Girls' School - England Calling (eBook)

Notfall (S. 12-13)

Should I stay or should I go? The words of an old rock song my parents sometimes play. It’s my question now. How to decide what to do? There’s only one way; Milchkaffee at High Noon. I send an urgent text message to Betti and Merle: Mondstein um 12? Notfall! Usually, Notfall means one thing – either boy trouble or hot boy news! So when Betti and Merle arrive, they’re a little red-faced and breathless. They think they’re going to hear about Sebastian – that he has finally asked me out on a date, perhaps. When I tell them instead about my grandmother offering to send me to London, they are – gobsmacked, my mother would call it. Verblüfft, my father would say.

Merle looks like she might cry. Merle cries very easily, at anything, really. Pictures of Knut the Eisbär, silly Top Model shows on TV. Sometimes at my photos of us together. Anything. Merle says it’s because she’s redhaired and redheads are more emotional. Betti says it’s because Merle’s neurotisch. Merle starts to speak. “Aber was ist mit …?”

But then she has to stop because she really is crying. Betti, the most organised of the three of us, always has a pack of Tempos with her. She passes one to Merle, silently, staring at me as she does so. Betti’s really pretty but she can look hard. Boys are scared of her, sometimes. I’m scared of her, sometimes. Now, for instance. Betti takes a sip of her Milchkaffee. She glances quickly at a cute blonde boy who walks past and then finally says:

“Das ist eine super Chance! Du musst gehen, keine Frage! Du wärst bescheuert, es nicht zu machen, und würdest es dein ganzes Leben bereuen!” Then – surprise – Merle speaks, too. She sounds a bit as though she is talking underwater or from inside a wooden box, but I think she says: “Betti hat recht! So eine Chance kriegt man wirklich nur einmal im Leben.”

Well, that was easy. I’m a bit sad, actually. It seems like everyone who knows me is very pleased that I might leave them. Including my parents. They’re trying not to show it, but I can feel it. My little brother Max was openly ecstatic – Yippee! Can I have your bedroom? And now my best friends, too … am I so awful? Merle reaches over to take my hand. Her eyes are still red. “Emily, wir lieben dich und du wirst uns echt fehlen …” Her voice starts to shake, dangerously. “Für ein Jahr, sagst du?” She bursts into tears again.