Black Moon

Author: Gabrielle Baerlein
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2006-03-01
Features: Across the street from my house is an outdoor swimming pool. To be honest, it's something we didn't have in our old place. When we lived there, if I wanted to go to the swimming pool, my parents would drive me there, sometimes my friend Alex or Peter's parents would drive us. But now, living here, I just need to cross the street to reach that outdoor swimming pool. There's a big slide, a ten-meter diving platform, and a glass wall through which you can see people swimming in the pool—they're like fish in an aquarium. I would never dare to jump off the ten-meter diving platform, no matter how hard I tried. The big slide is closed for maintenance. Even though we used to drive to the swimming pool, it wasn't all bad. Alex, Peter, and I could always find someone to drive us. Now, without those two companions by my side, I'm all alone in the water, feeling very lonely. Sigh, in reality, I'm not the only one in the swimming pool—many children are making a lot of noise around me, diving into the water or balancing themselves on the ropes. They all know each other, but I don't know anyone. Over there, across the street, there's a boy with golden short hair and a scar on his cheek. I've seen him a few times already. He must live somewhere nearby, but not in our residential area, because it's mostly occupied by elderly people or families with very young children. Whenever my mom sees those children, she always happily says, "Our twin daughters finally have playmates to play with." That's her usual way of doing things—she only thinks about my sister Anna and Mary's playmates, even though they don't need any right now because they're still very young and can only sleep or cry. She never considers whether I have friends or not. "Jens, at your age, making new friends isn't a problem!" Dad said to me when he told me he got a job in another city and we had to move. "But I don't want new friends! I just want Alex and Peter! I don't want to move!" I said. In the end, I had no choice but to move with my parents here. Who can tell me, besides this, what else can I do? Although I've been here for a full ten days, and summer vacation is about to end next week, I still haven't made any new friends. Unfortunately, I've lost four weeks of my vacation because we moved from Bavaria to Hesse, and summer vacation here starts much earlier than in Bavaria. While Alex and Peter were on summer camp in the Alps, I had to go back to school! In the swimming pool, I saw the scarred boy with golden short hair come out of the water, followed by three other boys. They all looked older than me. I wanted to swim for a bit longer, but the older boys were splashing around me like dogs, making me lose interest in swimming. In the past, I used to play games with Peter and Alex. Sometimes we acted like secret agents on a mission, sneaking around and following people without getting caught. Now, I feel like I've been sent into enemy territory alone—truly fighting my own battle. My mission now is to find that boy with golden short hair and a scar on his cheek, establish contact with him without raising suspicion, and figure out his identity. P7-8