8
The weekend was coming closer and closer all the time. I had promised to go to a scout trip with my group of girls in the weekend. I had managed to book the cottage of our local group but I think we would sleep in tents because nights were so warm. We could only do the food inside the cottage, it was much nicer than start playing with the trip cooker outside. And if it starts raining, we can always go in but luckily they had promised a good sunny weather for the weekend. I made some last preparations, I called to every girl and made sure that lifts were okay and nothing surprising had happened. I didn’t bother myself to arrange any real show for the trip, the girls could decide what they wanted to do. Probably we would be out much, sunbathing, swimming in the lake near the cottage and taking the sauna, so it was going to be relaxing weekend with my own scouts. It was a good way to calm down my nerves after this week.
Already four of my ex-classmates had called me and asked about Pete. And I don’t even know how many had asked about it when meeting somewhere. So the rumours had spread quickly among the friends. Nobody believed my explanation that Pete had come to see the movie totally without I had known about it. Everybody still thought that I had something going on with him. Even the thought about it gave me goosebumps and shivers of disgust went through my back. No way, if they would ask me, I wouldn’t touch Pete even with a long stick. But they didn’t ask my point of view. So the whole circle of friends was talking about I had a possibly boyfriend. I, who had always claimed I didn’t need one. Luckily mom hadn’t heard about the rumours otherwise she wouldn’t have left me alone. So, I guess I totally deserved a little holiday from all this.
Well, at least something good had happened to me during the week. I believed that I and Vili had become a sort of friends. We saw each others almost every day when we happened to be out at the same time. We ended up talking and talking about everything. Vili had finally solved the problems with his dad, at least for a while. That was the thing his dad had wanted to talk about when he had got Vili from the centre when I was showing the city for him. So their things were better now, for a while at least. I hadn’t told to Vili about this problem which Pete had caused. It was better that as less people knew about it as possible.
On Friday dad took me and a few scouts to the cottage. The rest would come later. I was looking after six about 12-year-old girls alone and it wasn’t always that easy. Some of them wanted always test boundaries and my nerves also. Usually extra dishes, carrying water and doing firewood were enough for a punishment. I had already said that they really need to do a lot if they wanted me to be angry, but if you crossed that line…I wouldn’t take any response of it after that.
Dad helped to carry the drinking water and other massive stuff to inside and I reminded him to take us back home on Sunday. Finally the peace! Or that was what I thought. One of the girls, Tiia, was my ex-classmate’s Paula’s little sister. Paula had been the most curious person when it came to Pete and she had told the whole story to her little sister. And now this little smartass didn’t talk about anything else than my boyfriend and was asking about him all the time. I guess her big sister had told her to try to find out even something about me and Pete. It was going to be huge disappointment for her. I just had to think something which would shut her mouth. Telling I was a lesbian would be one option, but maybe too radical. I should explain a lot about that too afterwards. Maybe I could think about something later…
But nothing worked with Tiia. I put her to do extra dishes because I knew how she hated them. But after that Tiia threatened me that she would tell her mom that I treated her differently than others. So I didn’t have any other choice than use harder methods. I talked with her privately and told to her that my private things didn’t belong to her at all not even to her sister. Also her mother wouldn’t like if I called her and told that her daughter is more interested about my private life than developing the scout skills. This lecture finally shut Tiia’s mouth. I knew that their mom was tighter than my own. Everything what they did, had to be done well.
The rest of the time I kept the girls doing something all the time even I didn’t plan that first. I tested almost all possible skills I managed to think during that weekend starting from tying the knots. Girls had less time to gossip with each others when I put them to run one by one to a path where they had to do several things relating to scout. And the rest of the girls were doing something in the yard at the same time.
I don’t know if this short trip really relaxed me in any way when dad came to take us back to city on Sunday. A part of the girls seemed to be a bit exhausted and I heard murmuring that they hadn’t believed I would have put them to do all that while the sun was shining so brightly. They couldn’t blame anybody else than Tiia about that, she had annoyed my nerves too much. I just hoped that people would stop talking about me and Pete. I hated being in the centre of rumours, the city was so little that many people knew each others in some way at least.
It was only a week to Midsummer. It would be more boring this year than other years because Elina wasn’t at home. Otherwise it was more silent at home after Elina left. I couldn’t hear any girlish giggling through the door or music played really loud. How I had hated it when I tried to concentrate on something but I couldn’t because of the noise. And besides, Elina’s taste of music had been so different than mine, so even the music was too much for me. Now I felt I missed that noise. At least it had showed that there was life in the house. Timo was more with his friends in their houses than our house. And I didn’t tend to bring any friends here because I actually didn’t have anyone who I would have liked to invite here. I guess I had to get used to these changes. Life continued, wanted you it or not.