12
But I have to tell you about Tatjana’s birthday now. Tatjana’s birthday is in the middle of our summer vacation, and there was supposed to be a huge celebration. Tatjana said that a long time ago. It seemed like her fourteenth birthday was going to be celebrated and Potsdam and everyone’s going to be invited and there’s even a sleepover and stuff. She also made sure her girlfriends would be there, because of course they would want to be there. And because Natalie was going to be on vacation with her parents on the third day of the summer holiday, the whole party had to be moved to the second day, and so it was really early.
This house in Potsdam was Tatjana’s uncle’s and it faced the sea directly, and this uncle basically wanted to entrust Tatjana with the house, there will be no grown-ups besides him, the celebration will go on throught the night, and everyone was supposed to bring sleeping bags.
That was a hot topic in class even wekks before, and I started to imagine myself discussing stuff with this uncle. I don’t know anymore why does he fascinate me so much, but I thought that he had to be an interesting guy to just leave the house to Tatjana and plus the fact that he’s her relative, and I really looked forward to knowing him. I already had a vision of me standing in the living room by the fireplace with him and having some super conversations. Even though I didn’t know whether there was a fireplace in the house. But I wasn’t the only one that was excited because of the party. Julia and Natalie were thinking about gift ideas like a century ago, you could tell it from the notes they’ve passed in class through many others. That means, I could read it, because I sat on the line between Julia and Natalie, and I was of course interested in gift ideas because I’ve also been thinking about nothing but what to give Tatjana at her birthday. Julia and Natalie, it was already clear, were going to buy her the new Beyonce CD. Julia gave Natalie a list to check, it looked somewhat like this:
- Beyonce
- Pink
- the headband with the (unrecognizable)
- add more
And Natalie checked the first one off. Everyone knew that Tatjana loved Beyonce. I had a little trouble with that at first, because I find Beyonce shit, at least the music. But she looked great, she even had a few common grounds with Tatjana, and because of that, I started thinking that Beyonce wasn’t so shit some time on. On the other hand, I started to like Beyonce, and I eventually liked the music at some point. No, that’s not right. I thought the music super. I even bought her two newest CDs and listned to them on loop, while I thought about Tatjana and what present I should get her. Something from Beyonce, a definite pass. Because obviously there’s going to be more that think of it other than Natalie and Julia, and then Tatjana would get like thirty Beyonce CDs and could trade twenty-nine of them. I wanted to give her something special, but I couldn’t think of any, but as I saw this list, something popped up.
I went to a newspaper stand, bought a relatively expensive magazine with Beyonce’s face on the cover and started drawing it. I drew squares with a ruler on the original picture. And then I took a huge piece of paper and drew squares that were five time the size. That’s a method that I learned from a book. Old mister or something. With this trick, you could turn a small picture into a huge drawing. You just do it a square to a square. Of course you could’ve just used a printer to copy it, but I wanted it to be hand-drawn. I wanted others to see that I put effort into this. Because, if others see I put effort, they could also think about other things. I worked on this drawing for weeks. I really worked hard. Only with a pencil, and I feel more turned on, because all I could think about was Tatjana and her birthday and her uncle, with whom I was going to throw some awesome conversations by the fireplace.
And I’ll admit, I can’t really do a lot, but I could draw. Kinda like the thing with high jumping. If drawing Beyonce and high jumping were the most important subjects on planet earth, I would be far ahead. Seriously. But unfortunately nobody gives a shit about high jump, and I kinda got bored of drawing. After four weeks’ worth of hard work, Beyonce looked almost like a photo, a huge pencil drawing of Beyonce with Tatjana’s eyes, and I would be the happiest person on earth, if I could get an invite to Tatjana’s party. But I didn’t get any.
It was the last day of school, and I was kinda nervous, because this whole thing with the party was heated, everyone was talking about Potsdam, but there were no invites, or at least I didn’t see any. And we didn’t have a single idea about where her uncle’s house was. I had the map in my head. And so I thought that Tatjana was gonna give some out at the last day of school. But that wasn’t the case.
But, I saw a small green card in Arndt’s bag. That was during math. I saw how Arndt showed Kallenbach the card and Kallenbach frowned, and I could see a little map on the card. And then I realized that everyone had this small green card. Well, almost everyone. Kallenbach didn’t get any either, stupid as he looked, but he always looked stupid. He was stupid. That was also the reason why he wasn’t invited. Kallenbach looked at the writing closely, he had myopia but somehow never wears glasses, and Arndt put the thing away and in his bag again. As it turned out later, I and Kallenbach weren’t the only ones without invitations. The Nazi also, Tschichatschow too, and then one or two more. Logically. The most boring people and the Asians weren’t invited, Russians, Nazis and idiots. And it didn’t took me a long time to know what I was in Tatjana’s perspective. Because, I was neither a Russian nor a Nazi.
But other than that, basically the whole class was invited, and then half of the class next to us and another hundred people, and I wasn’t.
Till the last session, and after the grades were given, I still kept my hopes up. I hoped that it was just a mistake, that Tatjana would come to me after the bell and she would say: “Psycho, man, I totally forgot about you! Here is the green card! I hope you have time, because it would really make me happy – and I hope you didn’t forget about my present? Yeah, always no prob with you! Well, see you then, I’ll be really looking forward to your appearance! I almost forgot about you, my god!” Then the bell rang, and everyone went home. I packed my stuff extra slowly to give Tatjana the last chance to notice her mistake.
There were only dicks and geniuses standing in the hallway, talking about their grades and other random stuff, and at the exit – twenty meters to the exit, someone gave a pat on my shoulder and said: “Super cool jacket.” It was Tschick. You could see two big rows of teeth when he was grinning, and the slit eyes were narrower as usual. “I’ll buy it. The jacket. Just wait a bit.”
I didn’t wait, but I heard him running after me.
“Favorite one.” I said, “Not for sale.” I found the jacket at Humana and bought it for five euros, and it really was my favorite jacket. It had some Chinese elements to it, and with a white dragon monster on the chest, which looked really cheap. But still great. Others would say it’s the perfect fit for Asians. But I liked it because of that, because others couldn’t see that I was the direct opposite of an Asian on first sight: rich and defenceless.
“Where are they? Hey, stop! Where are you going?” He shouted through the whole hallway. It kinda looked like he had something other than alcohol.
“Did you fail a year?”
“Why were you shouting like that?”
“Did you fail a year?”
“Nope.”
“You look like it.”
“Like what?”
“Like you failed a year.”
What did he want from me? I caught myself thinking it was great that Tatjana didn’t invite him.
“But all Fs.” He said.
“No idea.”
“What do you mean no idea? If I make you nervous, report it.”
I should report that he annoyed me? And then I get a punch in the face or something?
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t know if I annoy you?”
“If I got all Fs.”
“Seriously?”
“I didn’t check yet.”
“Your report card?”
“No.”
“You didn’t check your report card?”
“No.”
“Really? You got your report card and didn’t look at it? How cool is that then.” He made some moves with his arms when he was speaking, and he was next to me, and, to my surprise, he wasn’t taller than me, just stronger.
“And you’re not selling the jacket?”
“No.”
“And what are you doing now?”
“Go home.”
“And then?”
“Nothing.”
“And then?”
“None of your fucking business.” Now that I realized he wasn’t trying to rip me off, I immediately became braver. Unfortunately, that’s always the case. As long as people are unfriendly, I can hardly walk because I’m so excited. But if they become even a little bit friendly, I always start insulting them. Tschick walked beside me in silence for a few hundred meters, then he tugged on my sleeve, repeated that it was an extremely cool jacket, and slid sideways into the bushes. I saw him stomping across the meadow towards the high-rise buildings, the plastic bag that was his school bag slung over his right shoulder.