Day 28
When I woke up the next morning, the others were already up. Amelie appeared in the doorway.
"Are you going to have breakfast?"
"Yes, immediately," I said yawning
I quickly clothed over and went to the canteen. It smelled somehow different than usual. She went springing in front of me and said
"I made Quiche Lorraine, thanks to your stock list I found dry egg powder and milk powder. Onions and bacon were still in the pantry."
Thort sat at the table and laughed kindly. He got up and poured me coffee, while Amelie put a piece of the deliciously fragrant quiche on my plate. Somehow I didn’t get rid of the feeling that they were having something in front of them.
“Why do I feel like there’s some conspiracy going on here,” I said.
"We want to tell you something," Thort said
"or rather what show it. Amelie show it to him" Amelie smiled.
Then she jumped on pulled her Klaucke, loaded her through unsecured her and shot into a corner of the room. There stood a wooden box, on which a runner was painted with chalk. She had fired and hit him twice. The shots were on the runner’s tank. She had done it at a feline speed that I would never have trusted her to do. I was surprised. Then she unloaded the weapon as safely as if she had never done anything else.
"Well, dude did she not make it great.
" Said Thort with a laugh. " I’ve pulled her pants tighten"
“Don’t you,” Amelie replied cheekily.
“I’ve got it though.”
"You never get to my butt," she snapped back.
Thort cut her a grimace, she stretched out her tongue.
"Enough now," I said, banging my flat hand on the table.
"Give me your weapon Amelie."
She looked at me in amazement and pushed her weapon over the table. I took the magazine out, unloaded the gun, squeezed five cartridges from the magazine and put the things back on the table. Then I set my stopwatch to zero and said to her
"Ammunition, loading, unlock and fire. Thirty seconds. From now on."
She took the magazine and the cartridges and put them into the magazine one by one. She was very nimble, then she pushed the magazine into the gun, loaded through, unlocked and shot twice back at the box. In that time, 22 seconds had passed. I was impressed. Thort laughed
"Well dude, what do you say, was that not great, our Amelie?"
I noticed that he no longer called her "goat".
“I’m impressed,” I said.
"We practiced a lot. Amelie has made a real effort and look."
"Amelie, just the gun as if you want to aim."
Amelie, smiling, took up the gun and aimed it into the room. She kept her quiet, without trembling. I nodded appreciatively.
"All respect," I said.
"I did strength training with her and aim and load and practice do with her all the stuff and she really make efforts."
"I see that." Amelie looked at me imploringly
"Would you try again with us Helldiver, please, please."
Just as she said it and how she looked at me melted down, my resistance like a piece of butter in the hot frying pan, she really had it on it.
“Then I would say, let’s not let this delicious quiche get cold, then make clear ship and then we see each other in the training room.”
"YYYYEEEEEEEEEAAAAAA!" a joint outcry rang out from the two.
Amelie came running around the table hugging me from behind and squeezing a kiss on my cheek. "Merci, merci, merci" (French thank you) she said with a laugh.
"Well thanks to Thort, he practiced with you," I said.
She ran over to Thort, hugged him and kissed him on the cheek. He was visibly moved.
After we had eat the exquisite quiche Lorraine and finished with breakfast, I asked Thort to bring all the weapons and my backpack into the classroom. Amelie asked me if she could speak to me. I cleaned the dishes with her and started rinsing it. Amelie took a towel to dry.
"Helldiver, um, did you really want to leave without us? Move on alone?" she asked me, looking at me inquiringly.
"Frankly, I had been thinking about it very intensively over the last few days. I had considered this possibility. But it would have been unfair to Thort. I would have asked him to stay with you. But I had also quietly hoped that you would get together."
Amelie opened her mouth
"Aaaah, you expected something like this to happen today," she said, stunned and incredulous.
'I wasn’t expecting it, but I was hoping for it. I thought after the ass kick I had missed you that I would rip you and especially you together. I was hoping for group pressure."
She couldn’t get her pretty mouth in amazement. She laughed and slapped me slightly with the towel
"Ohhhh, you Filou (French: crooks). You made us simmer.
"Hmmmm," I said, smiling. "I would not have left you alone without making you understand the consequences it would have had for you. I would have tried before. She laughed and slapped me again with the towel
“You’re a Filou, but a dear one.”
She looked at me laughing. Then she said
“Thort was very disappointed when you told him that you didn’t want to train with us anymore. He was very afraid that you would go on alone. Until yesterday, it really looked like that. He was very scolding me the day before yesterday. I can see what you said, you were right in everything.”
“That’s good that you see that I can’t take anyone on a mission who isn’t able to defend themselves. When we go out there, death lurks behind every corner, in every bush. I would not have wanted to take on this responsibility. I don’t want to put anyone in deadly danger. It would always have been a risk without the knowledge and skills. I just scolded you to make you realize how important it is to do or be able to do certain things.”
She nodded and approached me.
“I wasn’t wrong,” she said, looking me in the eye.
“I have always felt that there is a lovely person under the shaggy wolf fur. You gave me a tiny look under this wolf fur yesterday and That’s when I saw this man.”
She raised her hand and stroked me over the cheek
“Don’t always be such a lone wolf”
She stood close in front of me and looked at me with a sweet smile. She stood on the tip of her toes and kissed me tenderly on the cheek. Then she gently stroked her hand over it again. I was petrified and couldn’t say anything I was just too surprised. She took the plate out of my hand smiling and went to the cupboard. Then she looked over her shoulder again. Her eyes glowed like stars.
We went over to the training room. I started again where I left off a few days ago. I explained again the course of the battle and the mistakes we had made without attacking anyone in person. I worked together from the insights we had gained with the two of them to develop a new strategy. We wanted to attack soon in a V-formation, where Amelie was to form our second line. Thort and I would proceed and Amelie should first snipe away the runners from the background and we would then attack head-on and protect Amelie if necessary.
In the afternoon I held another shooting training. I wanted to take a closer look at Amelie’s shooting skills. She mastered the exercises I imposed on her with flying colors. She shot very accurately. I had made a practice goal out of a destroyed tick and a little string, i surprisingly lit it with the flashlight and pulled it with the cord. Amelie screamed briefly, shot at the target and hit it.
Her face glowed and she beamed properly as I praised her. In the late afternoon Amelie went into the shower and I went with Thort into the power room. I thought I could tolerate a little training and Thort would be the right coach. He really lived up when he put me together a workout, we trained until the sweat ran down. Thort had a very muscular body and a huge biceps. I had a six-pack of belly but my arms weren’t as strong.
"Say Thort, what have you done with Amelie in the last few days?" I asked him during a training break.
“I almost bitten my teeth on her to teach her how to shoot with a pistol. It took you two days and she can do it suddenly, there’s something rotten?”
Thort laughed a little and said
Yes, she’s a little stubborn head, and she’s selfishly eating what she doesn’t want, she doesn’t want that. She was reluctant because she thought she could persuade you to stay here. Actually, she’s used to the guys eating out of her hand. That’s what you should see at the disco in Östervik. If she makes herself chic then she is yes a real shot. She let the boys bead off her in turn, a really arrogant goat.
Well, with you that’s something else. She was scared of you when you started shouting at her after the shooting accident. That was quite cheeky what she gave of itself. I think I would have her clapped one right now but, well, we don’t do that. When you didn’t come to dinner she was crestfallen and was scared to get under your eyes again, but I told her that she had to talk to you. She had already had a huge scare because you were so upset and because she had so much beatings as a child.
I was once with her in the night to the disco in Östervik. Her old woman noticed something and she got bad beatings. The mother of her is a dragon, a true Satan. Has always beaten the little one, only when she has opened her mouth. She shouldn’t be roaming with simple guys. Was not befitting.
Well, but when you went to the sea with her and realized that there was something wrong with her and how you listened to her and that with the eye level what you had to say to her. She thought that was great and also the practice pointed with the confidence, that was already crazy, she really raved about you. She never does. I haven’t experienced it and I’ve known her for a long time. Yeah, how you just break of the lessons and you dodged us for days. And you had said that you didn’t want to train us anymore.
That’s when she’s become thoughtful. She told me what you had told her with the resistance and so. Know I want to go with you and also find my people and, if you’re doing resistance with maybe some few guys there I want to be there and fight with you. She probably noticed that she messed up two people the tour Yes and when you just got up from the breakfast table and went off, she was very crestfallen. There she has become to do with the fear. she has practiced like crazy. That’s what she done before. She begged me to do some strength training with her.
"I don’t believe it," I said, shaking my head.
“Then the group pressure worked, I wouldn’t have thought,” I said.
"Did you expect her to think about it?"
"No, hoped, but could have gone wrong."
Amelie had prepared a delicious dinner in the kitchen and when we finished she said mischievously smiling.
“I’ve got another surprise for you.”
She went into the kitchen smiling and came back with a tray. She had prepared a portion of strawberries with whipped cream for all of us. We applauded.
"I found it through Helldiver’s stock list and also the whipped cream. Otherwise, I would never have known that there would be long-lasting cream in stock. There was a happy and relaxed atmosphere although we were still facing a tough task.