tries hard to keep the melody. Yet pressing the right buttons for the valves at the right time was harder than it looked. They played the song for a while and then stopped.
"That's was surprisingly well for the first song." Lori said.
"You happy Tatiana?" Quinn asked.
"Yes." Tatiana said.
The girls continued to play for an hour. Eventually they stopped to play. The girls cleaned the mouth parts of their instruments, and put them in the instrument cases. Jane took Betty on her hand, and they all left the choir room.
"Went well." Tatiana said.
"Yes. And Ava did really well." Lori said.
"You are well with the Banjo." Jane said.
"I hate the Banjo." Ava said.
"You say that every time." Quinn said and rolled her eyes.
"You played it very well." Lori said.
"We all play brass instruments. You play your banjo so well that it blends in." Jane said.
"Smooth sound." Tatiana said.
"Tatiana is the Most Musical of us. If she says that, it has to be true." Quinn said.
Ava remained silent.
"We still have class for an hour." Lori said.
"What is it again?" Quinn asked.
"Math." Jane said.
"The last thing I needed." Carol said.
"What do we have?" Ava asked.
"Handcraft." Tatiana said with a smile.
"Lucky guys." Jane said.
"What will you craft?" Lori asked.
"Maybe Christmas stuff?" Tatiana said.
"Why would you have Christmas stuff to make?" Quinn asked.
"Haven't you opened your Christmas calendar today? We have only 21 days left for Christmas." Tatiana said.
The girls looked at each other, and got really excited, except Ava and Betty.
"This is so great. I can't wait for it." Lori said.
"I hope I get some new stuff for my Bunnies." Quinn said.
"Awesome awesome awesome." Jane said with a fast voice.
Betty tapped Jane's shoulder and moved her hands. Jane translated.
"Why are you… so excited?"
Jane started to answering her and spoke what she told Betty.
"We realized… Christmas is… in less… than a month."
Betty rolled her eyes and answered. Jane translated again.
"I know that… Look at your Calendar."
"Of course she would answer like this." Quinn said.
Ava looked at Betty and moved her hands, telling her something. Betty nodded and pointed at Ava in a way that showed that Betty agreed with her.
"What did they just talk?" Lori asked surprised.
"I absolutely don't know… I didn't expect that at all." Jane said.
"Let's go to class. Have fun crafting." Carol said in Tatiana's and Ava's direction.
Lori, Carol, Quinn and Jane went to their classroom. Betty went to hers. And Ava and Tatiana went to their class.
Tatiana and Ava entered the crafting class room. They sat together at a giant workbench, which it had many in the room. Other things that were in the room, were giant drills for woodworking, and a giant belt saw, which was labeled with "only for teachers use". Other kids sat at the workbenches. The teacher, Named Mr Brown. He was tall, in the age of sixty, and was wearing a light blue shirt and blue jeans, with a craftsman's apron.
"Okay. We're complete. We won't work today with wood. Or any tools. I want but… Christmas things aren't so easy to make with powerful tools. We are making a cardboard Santa today." Mr Brown said, and held up a Santa, that was made with cardboard.
The cardboard Santa had his typical red clothes, and his beard and the white part of his clothes were made with white cotton.
"Something simple. That's also a nice thing to do."
Tatiana and Ava took scissors, cardboard, glue, white cotton, paper in many colors, and colors for coloring the cardboard. They started to cut the cardboard.
"Do you have an idea for your Santa?" Tatiana asked.
"Black clothes." Ava said.
"I have an idea too." Tatiana said.
Tatiana cut out a Santa, and started to color it. She drew him a face with skin color, and then drew with red color his clothes. Tatiana finished the coloring with black color for the belt and the outlines and the eyes and nose. Tatiana let the colors dry and looked at Ava. Ava was coloring the clothes of her Santa black.
"Night Santa?" Tatiana asked.
"Yes." Ava answered.
Tatiana had a slight awkwardly feeling.
"Okay." Tatiana said, and continued with her Santa.
An hour Later, the class was coming to an end. Ava was looking at her black dressed Santa Claus. She looked at Tatiana. Tatiana held her Santa Claus. It looked very classic. With a big white beard and a big brown sack for the presents. Only one thing was not so typical. The Santa Tatiana made held in his left hand a Bottle with the writing «Wódka» on it.
"A polish Santa?" Ava asked.
"Tak. Polish Santa." Tatiana said. "He drinks Vodka?"
"Yes. We call him Gwiazdor by the way."
"How?" Ava asked.
"Gwiazdor." Tatiana said.
Mr brown came to their place. He checked out the work of the other students, and now it was the turning Tatiana and Ava. He looked at Ava's Santa.
"He wears… A lot of black." Mr Brown said.
Ava nodded.
"I've never seen a black Santa you know." Mr Brown said.
"Has anyone ever seen Santa?" Ava asked with a emotionless voice.
"Maybe."
Mr Brown looked at Tatiana's Santa.
"Why does he have Vodka?"
"It's polish Santa. Gwiazdor." Tatiana said.
"Okay. Maybe Vodka isn't the right thing for him? I mean, he needs to fly the sleigh."
Tatiana shrugged.
"The reindeers will deal with drunk Santa." Tatiana said.
Mr Brown nodded and went to the other kids, looking at their work. Tatiana looked at her Santa and then at Ava.
"We did a pretty good job." Tatiana said.
Ava nodded.
"Where are you going to hang this Santa?" Tatiana asked.
"Maybe at the living room wall. Or in Juliet's room." Ava said with a slight grin.
"Little sister of you?"
"Yes. The big one is Geena." Ava said.
"Anastazja will love the Santa I made."
Lori, Jane, Carol and Quinn were in the math class with Mr Gibson. They had some math calculations on some sheets. Lori and Carol sat on one table, looking at their calculations.
"Yikes. It doesn't get better." Lori whispered.
"Ten minutes until school ends and we have to do this crap?" Carol whispered.
"Tatiana would do well with this."
"What you don't say? I hate math." Carol whispered.
"Me too." They looked at the calculation.
282-39(6288x728-(292:29x282))-2:100
"Why do we have to be punished that way?" Lori whispered.
"I think we deserve this." Carol whispered.
"Why?"
"Remember what we did to Alex and Victor?"
"That was over two months ago." Lori said.
"But what we did to them was really bad."
"Forget about it. It's a long time since that happened. And we got punished enough already." Lori whispered.
Lori and Carol started to calculate the calculation. Or tried it. It was difficult for them to calculate the numbers. Especially the ones in the middle of the calculations were difficult.
"This is unnecessarily difficult." Carol whispered.
"I bet when we show that to Tatiana later she would immediately solve this calculation." Lori whispered.
"I swear I will show Tatiana this calculation when we're out of here."
"We should have her joining our class." Lori said.
"We should ask Mrs. Schwarz about that. I hope she agrees." Carol said.
The class came to an end. Lori and her friends took their instrument cases, their backpacks, and Lori the paper with the calculations. They went through the hallways of the school. Eventually they joined Tatiana, Ava and then Betty. Betty and Jane started to hold hands.
"How was your class?" Carol asked.
"I made polish Santa." Tatiana said and held up the Santa she made.
"I guess why he's polish." Lori said and looked at the bottle Tatiana's Santa held.
"Tell them how Santa is called in your language." Ava said.
"Gwiazdor." Tatiana said.
Lori, Carol, Quinn and Jane laughed. Tatiana got mad.
"What are you laughing at!?" Tatiana asked.
"It sounds funny." Lori said and tried to hold back her laugh.
"Your language sounds so funny." Quinn asked.
"Kurwa!" Tatiana said with an angry voice.
"This word too." Jane laughed.
"How was your class?" Ava asked.
"Good. Ah, reminds me, Tatiana, could you solve this?" Lori asked, and gave Tatiana the paper with the calculations.
Tatiana looked at the calculations. They left the school building and walked over the area.
"Uh, four millions… and five hundred thousand? Yeah around this." Tatiana said.
The girls became a little shocked.
"4.5 millions? You sure?" Carol asked.
"Pretty much." Tatiana said.
"Why do they throw such calculations at us?" Lori said and facepalmed herself.
"No wonder we're so bad at math." Quinn said.
"Doesn't surprise me at all anymore."
The girls left the school area and waited at the bus stop.
"What are you going to do today?" Lori asked.
"I hang my Santa in Juliet's room." Ava said and held up her black clothed Santa.
"I think she will hate that." Carol said.
"My entertainment." Ava said.
"Something is seriously wrong with you." Quinn said.
"Yes."
"You realized that just now?" Lori asked with an ironic voice.
Quinn rolled her eyes.
"Tell us how it went Ava." Quinn said.
Ava remained silent. The girls became confused.
"You okay?" Lori asked.
Ava ignored them and looked down the road.
"I think she just doesn't want to talk." Tatiana said.
"Okay…" Carol said awkwardly.
"Doesn't surprise me anymore." Jane said.
Saturday, 11th April, 2020:
Lori, Tatiana and Marisa were in the room in Tatiana's home and sat in front of her computer.
"That was a funny idea with those Santa's." Marisa said and giggled.
"It was typical for them." Lori said.
"Samantha still has this Santa somewhere. It hangs on the wall every Christmas." Tatiana said.
Tatiana tapped on the right arrow key on the computer keyboard. A video with a play button was showed on the screen.
"Oh. This video." Tatiana said, and laughed.
"What is with that?" Marisa asked.
"It's just really cringe."
"Play it." Lori said.
Tatiana hit the space bar and the video played. Young tatiana looked into the camera, and started to speak with her thick accent.
«Is it mean to record video with audio for Betty?»
Young Tatiana turned the camera to young Jane.
«She sees us talking all the time!»
The voice of young Lori was audible.
«Give me that thing!»
The camera shook and now it showed Ava, sitting next to a window.
«Dark Queen Ava!» Young Lori said with a deepened voice.
«Queen of Darkness.» Ava said.
"She has a soft voice." Marisa said.
Young Quinn's voice was audible.
«I have something better.»
The camera turned and showed Quinn, holding a Bunny.
«Bunny!» Quinn said and held the bunny at the camera.
«Cliff would rip me apart if I did that.» Young Lori said.
Young Carols voice spoke.
«But your cat isn't normal.»
"What kind of video were you making?" Marisa asked.
"I don't know." Lori said.
"We mostly started to record and it was just nonsense." Tatiana said.
"Did you even know how to do that?" Marisa asked with a smile.
"We just hit record and that was it." Lori said.
"We also recorded often when we played around with firecrackers." Tatiana said.
Marisas eyes widened.
"Firecrackers?" Maria asked shocked.
"We loved to play with those." Tatiana said.
"You loved to play with them. We watched and had fun." Lori said.
"Remember the space program we made?" Tatiana asked.
"You mean the polish American space program Kurwa one?"
"Yes."
"What?" Marisa asked with a shocked expression.
"We put a kitchen pot Tatiana wrote Kurwa one on over a big firecracker and let it fly away." Lori said.
"Oh my god." Marisa said and facepalmed herself with both hands.
"You okay?" Lori asked and chuckled.
"Yes. I am just shocked that you did so dumb stuff." Marisa said and chuckled.
"That was nothing. I made a firecracker at new year once." Tatiana said.
"You mean the Fat Mama?" Lori asked.
"Oh yes."
"Fat mama?" Marisa asked confused.
"Tatiana filled a pipe with the powder from her polish firecrackers, like if they weren't strong enough already, closed it with a fuse and… Yeah…"
"You know it's dangerous to play around with fire crackers?" Marisa said.
"It's always dangerous to play around with those." Lori said.
"Just avoid doing dumb stuff with it like I did." Tatiana said.
"It was especially Tatiana with the dumb ideas." Lori said.
"But you loved them." Tatiana said.
"Oh yes."
Marisa facepalmed herself again.
"You alright?" Tatiana asked and chuckled.
"Yeah. I'm alright." Marisa said.
"Then why did you facepalm yourself?" Lori asked.
"Don't worry about it." Marisa said.
Lori and Marisa got up. Tatiana looked at them.
"Where are you going?" Tatiana asked.
"Home." Lori said.
"Something wrong?"
"No. It's just that we need to do some things at home."
"Like laundry." Marisa said annoyed.
"I hate that too." Tatiana said.
"Me too. Okay, I wish you a nice evening." Lori said.
"Dzięki." Tatiana said.
"You're welcome."
Lori and Marisa went to the front door and left Tatiana's house.
"You understood that?" Marisa asked.
"No. But I'm very sure it meant thank you." Lori said.
They both chuckled again. Lori and Marisa sat down in Lori's car, and went home.
End of the Chapter