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Crille had waited for everyone else to walk out to the snowy schoolyard. Waited for them to leave so he could walk home alone, unnoticed, protected by the blue dusk.
16:23
They were still there, Tony and his friends reenacting a war with snowballs. The snow was in perfect condition to be thrown at people's faces… not too wet, not too powdery. Next time he would be the first one to leave.
Still, he had to go home, he couldn't be late. Mom would ask too many questions.
The heavy backpack was almost pulling him out of balance. He needed time to catch up with homework. But it wasn't his fault that he couldn't focus in the classroom. Not when Tony was there, making his presence so overwhelmingly known; his loud voice drowning out the teacher's warnings, the erasers hitting Crille in the head, like an extended arm from across the room.
Crille watched them through the window. They were so immersed in their own fight, maybe he could slip by unnoticed… The distance to the forest where he took a shortcut was merely 30 meters, he estimated. He sneaked out, trying to hurry past them.
The little boy barely made it halfway before Tony caught up to him, mauling his face with a gravel infested snowball. Crille couldn't breathe.
Another hand tugged at his jacket from behind, pouring snow down his back.
Tony had made sure to be on the side of the building where no windows faced the crime scene. He had done this before.
After what felt like years, Tony released him, or rather, pushed him into a pile of snow. A choir of pitiless laughter rang in his ears. He didn't dare look up, warm tears already melting the icy specks on his cheeks.
When Tony was satisfied, the laughter died down and they walked off to their mopeds. His little sheep followed closely behind.
Crille didn't move until he was sure they were out of sight. He rubbed his woollen glove across his face, leaving a trace of snow, snot, and tears.
He crawled around and pulled himself out of the snow. The snow inside his shirt had started to melt.
The door slammed shut a little harder than he had intended, alerting his mom of his late arrival. She came from the kitchen, her dirty apron loosely tied at the back.
“Where have you been? You finished school almost an hour ago!”
He mumbled something about how it was none of her business. Eyes glued to his feet as he kicked off his boots, threw his thick winter jacket to the floor and brushed past his concerned mom, hurrying upstairs to his room.
“Dinner is ready soon!”, she shouted at his wet back disappearing above the stairs.
The backpack was swung into a corner as soon as he opened the door. Next, he liberated himself from the wet t-shirt that clung to his torso, replacing it with the first sweater he saw laying on the floor.
He met his own gaze in the tiny mirror on the wall, a swollen face encapsulated in the circular frame. The marks from the gravel still stung, and his tears had, quite literally, added salt to the wounds.
Assessing the damage more closely, he figured it could go unnoticed by his mother's prying eyes. Grabbing a water bottle on his desk, he settled with just splashing some water to his face. It had a cooling effect, while the redness calmed down a bit too. The tear tracks vanished and he looked somewhat normal.
He turned around to face his messy room, seemingly the only place in the world where Tony couldn't reach him, physically at least. Crille crept up on his bed, eyeing the diary on his nightstand. The sight of it forced him to reflect on today's events. It only annoyed him, there was nothing to note, nothing he wanted to remember from today.
The last thing he wrote was about Linda, maybe 2 weeks ago, he didn't really remember.
Linda didn't pay attention to him anymore anyway.
The only person who seemed to pay attention to him was Tony, but for all the wrong reasons. Tony had no place in his diary.
A nauseating feeling in his stomach that never ceased, a constant question: Would the rest of his time in school be like this?
The view outside his window was nothing like the one at home, his real home. It was too dark too early, there were too many fir trees, and not enough houses. And snow. So much snow.
He was so far, far away from home. Exposed and defenseless.
His moms yelling from downstairs told him dinner was ready. He wasn't hungry.
He absentmindedly poked in the familiar salmon soup. Drawing lazy circles with his spoon.
“Aren't you hungry from having fun in school all day?”
He didn't even look up at his dad. The silence spoke for him, maybe it said more than he wished. His mom knew,
“You just need to give them some more time. It's not like they get a new classmate everyday…”
He already knew that, his classmates had made it clear.
It was the only response he ever got from his parents, give them more time, more time. Give them more time to get “used to” him. More time to pick on him. To throw erasers at his head and yell names at him. To ruin his drawings in art class and hide his clothes after P.E. It was unfair. He wanted to go home. To his friends.
He sulked in the wooden chair, the backrest digging into his shoulderblades.
“Cheer up! It's Christmas soon!”, his dad tried.
He knew his parents were saving up for a moped, but it didn't excite him anymore. It was just a waste of money. He had no use for it. Where would he go anyway? Nobody was waiting for him.