And it all started with this meet & greet - Ondreaz Lopez

Chapter 36. "Because the other one is full."

The whole living room was decorated. There were garlands and streamers and confetti everywhere. Balloons were hanging from the ceiling and stuck to the walls. There were spotlights in all the corners and the huge speakers from Matt's room were so scattered that if you took a stereo afterwards, music would come from everywhere. There were even strobos and a fog machine from whose opening small swaths escaped.

But what I saw in the middle of the huge room surpassed everything. They were all there. Matt and his friends Jace, Tom, Simon and Fred. Amy, Jess, Ben, Chris, Mark and Dan. And most importantly, Tony, Chase, Tay, James, Alex, Thomas ans Nick. They stood there smiling and looking at me, waiting. Then I started shrieking and storming towards them, just like I did with Ondre before.

At first I fell around the neck of each of the four boys. "Shit, I missed you," I laughed at Tony's neck. After I took each one in my arms, only Matt was missing. "You set this up, didn't you?" He shrugged his shoulders and wagged his eyebrows. "I really do have the best brother in the world," I laughed, and he did the same for me. "And you only noticed that now?" he asked, arms outstretched. "Of course not," I truthfully admitted and pressed him.

When he released me, I walked over to Ondreaz and he took my hand. "There," Matt said aloud and clapped his hands once. "Now it's off to the metro," he shouted and they all started bawling. But it was closed for three hours today because of some repairs? "Don't ask, just do it," he added and pushed me to the exit.

---

Outside we grabbed three shopping carts and drove through the doors. "Okay, Mr. Taylor. You have three hours," said a security guard and nodded at me. All of a sudden, I was picked up and put in one of the carts. Ondreaz started to push me at a fast pace and turned sharply around the bend. The others did the same.

Twenty young people ran through the corridors and packed lots of stuff. "What do we need all this for?", I asked as I was buried under twenty bags of chips. Kilograms of cans of gummi bears and countless bars of chocolate followed. A car was half filled with drinks. "Guys?", I laughed as more stuff was packed. "For the party!", everyone in the choir shouted, arms in the air.

"What's your favourite - Ben&Jerrie's?", Nick asked, pointing to the refrigerator. "Chunky Monkey!" I laughed and three pots went with everything else. Plus Cookie Dough and I don't know how many other varieties.

Laughing, we danced around between the shelves, enjoying the fact that we were the only ones in these huge halls. We raced, spinning wheels - more or less crippled - and cheered. So shopping was really a lot of fun and the guys sitting in front of the security cameras and watching what was going on on the monitors must have had a lot of fun when we had a little dance.

There were exactly three cash registers open and we drove to one with each car. I had got a quick glimpse of the gigantic sum and that had only been one of three. We stowed everything neatly in the trunk and spread out over the two vans.

---

"This is crazy," I realized as I took a look at the buffet we had just set up. It was. And incredibly cool at the same time. "It's perfect," said Matt, patting himself on the back. "With the neighbours up to two floors below us, everything's sorted out," he said and pressed a few buttons on the touch screen in the wall, through which you could control everything here. The lights went out, but the spotlights came on. They circled the room a little and then stopped on a table. It was full of presents.

I walked towards it with a grin, but my dear brother stood in my way. "You have to earn them first," he said and threw me a Playstation controller. I cleverly caught it and planted myself on the couch. My brother had chosen Sonic Race, the idiot. Apart from me, Tony , Jess and Tom were also playing.