“Tom!” Lela shouted, banging on his door.
“Tom! Wake up! It’s 10.30!”
“What, what…what is it… what’s going on, 10.30… it can’t be.” Tom stumbled out of bed and opened the door.
Lela laughed.
“You really are useless in the morning!”
“I take it you were joking about it being 10.30, we start school at 8?”
“No, I’m not joking but didn’t you read the briefing paper?”
“Yes I did, cover to cover, before going to sleep, actually.”
“And the welcome note from the Headmaster?”
“No, didn’t bother with that usual guff, you know ‘Hi. I am glad you’re here…hope your flight was OK…look forward to meeting you all soon’ blah, blah, blah.”
“Well, actually, it wasn’t. It said that as students and teachers were still arriving, school wouldn’t start until Tuesday. We’ve got the whole day off to do whatever we want!”
“Excellent!! So what are you still doing here and why am I not still sleeping?”
Sleep was sacrosanct to Tom and Lela knew that.
“Simple. A few of the guys are going to explore the island and I thought you’d want to come.”
“Who’s going?”
“Tristan, Ahmad, Mingmei, Mia and Chen.”
“OK, give me ten minutes,” he said as he disappeared into the bathroom and got into the shower.
“Hi guys,” said Tom to the waiting group, five minutes later.
“Right, let’s go, I’m starving,” said Tristan as he led the way to the restaurant, everybody reliving their first night at school. Lela seemed to have made friends very easily with Mingmei, Mia and Chen. Tom presumed that this affinity was connected to their shared oriental blood lines.
Tom was interrupted from his thoughts by Tristan.
“Hey, you should see the babe in the block next to us. She is so fit!”
“Which block?” asked Tom.
“The one to the left as you come out the front of our building.”
“That would be the fifth years’ block, she must be seventeen!” he said raising his eyes, would Tristan never give up?
“So?”
“You are thirteen and your voice hasn’t fully broken,” said Tom scathingly.
“She won’t be interested,” added Ahmad slightly more tactfully.
“How do you know?” asked Tristan indignantly.
“Oh, forget it.”
Tom and Ahmad were exasperated, as usual, with Tristan’s attempts at womanising and illusions of grandeur. They had never seen him with a girl and as far as they could gather, he blushed every time one came close. He would tell them stories of girls he had met in London but failed miserably to prove it.
“We’ll see,” were his final words on the subject.
“Come on guys, hurry up the pace,” said Chen who had dropped back to wait for the boys.
“Ah, Chen, decided to join the boys then. Girls talking about hair and nails,” said Ahmad jokingly.
“No, actually, they were talking about you,” he replied straight faced.
“What? What were they saying?” Ahmad looked worried.
“Only joking, as if they were talking about you!” teased Chen and everyone laughed.
“What’s so funny?” asked Lela as the boys caught up with them at the entrance to the restaurant.
“Nothing, just boy talk,” said Chen.
“OK. Let’s eat!”
As Lela walked away, Tom turned to Chen.
“How did you get away with that? I would have been grilled for hours as to what exactly boy’s talk meant,” said Tom.
“Natural charm, my friend. Although I have to admit, I’m used to dealing with my older sister.”
“What year is she in?” Tristan asked, instantly interested.
“She’s not here, she’s quite a bit older than me,” answered Chen.
“Well, let’s eat,” said Tristan losing interest as quickly as he had gained it.
The food was excellent, dispelling Tom’s concerns that they had put a show on for Sam Mitcham. They had managed to catch the breakfast menu which was the only self-service meal of the day and there was a choice of every conceivable breakfast from around the world. Despite this, Tom made his first complaint. He spoke to the restaurant manager and pointed out that in Scotland, potato scones were a breakfast staple and were far tastier than the anglicised hash brown. The restaurant manager apologised and asked for the recipe to ensure Tom would not be disappointed again. Tom offered to send an e-mail to his mother and forward the recipe.
As he walked back to his table of friends, they all laughed. He had only been out of his room for thirty minutes and was already making waves.
“Tom, you really are outrageous! As if there wasn’t enough to choose from,” said Lela embarrassed by what he had just done.
“Yes, but everybody else’s national breakfast is here. In fact, I should have made the case for square sausage,” he replied stubbornly.
“You’re unbelievable, trust you to spot the one thing they don’t do,” said Lela.
“Well actually, that’s two things they don’t do but I’ll leave the sausage for another day,” said Tom.
“Well guys, now you know why Tom’s motto is ‘If you don’t ask you don’t get’,” said Lela.
“Not quite, it’s ‘if you ask you get’. It’s not often that you don’t get what you ask for.”
“So what shall we do after breakfast?” asked Ahmad.
“We could take one of the golf carts and do a tour of the grounds?” said Chen.
“Are we allowed to drive them?” asked Mia.
“Yep.”
“Cool,” said Tristan. “Who wants a race?”
“Tristan, they only go at 15mph, we can run faster than that,” replied Chen.
“Sounds great to me,” said Lela.
As they made their way out of the restaurant, they bumped into Oleg who was waiting by the entrance, alone.
“Hi Oleg, we’re going for a tour of the grounds, do you want to come with us?” asked Tom.
“No, it’s OK thanks. I’ve got to wait here for my brother, Yuri, well my step-brother actually.”
“Are you sure? It should be fun.”
“No, I’d better wait. Yuri’s expecting to meet me here.”
“OK, we’ll catch you later then.”
They made their way around the corner to the carts. As they approached, there were only two carts left, it was obviously a popular idea. Oleg suddenly appeared from around the corner. Tom was delighted that he had changed his mind.
“Hi, Oleg, glad you changed your mind,” he shouted.
Before Oleg had a chance to respond, a large forearm pushed him aside.
“Leave those carts, they’re ours,” came a booming voice.
Tom and his friends had just reached the carts and were in the process of getting into them. There were four seats in each and room for only one more person.
“What do you mean, they’re yours,” Tom shouted back. “I don’t think so.”
Before they knew it, seven large boys surrounded them. Oleg was with them but hanging back, looking frightened and ashamed.
“Yuri, just leave them, they got to the carts first,” said Oleg weakly.
“What did you say?” Yuri hit his younger step-brother across the face with the back of his hand. “Don’t tell me what to do, you little runt. Now you lot, get the hell out of those carts before you get the same treatment.”
Oleg fell to the ground and crawled away from his step-brother. Lela jumped out of her cart and ran to check whether Oleg was alright.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” said Tom, enraged.
“Just get out of the carts so we won’t have to deal with the rest of you in the same way,” said one of the thugs accompanying Yuri. They were much larger than Tom’s group of friends and very intimidating.
Mingmei and Mia jumped out of one of the carts to join Lela, leaving one of the carts empty. Four of the thugs immediately jumped in. Chen, Tristan, Ahmad and Tom remained in the other cart and had no intention of moving.
Yuri and two thugs moved closer, surrounding the four younger students.
“Move! Now!” commanded Yuri.
“No way! This is our cart. We were here first,” said Chen.
“I’m really starting to lose my patience. Get out before you get hurt,” said Yuri.
“Guys, just give them it and let them be all macho and big,” said Lela who wanted the confrontation to end.
“Why should we?” said Tom.
“Come on Tom, Oleg is hurt, just give them the cart and let’s get Oleg checked out.”
“OK, let’s go. Let the animals have it,” said Tom to his friends.
Yuri and the two thugs barged onto the cart, pushing Chen to the ground. Chen jumped up to retaliate but was stopped by Ahmad who put a friendly arm across his body. The thugs laughed at the angry Chen.
“Don’t make me laugh little boy,” Yuri said to Chen as he pushed the accelerator and left the scene with his band of thugs.
As the carts departed, everyone rushed to Oleg’s side.
“Are you OK?”
“I’ve had worse. I’m just so sorry for the behaviour of my step-brother.” Oleg was truly mortified.
“How long has he been your step-brother?” asked Lela.
“Too long. About two years. My dad married Yuri’s mother and he came as a bonus. My father’s completely besotted by his mother and Yuri can do no wrong in her eyes. So, my life has become a nightmare.”
“Does he hit you often?”
“All the time,” said Oleg as he lifted his T-shirt to show his friends a collection of bruises, from dark purple to greenish yellow.
“Who are the thugs?”
“That’s his gang. They used to rule the roost at our old school in Moscow. All their parents are very rich and untouchable. Nobody dares mess with them, even the Headmaster. They could do anything they wanted and nobody could stop them. They even put a boy in hospital they beat him so badly.”
“That behaviour won’t be tolerated here,” said Mia.
“So what should we do?” asked Chen who had calmed down.
“We can speak to the Headmaster,” replied Lela. “He’ll have to act and their parents can’t help them here, whoever they are.”
“You must be joking, absolutely not! Yuri would kill me!”
“But without you explaining what happened, the Headmaster can’t do anything.”
“So be it. I’ve put up with him for two years. As long as I stay out of his way, I’ll be OK. If I go against him, he will kill me. He has promised me that if I ever betray him, it will be the last thing I ever do.”
“What about your father, can’t he help you?”
“I’ve tried but my step-mother gets involved, twists my dad around, she tells Yuri and I get a beating. Trust me, I can’t win.”
Everybody was lost for words, angry and disgusted at Yuri and his friends and what they had put Oleg through.
“Look,” said Lela. “We need to calm down and think about what is best for everyone involved. Let’s take some time out and consider our options.”
The rest of the morning and early afternoon were spent on the beach. The temperature was perfect, it was spring on the island and to Tom and Lela, it felt like a perfect summer’s day. The beach was very popular and by the time they got there, it was swarming with students, most of whom were well known to Tom and Lela.
“Is there anybody on this beach you don’t know?” Chen asked Tom.
“A few people. I don’t know her, the one Tristan is drooling over,” Said Tom pointing to the girl Tristan could not keep his eyes off. “No seriously, I know about half of them.”
“How come?” enquired Chen.
“Ever since we could walk, my father took Lela and I on business trips to see the world and so we grew up meeting people from governments and businesses from everywhere. To make life easier for him and more amusing for us, he usually arranged for us to meet and play with the children of whoever he was visiting.”
“Wicked! You must have been to lots of cool places.”
“Yeah, I think that by the time we were ten, we’d seen a third of the countries in the world,” replied Tom.
Oleg and Tristan interrupted the conversation as they came running up the beach having just been for a dip in the water.
“So how are you doing Oleg?” Tom asked.
“He’s absolutely fine. Don’t worry, he has the girls circling round making sure he’s OK,” said Tristan.
“You’re just jealous!” shouted Oleg.
“Damn right, I am!” Tristan shouted back. “Perhaps Yuri can whack me later and I can get fussed over like you!”
“I’m sure that can be arranged!” offered Oleg.
“On second thoughts, I’ll give it a miss thanks,” replied Tristan.
“What, don’t you want our nursing skills, aren’t we good enough for you?” teased Lela.
“No, no not at all, it’s just I’d rather..”
“She’s just winding you up Trist, don’t worry,” said Tom rescuing his friend.
“I really do think we need to report Yuri and his gang,” said Mingmei breaking the silence.
“I think we just need to teach him a lesson,” said Mia.
“How do we teach someone like Yuri a lesson?” asked Ahmad, looking at Lela. She shook her head firmly as if to signify that she didn’t want to get involved.
“There are ways,” said Chen mysteriously, almost to himself.
“What do you have in mind?” asked Tom who was keen to seek revenge.
“Sorry, did I say that out loud? Hmm, I’m sure we can think of something,” replied Chen who wasn’t giving anything away.
“It sounded as though you had thought of something,” said Tom.
“No, no, just thinking to myself. I do it all the time, sorry. What did you have in mind, Mia?” asked Chen nervously.
“Not sure, but I’ll think of something. I really hate bullies. It’s so unnecessary,” she said.
“Yes, anyway, there’s not a lot we can do now. Why don’t we head back for lunch and decide what to do this afternoon?” Tom drew the discussion to a close.
The group packed up their beach stuff and headed over to the restaurant. The restaurant was quiet as most of the students were still out enjoying their last day of freedom. As they went to take a table, a waiter stopped them and directed them to the Maitre d’ who was standing next to a podium with a seating plan.
“Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen,” he announced.
“Good afternoon,” they responded.
“A table for seven?”
“Yes please,” said Tom as they looked at one another.
“Excellent, please follow me, Messieurs Dames,” said the Maitre d’ as he showed them to their table, pulled out the chairs and lay napkins on each of their laps.
“Is this a special lunch for our first day?” asked Tristan looking at the Maitre d’.
“Not at all Monsieur. All meals are a la carte with full service. That is, helas, with the exception of breakfast.”
“Are you teasing us?” asked Mia.
“Not at all, Mademoiselle. This is my full time job. I was Maitre d’ at the George V in Paris before accepting this illustrious position. I do not do the teasing.”
He handed out the menus and left the group to choose their food.
“I just need to nip to the loo, if you’d excuse me,” said Chen adopting the formality required for their surroundings.
“Me too,” said Ahmad.
The two got up and made their way to the toilets. Ahmad washed his hands and shouted into the cubicle that he was heading back to the table.
“Where’s Chen?” asked Mingmei.
“He’s just coming,” said Ahmad.
The waiter arrived to take their orders. They asked for a few minutes longer as Chen had not yet returned. After the waiter returned, Tom offered to go and see if Chen was alright.
“I need the loo, so I’ll come too,” said Lela.
As Lela was making her way into the girls’ toilets, she heard Tom’s voice.
“What the hell are you doing? Put him down!”
She raced towards the boys’ toilets.
Tom could not believe his eyes. Yuri and his gang were crammed into the toilets and were holding Chen upside down over the toilet bowl. Before Tom had a chance to react, two of the gang grabbed him and dangled him in a similar position in the adjacent cubicle.
“Put me down at once!” Tom demanded, not as forcefully as he had wished. He was worried.
Lela crashed through the door.
“Put them down now!!!” she screamed.
“OK,” said Yuri. “Guys, you heard her, put them down.”
All seven laughed as they dunked Chen and Tom into the toilet bowls.
“Boys, I’m afraid your cavalry failed to rescue you,” said Yuri laughing at Lela.
“You’re making a big mistake,” said Tom spluttering.
“Get her out of here,” said Yuri to two thugs, nodding towards Lela.
Lela was enraged. She had not retaliated earlier as she believed retaliation would have risked injury to her friends. However, the situation was different now. Firstly, Tom and Chen were being physically abused. Secondly, by doing nothing, they would not stop. Thirdly and most importantly, they had messed with Tom. Nobody messed with Tom.
One thug went to open the door and a second went toward Lela. Neither knew what hit them as they suddenly collapsed in a heap at the door. Yuri, however, had seen everything. Lela had high kicked the two thugs, lifting them both two feet off the floor, propelling them across the bathroom and into the door where they fell and remained motionless.
Yuri stepped back. The four thugs dropped Tom and Chen and rushed towards Lela. Again, Yuri saw everything. In a confusion of punches, the thugs fell to the floor, one by one, not having thrown any punches themselves. Lela had been so quick, it had been like watching his friends being hit by bullets fired from a machine gun.
Only he remained standing. Tom and Chen were pulling themselves together in their cubicles. Yuri did not know what to do.
Lela knew she had hurt the thugs but not permanently. She hadn’t broken any bones but had shattered their pride. She had certainly broken Yuri’s pride even though she had not laid a finger on him. He made his move and, as expected, it was for the door and not for Lela. He was a coward. Lela turned and noticed that somebody had opened the door slightly and had been watching the action. The obscured face moved away the moment it was spotted and the door shut tight again. Lela moved towards a now apologetic and trembling Yuri who was trying to push his way past his injured friends to get out.
Tom had jumped up to help Lela but by the time he was able to assist, only Yuri remained standing. Tom could sense the fear in him. They had all just witnessed six guys, twice the size of Lela, being beaten senseless in less than ten seconds. This was not a common occurrence. Tom looked round at Chen who was sitting wide eyed next to his toilet bowl. They both looked over at Yuri as he tried to make a break for the door. Lela moved almost before Yuri, her first contact with him spun him round, the second sent him head first into the third toilet bowl, unfortunately for him un-flushed. Lela followed him into the cubicle, bent down next to a very wet and smelly Yuri and whispered in his ear. They couldn’t hear what she said nor see what she did but they heard him scream and watched as he dropped to the floor and cowered away.
“Chen and Tom, are you OK?” asked Lela as she left the cubicle to wash her hands.
“Fine thanks,” they both said.
“A bit wet but we’re better off than they are,” said Chen.
“Come on, I don’t want to be caught in the boys’ toilets,” joked Lela.
As she walked past Yuri, she said “Remember, 6.00 p.m. or I’ll come looking.”
“What was that about?” asked Tom.
“You’ll see,” was all Lela would say.
As they walked back to the table, Tom and Lela asked Chen to play down what had happened as Lela was shy about her talents.
“Oh my God, what happened?” Mingmei jumped up as they approached, Mia following just behind.
“We just had a bit of a run-in with Yuri and his gang.”
“Are you OK? What happened?” asked Ahmad, feeling guilty at having left Chen.
“We’re fine, not so sure about them though…,” said Chen catching himself just in time.
“Oh, some other guys came in and sorted them out,” interrupted Lela.
“That’s it. We’re definitely reporting them now,” said Mingmei.
“NO, it’s fine. They learnt their lesson. They won’t be annoying us anymore.” Tom was very firm and Mingmei backed off.