The bags bumped into her legs for the thousandth time, and Amria barely stifled the curse that sprang to her lips. Why’d I let Eve talk me into carrying all the stuff from the supermarket as she relaxes in the car, she wondered, as she stopped suddenly to get a better grip on the heavy grocery bags.

A moment later, a solid weight thudded into her back and she stumbled forward, noting with an inward grimace the riip! that confirmed that her groceries were now rolling around on the ground instead of secure in their bags.

‘Excuse me - !’ she started, scowling, and whirled around to ask the person responsible what their problem was, but the guy – which a small part of her noticed was tall, fair and hot hot hot – was talking rapidly into his phone in Italian and didn’t even glance her way; he just stepped around her spilled groceries and strode down to the car park, utterly ignoring her existence.

More irritated than ever, she crouched down, stuffed the groceries in the remaining bags as best as she could, and made her way back to the car, promising herself that next time, she’d be the one taking a nap in the car.

Nicolai slammed the car door forcefully and snapped his cellphone shut, cutting of the voice of someone still talking in Italian on the other end. He’d had enough of his mother and her hypocritical lectures. He seethed as he revved the engine and screeched out of the fairly empty supermarket parking lot, not noticing a tall, caramel-skinned girl who jumped a bit at his sudden exit, causing her bags to fall. He saw her in his rearview mirror, however, and absently wondered why she was shaking a fist at his car.

His mind returned to the phonecall he had just cut short. It was always the same with his mother. Each time Nicholas and his father moved on to a different country, she would call and nag them both, harping on about how a boy’s place was with his mother, how he should leave poverty-ridden Africa and return to Europe and modern living, to be with her. ‘And she proudly calls herself my mother!’ He mentally spat to himself. When he was only a boy, she had robbed his father and abandoned them both in Italy to run away with her lover to her native France. Things you only saw in the films, or read about in books, but there, it was his life. Ever since, his father had buried himself in his work with the World Food Programme, and they had travelled from place to place because he refused to live with that woman.

Now, his father was posted in East Africa, and had been for the past couple of months. Nicholas had settled down quickly, used to the moving about, and was already enrolled in St. Aberderes Academy, for his last year in High School – finally! School started in a week, and this time, he was going to finish the school year in one place. Even he got tired of hopping from place to place. I wonder what this one is going to be like? he mused to himself curiously; his previous anger forgotten.