The Hystericals

Chapter one

„Look!“ Somebody yelled. Jungle snapped her head in the direction of the white stairs. She sighed as she saw Scrawny bagels making their way towards the clearing.
„Scrawny bagles,“ Petra murmured, but only her group heard her. Every face from The Hystericals frowned in an angry way as Gabrijela and Martina led their group in an failed atempt to keep the atmosphere tense by walking as slowly as they could. Their eyes gave out excitement and there were small smiles on their faces, as if they were waiting for this moment for their entire lifes. They stopped, Gabi so close to Nika that the leader of The Hystericals winced and took a step back. Gabi was pretty fat and her short blonde hair framed her face. Nika was pretty sure she had bagel crumbs in the corners of her mouth. She couldn't help smiling at Gabi; did that girl really think she could get their teritory? Anja and Martina eyed each other with hate.
„Gabi, don't waste your time,“ Nika's voice rang loud and clear. Murmurs of approval came from behind her.
„You are not that tough,“ Gabi spat, „We can take you down any time we want.“
„Oh yeah? So what were you doing for the past two years?“ Anja's voice came from their left. Jungle's sister stood tall in front of Martina, making the skinny toothless nine year old girl seem twice smaller than usual. Gabi went red with embarasment and anger. „Were you maybe acting?“
„You wouldn't recognise good acting if I shoved it in your face!“ Cheetah made her way next to Nika. „And I will shove something, all right!“ Jungle had to jump in and hold her back.
„What do you want?“ Jungle came to the front, shutting up everybody behind her with mad glance.
„I want to win the teritory fair and square,“ Gabi replied.
„If you want to fight, go ahead!“ Rahela shot her a look full of hate. „We will win, as always!“ She turned around, not wanting to look at the rival group anymore, but not before her eyes trailed off to Pegi, who was standing behing Gabi. He gave her a shy smile, but got head smacked by Vito.
„Concentrate!“ Vito murmured, trying to be quiet, but failed, like in everything he does. Jungle giggled at how stupid they were. Rahela had to giggle too, she really liked Pegi, but it was all harmless. She knew very well that she wasn't allowed to have a crush on somebody from the opposite group. Rahela hid behind her long dirty blonde hair, suddenly aware that she is blushing.
„You got yourself a deal, Gabi,“ Jungle said while laughing. Before she had time to wipe her laughter tears from her eyes, Gabrijela's fists clenched in anger and she jumped on her. The two of them fell on the floor, cursing and spitting at each other. As on a sign, everybody else jumped into battle. Anja pushed Martina until she fell on the floor while Nika took on both Dora, a ten-year-old black haired girl and Tea, a nine-year-old blonde. Jungle fell straight on her elbows and felt a sharp sting before warm blood dripped on the floor. Gabi was the first one to get up and tried to kick Jungle in the stomach with her foot, but Jungle was faster and rolled to the other side, grabbing her leg and making her fall. Gabi cursed before Jungle slapped her and got up. Holding her cheek, Gabi's anger grew. She let her hands fly around with huge force, so the only thing Jungle could do was avoid them. After a few moments, Gabi managed to punch Jungle in the stomach. Jungle gasped for air, falling down but pulling Gabi with her.
Nika thaught she'd be done when she pushed Dora and Tea away, but Damian came to help them and now she had to fight all of them. Luckily, Cheetah and Anja came to help her and now Cheetah was twisting Damian's hand and Anja was throwing a bunch of bluff moves at Tea. It was easy for her to make Dora run and hide behind the church. She looked around, judging if she could be of any help to some of her friends. Angry yelling came from everywhere she looked, as the clearing was full of fighting kids, punching adn kicking the first person they saw.
Nika ran off to help Rea, a 15 year old blonde who has always been her friend, fight David, a 13 year old black haired boy. This fight was turning to their favour and more and more Scrawny bagels retreated. Jungle was still fighting Gabi, her elbows smudged with blood, and even though she was the one on the floor, she didn't seem to have any major problems. Gabi's attacks didn't give her any chance to get up, but she was quick enough to defend herself. At one point, Jungle relaxed, laying on the floor motionless. Nika ran towards her, wanting to help her. Before she could even come near them, Jungle sprang up, using her back to lift her up, with her feet in the air kicking Gabi in the stomach with all her force. Gabi gagged and fell on the floor, holding her stomach. Nika, Rea and Anja all walked up to them and helped Jungle get up. Anja looked around in concern, trying to spot her little cousin Hana. She soon saw her short blonde hair with bangs and grey eyes, and there she was, alnogside her friends Romina, Matt, Nina and her boyfriend Max scaring a small blonde girl Hera that was always over emotional. The little girl started to cry and hid behind her sister, Dorotea that was trying to fight off Petra.
„We won,“ Jungle spat. „Take a look Gabi, all of your teammates are running away!“
Gabi furiously looked around to see most of her friends fleed the church clearing with embarassing looks on their faces. She glanced at them with hate, before slowly getting up and walking away as fast as she could. Only a couple of Scrawny bagels stayed. Lukas was still there, although he seemed unaware of the fight that was going on, or was simply not interested at all. Lukas was a blonde ten-year-old boy with blonde hair that had a very short memory span and forgot every important thing that has ever happened on the square. He was usualy just playing football with his best friend Borna. Tea, Dora and Martina were close together, trying to defend themselves from Cheetah.
„Scrawny bagels,“ Anja said when the three leaders climbed on the grey stairs, „Your leader has escaped. Now the rest of you can stay here and be driven away, or you can peacefuly walk away.“
Scrawny bagels frowned at the name The Hystericals gave them, but fled the church clearing anyway. Jungle smiled. They still own the best teritory. It will be really long before anybody has the guts to try and take it away from them. Happy cheers rose from the clearing as the fallen Hystericals got up and dusted themselves off. Only Rea looked worried as she approaced Nika.
         „It's Rahela,“ she whispered to the leader, „I have been planing to watch her fight to see what progress she made, but I couldn't find her anywhere! I think she didn't fight at all, and I can't find her now.“
Nika's eyes widened in fear.
„What?“ She tried to say loudly, but it came barely audible. Rea repeted it once more, but this time to everyone else.
„Oh my candy floss!“ Cheetah squeeked, „That's terrible! What are we going to do?“
An old guy in a pullover was just passing by. He angrily looked at the group, especialy eyeing Cheetah.
„You little hysterical trash!“ He yelled at her. Despite the situation, everybody had to try their best to muffle their laughing with their hands over their mouth. Even Rea had to giggle, although Jungle could see her eyes starting to water.
„Come on everybody! Don't be ridiculous, she is probably going to get some water or just went to the bathroom,“ She pushed her way through the shocked gang before Rea could start crying, "Besides, where could she have gone? You are all worried over nothing!"
Her words must have made Rea feel better, because she let out a quiet sigh and nodded her head. Before you knew it, they were all turning the place upside down searching for Rahela. Jungle and Nika went behind the church to take a look. Maybe the eleven-year-old girl didn't want to fight and was scared of getting hurt. After all, whenever somebody was mad or wanted to get away from everybody, they would come behind the church. The place behind the church was perfect if you didn't want anybody to see you, a car was parked on the only small parking spot and there was a short narrow path on the left. They took a sharp turn to get there. Jungle was the first to climb the pretty high wall with a big flat surface on it. She had to climb on another wall that led to the roof of one house. The next thing to do was jump over that roof to another one and look as far as possible into the wrecked roof of a house next to it. The groups often tried to get in there, but no such luck so far. Rahela was thin enough to fit in there. When they were sure Rahela didn't hide there, the two leaders went turned around to go back. On their way back to the church, they saw a figure cautiously walking out of the secret passage. Jungle pulled Nika down and they both ducked behind a low wall and took a better look. Sure enough, Rahela was standing there scanning the area. She broke into a run as quiet as possible, but Nika and Jungle jumped out of their hiding spot and she sudenly turned around, startled. The two of them pinned her to the wall.
„We were searching for you everywhere!“ Nika was annoyed.
„Where have you been?“ Jungle added, frowning at Rahela.
„I went to chase off Scrawny bagels. They stuck around here for a while,“ Rahela mumbled, not looking them in the eyes. Jungle knew she was doing something else. You couldn't lie to the fourteen-year-old leader. Jungle has met many people who have often lied, so she knew the difference between the truth and a rehersed lie. She didn't say anything, though.
„Explain that to your sister! She is worried sick!“ Rahela looked at the floor, embarrased, just followed them aroud the church. As soon as they were close enough to the church clearing, they could hear Rea's annoyed voice. She was arguing with someone.
„What do you mean go without her? I won't go to the playground without my sister!“ Rea yelled at a boy with a dorky hairstyle. Nika recognized him right away. She was talking to Martin, Nika's best friend. He didn't wear his usual dorky clothes, but was ready to play football, a ball in his hands. Marko, his younger brother Marko was standing next to them, also in his football uniform looking really impatient. „Thank God you are here!“ Rea ran towards her sister as soon as they stepped onto the clearing.
„Alright, now, let's go to the school playground, Martin and Marko surely want to go. And Kiki,“ Nika couldn't help but add the last part, blushing the lightest of pink.
„Let's go, gang!“ Jungle clapped her hands. Rea picked up her younger sister, Romina, as they started walking torwards the school playground. Everybody speed-walked towards the road that led to the playground, everybody except Jungle and Anja. They had to go all the way around because their parents were afraid to let them on the road. It really annoyed Jungle, because even though the shore was beautiful, it was a really long path and they were there last. When the two of them finaly came, she made her way across the terrain where kids already played football and sat besides Nika. Not that she noticed or anything, she was quite busy staring at Kiki. Jungle giggled.
The school playground was quite big. It had two soccer goals and four baskets to play basketball. It looked like it was recently renewed. Even though there was a really high metal fence, bushes and trees everywhere, all of the people on the rode who drove by in their cars could clearly make out what was going on. Not far away was a small park with a swing and a seesaw and right next to it the school building, that was rather small and painted in plain white colour.
On the playground, there were a few German guys, there was, of course, Martin, who thinks he plays football better than any professional, even though Jungle could easily dribble past him an she hated football. There was Marko, his nine year old brother with short blonde hair and a missing tooth who scanned the playground, waiting for the chance to play with the older guys. He was sitting on the rolled up fence with Nika's cousin Toma, who was also "too young to play". The two of them were having a wild conversation, with spitting and cursing. Toma mostly talked to Marko, but the nine year old added a curse word here and there. The older guys never let them play, which made them mad. Kiki, Pegi's cousin, was the one to always show off, and while most people considered him a jerk, Nika always defended him saying that he is nice.
Cheetah, Tara, Jungle, Rea and Nika were sitting on their sweaters on the ground full of pine tree needles. They were giggling and talking, comenting on the game now and then, but mostly just making videos and watching YouTube. Rea drew something in her notebook, Jungle flipped through pages on her phone, not really quite sure what to do, Nika reposted stuff and roleplayed while Tara, Nika's nine year old sister with short blackish hair peeked over their shoulders. A meter away from them, there were Petra with all the small kids, Romina, Hana, Nina, Max and Matt, who were playing tag. Petra is really tall and skinny, with long brown hair and hazel eyes, and she is also really good with children so she didn't mind playing with them. Marija, Anja and Rahela, were playing basketball on one side of the playground. The football players yelled at them to move from the field now and then, but they didn't care much. Marija tried to shoot the ball in the basket but failed, making the young blondie frown. She was much too short to make that basket, so it flew beneath it, almost hitting Jungle in the head as she sat right under it. She smiled and threw the ball back to Marija. Jungle would usualy go and play with them as she loved basketball and trained it at home where she lived when she wasn't on summer vocation, but she didn't feel like it today. She could barely think because of Nika's arguing with Rea. Rea barely seemed to notice, scrolling and reading posts on her phone.
„He can play better then Messi!“ Nika explained to Rea, who briefly shook her head. „He can!“ Nika said stubbornly, refering to Kiki. Rea muffled her laugh and Nika pushed her in a friendly way.
„He can't really,“ Cheetah eyed Nika.
„Agreed to that!“ Jungle added. Nika looked offended, as if they just told her she can't play football better than Messi.
„I thaught I heard better than Messi so I suspect you were talking about me?“ Martin appeared out of thin air. The girls laughed, but Martin now looked really confused, „So you weren't talking about me?“ There was dissbelief in his voice.
„No!“ Nika looked up from her sitting position to where Martin was standing, „We were talking about Kiki!“
„Kiki? That dude couldn't stop the ball from entering the goal even if you kicked it from the other side of the world!“ He snorted, „Plus, he is a jerk!“
„He is nice,“ Nika simply said and took out her phone. Martin rolled his eyes and left, calling Marko to join the game. Toma was still on the rolled up fence, furriously spitting at every player he saw. He got up and ran after Kiki, cursing at him, but the blonde boy ignored him. He reached the goal and kicked the ball, but missed. Jungle had to laugh at that, but her smile faded away as Toma bumped into somebody on the playground entrance. It was Lukas, Pegi and Vito. There will be trouble. Jungle specifficaly spotted the way Rahela and Pegi smiled at each other, which made anger boil inside of her. She didn't have to be a love expert to know that something is going on between the two of them. She was mostly dissapointed, she thaught Rahela was the kind of person that would put her firends in front of some boy. They had a crush on eachother for quite a while now, but soon they will have to chose; one of them is going to have to leave their group, and Jungle wasn't keen on letting a Scrawny bagel in the group. Judging by Nika's angry expression, she knew she felt the same way.
„What are you doing on the playground at this time?“ Jungle took a step forward, „I thaught we had a deal; we can have the playground for ourselves from 18 to 20!“
Before they could reply, she heard Anja's annoyed voice:
„Idiots! They are outnumbered!“
„We aren't looking for trouble, we just came...“ Lukas started to explain but he ran out of words. He just ran off to the field, waving at some guys who imediately let him in the game. Even though he was only one year older than Toma and Marko, he never had to sit on the rolled up fence. Toma furiously stood up and yelled something to him, but Lukas probably didn't hear him, and he wouldn't care if he did.
„You were looking for trouble the moment you came!“ Cheetah shot back to them.
Yes, Jungle thaught, there is deffinately going to be trouble.
„Get your butts out of here!“ Anja yelled at them.
„We aren't going to fight you unless you ask for it!“ Petra added. Hana and Matt stood next to Anja with their hands in the air, like they always were when they were getting ready to hit somebody.
„I think you should get out of our way,“ Pegi stepped forward, „It's almost 8 o'clock.“
Jungle lit up her mobile phone with her thumb and glanced at it. 19:45.
"You can't take 15 minutes away from us," Jungle raised her eyebrow. She really wasn't in the mood to fight them after what happened earlier today.   
Cheetah jumped next to him, her finger in front of his nose. „Okay, you listen to me, you idiot. You are going to get your butt out of this playground, or you are going to be visiting the hospital in about,“ she paused, grabbing her phone, „5 seconds!“
„Vito! Lukas!“ Pegi yelled, making the two Scrawny bagels look at him and slowly make their way towards him.
„Toma! Get over here!“ Tara yelled to her cousin, making him stop whatever he was doing, and in this case, it was spitting at some Slovenian guy. Martin and Marko turned their heads too. They asked some German guy who was in charge to let them go out of the game for some time. Jungle wasn't really sure if the guy understood, but Martin and Marko walked out of the playground anyways. Kiki looked confused; why was someone yelling at his cousin? He asked for a few minutes out too and followed everybody towards Pegi, Vito and Lukas.
„This is the most apsurd thing ever!“ Jungle shook her head. „We can't fight now! Our time here ends in fifteen minutes, and the dumbest thing we can do now is fight! We had a deal, and I plan on sticking to it.“
„Oh, but we are just going to watch,“ Vito took one step into the playground, smirking.
„That's not fair!“ Nika whispered to Jungle.
„I know!“ Jungle replied out loud. Kiki came a bit closer, looking really confused.
„It's eight in five minutes, meaning…“ Vito spoke, but was cut of with Borna, David and Tom greeting him. The three boys slowed their pace, looking at every single Hysterical.
„Hello ladies!“ Borna winked at all of them, making Petra, Anja, Jungle and Nika groan in union. He was really trying to flirt with them? Well, he was quite stupid, so this looks like something he would do. He was barely nine, yet he had a crush on every girl he saw. Jungle couldn't help but admire him though, like the group rivalry meant nothing to him. Borna basicaly had no worries about his group, and it was really easy to see that he doens't really care either.
„Uh, hello?“ Kiki came a bit closer, still unsure of what he was supposed to say. Nika jerked her head towards him.
„Hi!“ She whispered, nobody else hearing her. He said nothing.
„What do you want?“ Jungle looked at him, annoyance in her voice.
„I wanted to ask why did you looked like you were about to beat up Pegi?“ Kiki pointed at Cheetah. Nika took a deep breath. If Kiki deffended Pegi so much and found out all about the two groups, wanting to join one of them, would he chose Scrawny bagels because Pegi was there? Now that she thaught of it, it seemed highly unlikely for him to join The Hystericals just because of her.
Cheetah faceplamed, „Because I was going to beat him up!“
Kiki's brow raised and he opened his mouth trying to say something, but nothing came out. For a brief moment he looked at Nika, but she just stood there, zoning out while a bunch of thaughts seemed to just roll over her like giant waves causing all of them to mix and flow in an unorganized mess. She really liked Kiki, and finaly decided to do whatever she could to stop him from joining any group.
She didn't even notice she was moving until they got to the road and a car went pass them. She looked around, confused, wondering why were all of The Hystericals walking back towards the square. Jungle must have noticed she zoned out so she gave her a small smile.
„It's eight,“ She mumbled, „I'm starting to think they came just to annoy us until it was eight and we had to leave.“
„Oh, geez! Seriously?“ Anja said sarcasticaly. The two sisters turned from the rest of the group, going their way by the shore. Nika quickly slipped next to them. Anja went ahead, playing with her ball while Jungle slowed down.
„Um... Can I ask you something?“ Nika whispered so that Anja can't hear them.
„Yeah?“ Jungle looked at her with her big brown eyes.
„If Kiki decided to join The Hystericals, would you, you know, approve?“ Nika looked troubled.
„I'm not your mom!“ Jungle laughed, but when she saw the look on Nika's face, she turned serious, „It would take Anja to agree too. Why? Did he say something?“
„No,“ Nika concentrated on the floor, „And I'm afraid he never will. What if he decides to join Scrawny bagels?“
Gave her a look full of understanding, „You are going to be fine, with or without him.“
Nika nodded. Maybe she is right. But if she and her group can't have him, then they can't have him either.