Roseanne's Summer Vacation- Chapter 15
“It’s our stop!” Mr Orville called, so the students could get off the bus. Thankfully, nobody was left behind. The teacher heard too many stories in his life about trip participants being left behind by accident. He always made sure the group stayed as a whole.
It was a little after 6 p.m., and everybody felt fatigued, especially because of the morning train. Mr Orville’s original plan was to take them to the Southern Pier, so they could admire the views and grab an evening bite at the nearby restaurants, but seeing the students’ condition, he suggested going to the supermarket instead. He suggested, “I will go on a shopping spree and make you a big dinner at the hostel. What do you think?”.
“Can’t we just buy whatever we want and make our own food at the hostel?” Milena asked.
“You don’t want me to cook for you?”
Milena shook her head shyly. “It’s not because I don’t trust your skills. I’m a picky eater.”
The rest agreed with Milena’s proposition and did just that. After ten minutes of walking into Biedronka, they stormed the self-service tills and walked out with bags full of Cheetos, instant noodles, and hamburgers.
Mr Orville, however, had no idea what to buy for himself. He walked along the aisles until, on a whim, he threw a big loaf of bread together with cheese spread into the basket. Upon leaving, he noticed that Roseanne carried a big bag with her.
“What are you going to eat?”
“My favourite thing, Mr Orville,” she said. “I’m going to cook chicken with rice. And I have to make two portions because Natasha can’t cook to save her life.”
“Hey!” the loyal friend screamed. “I heard that!”
***
They inserted the code and entered the hostel. The lights in the lobby space were out. Roseanne thought that maybe them and Tae-jun are the only residents here at the moment, but then she remembered Tae-jun warned her about people behind the dilapidated doors downstairs. Who were they? Permanent residents? How was that even possible? People who want to live somewhere for good should rent a normal flat instead of paying everyday for a hostel room with no en-suite kitchen or bathroom. Strange.
Roseanne shrugged.
“Mine, mine, mine!” Thally exclaimed at the sight of a microwave in the kitchen. She immediately got into a scuffle with Milena, who also wanted to use it.
“Stop fighting. Each and every one will cook in turn,” Mr Orville said calmly.
Roseanne noticed that the washing machine was spinning.
The teacher divided the workstations according to what the students wanted to prepare. As a result, hamburgers landed in a microwave, the electric kettle started boiling for instant noodles, and the oven was switched on for chicken and rice.
“I swear Health and Safety fanatics would handcuff me for letting you cook your own meals.” Mr Orville placed a loaf of bread on a wooden board and got hold of a big cutting knife from a drawer. The knife, however, wasn’t as sharp as it looked. The blade barely pierced through the crust and penetrated the spongy crumb. Mr Orville had to use a lot of muscle strength to guide the knife. After a few minutes of struggle, he ended up with malformed slices that would make Picasso proud.
Everyone was so preoccupied with their dishes that they didn’t notice a stranger who entered the kitchen. In fact, it was hard to call them a stranger because of their appearance. The more appropriate term would be an alien. Yes, the stranger was an alien. Were they he or she or… something else? There was no neck, the arms and the legs were puffy—as if being replicas of Michelin’s Bibendum—the skin was dented and lumpy, like the surface of an overused waterbed. The corpulent stature of the alien was accompanied by reverberating wheezing.
The high-pitched composition of huffs suddenly made everybody alert.
“Yyyyyyuuuuuughhh… Ghuuuuuuuh,” the alien gasped.
“Whoa! What is going on?” Thally jumped at the sight of the unknown intruder. The alien rushed to the washing machine.
Roseanne froze when she saw the creature diving into the drum. Whistling puffs echoed from the inside.
“Is everything okay in there?” Mr Orville asked, still holding the knife in his hand.
The alien remerged with the clothes held tightly in its clubbed fingers. “Everything… Yyyyyyuuuuuughhh–Ghuuuuuuuh… is fine,” the alien communicated with the voice of a tired, 50-year-old woman. “Have you… arrived here today?”
“Yes, we are on a school trip.” Mr Orville presented his students with a hand gesture. For a second, he thought the asthmatic, obese woman was blind because he couldn’t see her eyes at all from beyond the layers of swollen brows. Nevertheless, the woman did notice them somehow.
“A school trip… in July?”
“It turned out like that. We’re here just for a few days,” Milena explained in a kind tone.
“At least you… You will get some sun.” The abominable alien-like woman took out from her pocket some kind of a leaflet and, with struggle, put it on the dining table. “This can be a good attraction… Yyyyyyuuuuuughhh–Ghuuuuuuuh.”
Still clutching her freshly-washed clothes, she crawled away at a snail’s pace. Mr Orville and the students watched her closely as she disappeared in the pitch black confines of a room at the opposite side of the kitchen.
“Okay, who let Clayface out of the Arkham Asylum?” Thally chuckled, but nobody got her comic book reference.
Mr Orville looked at the leaflet lying on the table. It was an advertisement for the tenors’ concert at Gdynia’s musical theatre. The premiere was in two weeks’ time.
“No matter where we go, crazy people are always waiting for us,” Mr Orville commented with a sigh.
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