Once again, my stupid alarm clock rang.

Drowsy, I felt for my glasses. When I put them on, I looked through cracked glass. I pushed my blanket aside and sat down. My alarm clock lit up happily at 6:30 a.m.

Wendy's words echoed in my thoughts:

Shadowy.

Another world.

I would have liked to continue dreaming.

Instead, I sat here, with broken glasses and ... was I wearing my pajamas the wrong way around? Oops.

"Nelly, hurry up. You have to be at school in half an hour." Mom was standing in my doorway, slightly annoyed. "Take off your glasses. You can't wear that broken thing! What if you get splinters in your eyes?"

"But I can't see anything without my glasses!"

Mom moaned. "You should have thought about that before you destroyed them! You can put on your old glasses." She held out my old glasses, which were now a bit too small. They had to be replaced when my eyesight deteriorated.

"Mom. I didn't destroy the glasses. I ran in front of a lantern!" I took the glasses and put them on. The world remained slightly blurry, and the frame pressed. "Ouch."

"We can't pick up your contact lenses until tomorrow. I really hope you don't manage to lose or break them. You better be careful!"

"These glasses are a disaster. I still can't see properly! I'm embarrassing myself even more today!" Moaning, I climbed out of my bed.

Mom twisted curls into her hair with her fingers. A sign that she was really irritated. It was hopeless to argue with her now. And besides, she was right. "I can't help you with that, Honaybunny", she grumbled and yawned. "How about you stop running in front of lanterns?"

"Great idea! The lantern came out of nowhere and attacked ME." I pushed past her and ran into the bathroom. I had to go to school.

"Of course. Who doesn't know them? The aggressive lanterns here in the city? I'll drive you to school."

"Great!" I called to her.

"Before you get on the wrong bus because you don't recognize the number!" Mom called after me.

"Funny!"

Without my glasses, my life was a greater disaster than without them. With the old glasses, the world remained slightly blurred. I couldn't see what was written on the blackboard.

Penelope therefore took notes for me. I would borrow her notes later.

"What's wrong?" I grumbled and pushed my collage pad away from me, on which I had only scribbled around. I didn't follow the lesson.

Instead, I thought about my dream. It had taken a strange turn. What had Wendy meant? Other world?

Penelope tugged at my dark blue knitted sweater with a laugh. "Sweetie, you put your sweater inside out. Strictly speaking, it's completely wrong. The tag is enthroned in the front."

"What?"

"It certainly looks funny!"

"Thank you. That calms me down.... Can't I not make a fool of myself for once!" I grumbled and felt for the sign. "Why are you only telling me that now?" I sighed.

"Hm." My dear best friend shrugged her shoulders. "It's not bad. You can change that during the break," Penelope tried to reassure me. Then she changed the subject. "Isn't it wonderful that Mrs. Kleintag is back?"

"Mrs. Kleintag?" I asked in surprise.

"Nelly!" Penelope started laughing again. "Didn't you notice? We're having lessons with her right now!"

Oh. "That's right." I shrugged. "I was lost in thought. Wasn't she in rehab or something like that?"

"Mental treatment, yes," Penelope confirmed. I tugged at my tag. "Why? Burnout?"

"What do you ever notice?" Penelope giggled. "Always with your head in the clouds. But that's why I love you so much."

"What do you actually not notice?" I asked back. "And that's why I love you all the more."

"Will you marry me?" Penelope winked at me.

"Las Vegas?" I asked. "There's only one problem. I'm not your type. But if that's not stopping you... Do we want to run away?" I joked. "That's certainly more amusing than sitting around here. Don't you think?"

Penelope cleared her throat quietly, but she didn't answer my question. Instead, she answered my previous question: "She had a nervous breakdown over something with colors. Mrs. Kleintag, I mean."

"What?" Now I started laughing too. "Is this supposed to be a joke?"

"Unfortunately not. The poor woman had her house painted. But the painters used the wrong shade. She is said to have been under a lot of pressure, so it was probably too much."

"Oh."

Mrs. Kleintag decided to stand in front of us at that very moment. "Would the two ladies, please, stop ceöebrating a coffee party in my class?" she hissed angrily. "We have quiet work time. Nelly? Why didn't you copy the assignments?"

 I swallowed sheepishly. "Sorry. I don't see the blackboard." I tapped my glasses. "The glasses are old."

"Then copy Penelope's, or swap seats with someone in the front row."

"Um... Well.... About that...", I answered. In the front row? No thanks. Nobody liked me there, and I didn't like it when people stared at me from behind. Eerie feeling!

"What would you like to do?" asked Ms. Kleintag.

"Well," Penelope said cheerfully, "It's just the way it is: We normal students have our needs. Unfortunately, we forgot that we are sitting in class right now. Nelly and I will do our best to participate in class in an exemplary way. She copies from me."

"Is that so?" Mrs. Kleintag's voice had become a bit shrill. "I don't appreciate it when students get cheeky."

"Oh." Penelope fluttered her long, thick eyelashes innocently.

"Where's my apology?" hissed Mrs. Kleintag.

Some of our classmates giggled quietly.

"Sorry?" I said, looking nervously at Penelope, who was nibbling on her lower lip.

"YOU should work! Nelly! What will become of you if you prefer to babble rather than learn?" Mrs. Kleintag slams her fist on our table. Not very energetically, but not particularly gently either. I lean back in surprise. "Learn! Don't you two take me seriously? Huh? Don't you take your school education seriously?"

"Yes, we do," I say quickly. "I'm going to copy diligently. Everything!"

"Nelly... Not EVERYTHING! Just the assignment." Ms. Kleintag turns around angrily. In the meantime, pretty much all of our charming classmates were laughing. "First warning. A second one and you'll get a punishment paper." Mrs. Kleintag returned to the blackboard and looked at the entire giggling class. "This applies to all those who don't work quietly! And believe me, you don't want to write THIS punishment paper! It will mess up your entire week."

"She's clearly back too early," Penelope whispers to me.

I nodded.

The rest of the school day was relatively boring.

Penelope asked if she could come over in the afternoon. I liked the idea, but we got too much homework in the last lesson to be busy with anything else. So we postponed the plan.

Penelope often came to visit, but I had never been to her home. Penelope was not allowed to bring visitors, she often said, but I suspected that this was a lie.

Why she didn't want me at her home, however, was unclear to me. And Penelope was happy to avoid the question.

The question was still on my mind when I was on my way home.

Why?

Penelope and I didn't know each other forever, but we were best friends. Or not?

She showed me the pictures of actresses and singers, with whom she was supposedly a bit in love. She knew almost everything about me. But me? How much did I know about her?

Did she not trust me?

I knew her hobbies, knew what she liked. Broccoli, for example, was not one of the things she particularly appreciated. Why? Because it reminded her of 'pubic hair'.

And would you want to eat pubic hair?

She had asked me that.

Laughing, I spat my breakfast across the table and hit Sina's back. She will never forgive me for that...

When I arrived home and was still lost in my thoughts, I tried to unlock the front door with my locker key. It took me a while to realize my mistake. Did I bend my poor locker key?

Possibly.

Mom was on the phone when I finally came in, armed with the right key.

"No... How are we supposed to explain that? It's better if we... NO! We need to plan this properly," I heard her say, and I stopped in the doorway to listen. Explain? What?

"No... It's another way of being alive."

HUH? Had Mom gone among the esotericists?

"Of course. I'm also sor... Would you let me speak? … What do you mean? I’m interrupting you, too?... That was the ONE time." Mom came into the hallway. She looked angry and exhausted, but she smiled when she saw me. "Oh! Nelly's home. We'll talk later. Love you!" Mom put her phone aside, between the shoes on our shoe rack, and ran her fingers through her hair. "Hello, Honey. How was your day?"

"Lousy." I shrugged. "And yours? What is another way of being?"

"You heard that? Oh, it was all about... Other cultures..."

"Ah." Cultures? I put down my school bag. "Are you planning a festival or something?"

"Or something like that... What do you think? We're skipping all our duties today and going to the movies?"

I raised my eyebrows. "Homework?"

"Movies?" Mom grinned.

"You're weird..." Usually, she insisted that I always do my homework reliably. Undone homework leads to a life without a sense of duty, she once told me. "I won't say no to watching a movie." I tapped the glasses. "Cinema should work. But... Dad?"

"Your father just upset me and therefore won't be taken along. Besides, he doesn't want to see the film I have chosen. The tickets have already been bought!"

So she had talked to Dad on the phone. Well... I could have guessed. "What kind of movie?"

"It's going to be a surprise, my darling!"

By the way, teachers don't think it's so great when students go to the cinema instead of doing their homework. No matter how brilliant the fantasy film was! A film about different worlds, dimensions, magic. The film was very long and Mom decided to go out for burgers afterwards and then rush straight into the next film.

We brought Dad fries, which were cold and sloppy after the second film.

I fell into my bed at three o'clock in the morning and fell asleep immediately.

I dreamed nothing.

As a thank you for the unmade student commitment, my math teacher imposed all the assignments on me again. For the weekend. In addition to the outrageous mountain of assignments he gave us poor students at the end of the math lesson.

Cruel!

My dear parents just shrugged their shoulders when I complained about it, and then took me to our local tiny swimming pool...

A tiny pool with a gigantic array of crazy water slides.

Who needs homework?

And I had the rest of the weekend to do those.

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