Response to Music

That day the birds were singing as usual. Mike got up and stretched his arms up high. Everyone was still on their beds sleeping, but he could see the light through the fringes of the windows and that was enough to wake him up. He sat on his bed, where he remained static for few minutes, and watched his nearer room mates sleeping. One had the mouth open, the other had a funny tremble on the arm, the other had his hair in a mess. He smiled. Everyone there was just like him, but they were all different between them too, and these differences there were pretty much invisible.

"I'm SO bored" he thought. "Maybe if I wake up Nigel...."

Nigel was Mike's best friend. He was used to this Summer camp stuff, because he had been there last year as well. For that reason Mike always saw him as an Allie against the unpredictable, which for Mike was everything, really!

"Nigel?", He whispered, knelled down on the waxed floor and shaking his mate carefully on his bed.

Nigel threw something at him, spoke something impossible to understand and turned to the other side. After a few more attempts to wake him up, Mike gave up and decided to do something else that did not involve beds, dorms or polished slippery floors. He headed towards the bathroom, and there, he looked through the large window. It was a lovely day, there were no clouds at sight and the trees were still. It seemed like that day was going to be another perfect Summer day.

Mike washed up his face and looked at the mirror. His hair was as messy as his room mate from the bed behind him. He tried to make it neat, but without a comb there, the task was becoming more like a challenge than anything else. He looked through the window again, and seeing the gardeners pass in front of the dorm, he leaned down to continue unnoticed.

"Man... I am stuck here and outside it seems to be already mid-morning!!", he whispered, probably to his imaginary friend.

The clock in the tower marked 6h58m, but Mike could not know that, he spent most of the primary school days trying to chat up girls rather than paying attention to the "hows" of life, especially the "How to read the time" when he was living in the digital watch Era.

Mike was not authorised to leave the dorm alone. In fact, the dorms' main doors were always locked at 22h by the supervisors, who would then keep the keys in a safe place until the next morning. But Mike did not believe in prisons, he was a free bird, or a free spirit, as he dad used to call him when he reached the end of his tether with Mike's tricks and escapes from his room.

He unlocked the bathroom window, which automatically slided open. His head looked right and left ways, just to make sure that he was not going to get caught.

"All cleared" he whispered to himself, and in one quick motion, he jumped to freedom.

Meanwhile, Nigel had left his bed alerted by the noises in the bathroom and also by the empty bed behind him. He headed towards the bathroom in a very speedy pace, curious to see what was going on. When he got to the bathroom, the window was wide open and he could see a familiar body running away.

"Mike?", he shouted. "MIKE!!!"

He leaned on the window and waved to an already vanished Mike. When the supervisors surprised him in the bathroom, he was seriously compromised...

" NIGEL!!! Get off there immediately!", one of the supervisors shouted.

Still surprised by the whole situation, he could not articulate a word.

"What the hell where you doing? Trying to get hurt or what???" The older supervisor grabbed Nigel's waist and helped him to lean out of the window, adding up in a very serious tone, "There will be no beach for you today. You're going to be at Mrs. Emma's office for the whole morning, facing the wall!"

Nigel, still overwhelmed by the whole situation, started to cry convulsively. The only work he could mention was his friend's name, only understood by the supervisors later on, when they saw Mike's bed empty.