Princess of Apocalypse Read online

  Dimitri on the other hand, wasn’t saying a thing, just staring, not at the two idiots, but me. What’ve I done wrong?

  “Who started this?” Mr Smith asked impatiently, his articulation becoming wet.

  “The freak, of course!” Jake and John said simultaneously.

  “Is that so?” Mr Smith turned and faced Dimitri. “Would you please explain yourself?”

  But Dimitri wasn’t saying anything.

  “Leave it to me Mr Smith”, Tatiana pleaded and I had the feeling, this wasn’t over.

  “I’m the teacher here, Miss Ivanova.”

  “It was my fault”, I said and everyone changed their attention to me. Total surprise mirrored in their countenance. To say the truth, I was no less surprised.

  “You, Miss Parker?” Confusion shadowed Mr Smith’s face. I’d never stepped out of line before, never went into a fight, no bad gossiping behind other people’s backs, no spinning of intrigues. In a nutshell, I was the perfect child of an accountant and a vet.

  “We’ll forget about this instance. If this happens again, Miss Parker, I’ll inform your parents, understood?”

  “Yes, Mr Smith, it won’t happen again.” With that, I marched with red cheeks back into the bus, taking my seat next to Vicky.

  “Why did you do that?” she asked.

  “Do what?”

  “It wasn’t your fault.”

  “No, but the situation needed a solution, otherwise they would have hurt each other.”

  “Ha, you mean the freak would’ve gotten hurt.”

  “No, actually, I believe it’s the other way around.”

  Vicky just laughed at me. “Silly! Look at Jake and John’s abs! The freak is no match for them.”

  Unfortunately, I wasn’t convinced.

  ***

  He should have told her! Really? Boys have no understanding of romance. He was completely missing the fact that someone did know, otherwise no one could have written about their love. I gazed out of the window, watching the trees passing by and waiting for sleep to find me. I couldn’t. My conscience was still too occupied with what had happened earlier. And it was time making amends. First of all, I would apologize to Mr Smith. He really deserved an explanation. This behaviour was out of character. So I went out of my seat and walked all the way to the front. Yeah, there was a strict seating arrangement on the bus. The cool pupils were in the back, the entire last bench occupied by John and Jake, and their squad, then the cheerleading squad. At the front were only the teacher’s with the geeks and the losers. Most of my classmates were sleeping anyway and nobody seemed to notice me walking up to the front. I tried not to give any attention to Dimitri or Tatiana. Dimitri was as much at fault as I was. He didn’t need to start a conversation. On the other hand, starting a conversation wasn’t a declaration of war. The two freaks — and I tried to stop myself thinking of them this way — so Tatiana and Dimitri, were in a silent, but energetic discussion, almost an argument. They still didn’t notice me, no one did. I believe the only people not sleeping were Mr Smith and Mrs Jennings and the bus driver — hopefully — and those two.

  I leaned in to eavesdrop, but they were speaking in… Russian. I don’t know a single word in Russian, yet I knew it was that language. Shouldn’t they speak Slovak? Maybe John was right after all, they were Russian spies to get into our minds and start a revolution. Just when I wanted to push forward to Mr Smith to deliver the apology, I noticed, I was understanding them!

  “… that was too close,” Tatiana whispered between pursed lips.

  “I know, but we had to try. That can’t be a coincidence.”

  “Are you listening to yourself?”

  “How many people read Evelyn Hope? Or The Mysterious Hand, which is on her e-reader too?” He went through my e-reader? Most definitely he is a spy! Ever heard about privacy?

  “Whatever, you need to calm down, Dimitri?”

  “Don’t you believe I don’t know? Just think about it, what if the almanac is wrong?”

  “This barbie being… hah, give me a break. That’s ridiculous.”

  “Think it through, please.”

  “There is nothing to think through. She’s gone.”

  There was it again, this dangerous sound which came out of his mouth, but originating from somewhere deeper. It gave me goose bumps.

  “Alright, I give it a thought.”

  Why the hell could I understand them? Or not at all. Even I understood every word, I had no clue what they were talking about.

  I sighed and pushed forward, only to find my way blocked by an elderly man in a very old-fashioned brown suit and brown shoes. “Miss, it’s forbidden to walk while the bus is driving, please take a seat.”

  “Who are you?” The only adults should have been Mr Smith, Mrs Jennings and the bus driver. I’d not noticed this old fellow with the white hair around the bald patch on his head. He clearly was at retirement age.

  “I’m Anthony Baldwin, and you?”

  “Elizabeth Parker”, I answered meekly.

  “So Miss Parker, would you please return to your seat.”

  “Not before I’ve spoken to my class teacher, Mr Smith.” The last two words were raised in climax. He should have heard it, but Mr Smith just continued his wild discussion.

  Instead, Dimitri veered around, fully focussing on me in disbelief and bewilderment. Then he shook Tatiana’s shoulder and got her to turn around as well. Now both were staring at me. “You told me, you fixed this”, he mumbled to her.

  Tatiana was too speechless to say a word. “I… I…”

  “Mr Smith”, I tried again, just louder. No reaction.

  “Miss Parker, I have to insist. I’m teacher and responsible on board of this bus.”

  “I don’t know you!”

  “If you don’t turn around and sit down I have to stop this bus and inform your parents.”

  “Really? Mr Smith, please.”

  “That’s enough.” He turned on his heels and approached the bus driver, when I saw it, a gaping hole at the back of his head, exposing his yellowish brain. I stumbled backwards, fell over my own feet and landed hard on the floor, banging my head. I squeezed my eyes shut and screamed the hell out of me.

  Someone shook me rather harsh. “Izzy!”

  I continued screaming, but the shaking didn’t stop. “Izzy! Wake up!”

  What? I lifted my right eye, all around me were faces, Vicky, Jake, John, Dean, Lucy, Peter, Derek, Luke, Danny. I opened the other eye as well and noticed I was back in my seat.

  Dean smiled at me. “Wow, that must have been a hell of a nightmare!”

  “Give her something to drink”, Lucy said. “She’s completely fired up.” She was right, I was sweating like if I had been cooked in boiling water.

  “What’s going on here?” Mrs Jennings made her way through the rear of the bus.

  “Nothing”, Vicky said. “Izzy, had only a nightmare.”

  I gazed around, searching for Mr Baldwin, but he was nowhere to be seen. A nightmare. Only a nightmare. Blood flushed into my ears and I buried my face in my hands, before the others could see my embarrassment.

  Chapter VII

  General Misunderstandings

  Alright, that was enough. No more horror movies, no more ghost stories, not even Hamlet. Yes, I had been always a magnet for embarrassment, but that squeal on the bus brought it to a completely new level of humiliation. For the next hours, I became the object of plenty of jokes, while we built up the tents near the lakeside. Danny even called me a banshee, a creature that screamed when someone was going to die. “Yeah, it’s you”, I told him. Dad was always saying, if someone plays a joke on you, best is to jump onto the bandwagon and play along. Laughing about one-self‘s silliness makes it easier.

  Moreover, it was a mystery to me, how we should get all of Vicky’s stuff into the tent. She had two outfits for each day, a hairdryer, manicure set, tons of makeup, more than you can possibly find at the local mall. Even a ball dress with matchin
g heels. “Why the hell, do you need this for?” I was holding the pink dress under her nose.

  “Of course for the Enchantment Under the Sea.” As usual, she made it sound so self-explaining.

  Of course, the Enchantment Under the Sea, why didn’t I think of it earlier? “Vicky, there is no Enchantment Under the Sea. No dancing at all. This was Back to the Future.” We’d been watching the repeat with my dad. He loved this old movie and she had a thing for my dad anyway. No one else laughed about his jokes, in particular not my boyfriend.

  “Are you saying, there is no farewell ball, nothing?”

  “I hate breaching this to you, but no.”

  “They could have told me.”

  “They did. They called it a c-a-m-p-i-n-g trip, ever heard of it?”

  Somehow, don’t ask how, we managed to get all her stuff into our tent, even if I would have to rest my head on a pink hardcover suitcase while sleeping. The inconvenience of our accommodation didn’t shock Vicky the slightest. Once the tent was up and everything inside, she was out in her Bikini for a swim in the lake together with our boyfriends. The weather was perfect. Around 85 degrees and not a single cloud on the horizon. I promised her to be there in fifteen, too, just wanted to go to the bathrooms. That was a lie. I’d already apologised to Mr Smith, but there was another amendment to do, but this would require more privacy. Dimitri. His tent wasn’t even built up yet, but he and his cousin had vanished. I asked Lucy and Sandy as casually as possible about the two and Sandy mentioned she saw them disappearing in the forest near the lake. There was a small overgrown path, which I followed. The path stayed close to the lake, so I couldn’t get lost. Which was good as my sense for orientation had never been great.

  It took me a few minutes’ walk until the forest opened up to a small clearing with a rock in the middle. The rock was used as a clothing-horse loaded with a T-shirt, a tank top, a short skirt, some other stuff; all had been removed in a hurry and carelessly thrown over it. I could tell, because that’s how my bedroom used to look. The clearing gave way to a secluded bay of the lake and there they were, standing up to their hips in the water, that means Dimitri was standing, Tatiana had her legs slung around his hips and hung on him like an attachment to his body, his arms were all around her and hers around him, her fingers following the traces of his scarred body. I never saw so many scars; John didn’t exaggerate when he’d mentioned it the other day. But it wasn’t the scars that took my breath away. It was the intimacy between them. She was only dressed in a bra, not even swimwear, not to mention this was the sexy kind you would use to seduce your boyfriend. If that was her intention, it worked. Her pressing her lips onto his skin was completely unnecessary. He responded by massaging her back, burying his nose into her hair as if to take in her scent. I flushed immediately and felt hot all over my body. Again, I wanted to be her for no reason. While setting a foot backwards, I stumbled over a loose stone and collapsed with a tiny scream “Au!”

  “Who do we have here?” It escaped Tatiana annoyed and she climbed off her cousin. I tried to give her the look — I know what you did and that’s wrong as you two are cousins.

  This girl had nerves! While I was glowing red like an over-ripe tomato, she on the other hand, had her usual white. She should have been embarrassed, not me. Or was making out with your cousin normal behaviour in Slovakia?

  She trailed out of the water and to my relief I saw she was still wearing underwear and so was Dimitri. Anyway, I felt more naked with the long T-shirt over my Bikini-top. Immediately I grabbed for the hem and tried to stretch it over my legs.

  “What are you doing here?” I asked and adding to my humiliation, my cell phone started vibrating in my bikini underpants — where else could I have hidden it?

  Tatiana raised her eyebrows. “Your bum vibrates, Barbie.”

  “Don’t you wanna take it?” she added when I didn’t show the slightest intention of moving. “It might be your idiot of a boyfriend looking for you. Obviously, you’re mingling outside your high society zone. Barbie queen wouldn’t be amused about that.”

  All about this chick made me furious to the point of exploding. I was no Barbie!!! But right then, I felt so discomfited that all I brought out was, “What were you doing here?” Sex, you stupid girl, I exhorted me. And that makes you a voyeur.

  “I could ask you the same!” There was a touch of anger in her voice, maybe because I’d interrupted her foreplay.

  “Sorry…, I… I…”

  “Does your idiot of a boyfriend know you’re here?”

  “He is no idiot!”

  “Well, we might have a different opinion about that!”

  My head tilted to the side so my glance could pivot around her at Dimitri. “I… I… I just came to say how sorry I am for what happened earlier. I really feel gratitude for you, returning my e-reader. The situation should have never escalated, not to that extend anyway.”

  “Just to get it straight”, Dimitri said and sounded almost amused. “You come here and excuse for something that wasn’t your fault; in fact, you might have saved the day.”

  Why was he seeing it this way, while my stupid god of a boyfriend was not even thinking close in this direction?

  “I have a look at this tent,” Tatiana said, took her clothes from the rock, and marched off, not without shooting me a warning under her breath when she passed me. “Hands off him or I break them, Barbie.”

  Hello, I have a boyfriend myself, I wanted to call after her, but couldn’t get a word out as Dimitri had just turned up and got back into his pants, without even drying himself.

  I wanted to say something, anything, so I brought out the first question that crossed my mind. “Where did you get all those scars from?”

  Just now I realised how mesmerised I was staring at them, like if it was a picture — a picture of misery. “I mean, did they hurt when you got them?” Hell, what’s up with me. Of course, they’d hurt. Those dreadful marks didn’t come from the touch of a feather.

  He shrugged. “Some by accident, others because I messed with the wrong… people; most a worthwhile lesson learned of some foolish mistakes.”

  “Seems you made a lot of foolish mistakes.” Izzy, I warned me. You didn’t come here insulting him, only to express your apologies.

  He should be angry, but after a few seconds, he giggled an honest laugh. “Fair point taken, Elizabeth. Let’s say, I was a big fool, a bigger one than your boyfriend. By the way, what happened on the bus earlier?”

  “Pure embarrassment”. I smiled nonplussing. “Don’t ask. I might be a bigger fool than you, only my scars are invisible.”

  He smirked. “What scared you in your dream, Elizabeth.”

  “Why do you call me that?” It had confused me already back in the parking bay breakout area. It was either the way he said it or just that he used my name so frequently.

  “I can’t call you Izzy as only your friends are allowed to call you Izzy. And Miss Parker sounds very formal, but we can settle for Parker if you like.”

  Damn, he was right. Only my friends call me Izzy and there was no one not calling me Izzy as I had no non-friends, if that made sense. “How did you know this?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You could have called me Izzy like everyone else, but went for Elizabeth straight away. You couldn’t know about it…” I did tell him, in my dream. But, that was a dream, right?

  “You probably would’ve told me off, if I called you Izzy.”

  “That’s not the point, you could have tried.”

  “Do you want me to call you Izzy?”

  “No!” it escaped me promptly.

  “I must call you somehow!” He had a point there, I gave him that much.

  “Call me… Izzy, it’s alright, sorry, I’m just not myself recently. There is all this car accident torment going on in my head. Sometimes I don’t know any more what to think and believe and then I could—”

  “Izzy, it’s fine.” His hand was suddenly on my upper
arm. It felt as if hundreds of fireworks were going off inside me. “You’re not obliged to tell me.”

  I startled backwards and out of his range. He got the message and took a deliberate step backwards.

  “Sorry—“

  “You say sorry a lot.” He gave me an apologetic smile.

  “You noticed.”

  “It’s somehow hard to miss. Anyway, why are you reading Evelyn Hope?”

  My forehead turned to wrinkles. “You seem really obsessed with that piece of literature.”

  “I just don’t know many people reading it anymore. Same as The Mysterious Hand.”

  “You went through my e-reader?”

  “Couldn’t help myself, sorry. But as I said, I’m astonished you’re reading those old stuff. You might be the only one.”

  I was divided between anger at him for invading my privacy, and curiosity about finally having found someone who I could talk about those masterpieces. Curiosity won. “What a pity. But you seem to be really into English literature.”

  “English… Russian… Alexander Pushkin is my favourite. Let’s say, I had a good mentor.”

  “Teacher”, I corrected him. “We call them teachers here.”

  “And here we go—“ His eyes rolled in annoyance. What did I do?

  “Hey, freak”, it thundered in my back. “I told you to let my girlfriend alone.”

  Oh shit. I veered around and there was not only Jake, but also John, Dean, Luke, Danny, Lucy and Vicky. None of them looking too pleased seeing me with Dimitri and I’d to admit, the scene could’ve been easily misunderstood with Dimitri still standing there topless.

  John made this awful sound with his knuckles, making it sound as bulldozing gravel. “I think it’s time teaching him a lesson, bro”.

  “Stop”, I said, my voice broken in panic. “It’s not what you think.”

  “Right, Izzy”, Jake said. “Leave this to me. He’ll never get anywhere near you again, I promise.”

  “No, no, no, no, you don’t understand.”

  “Izzy”, Vicky stampeded with her right foot onto the ground as if killing a nasty bug. “Come here, now!”