Ch. 24

When I woke up, due to the late day and the resulting brightness that had already spread in the room, I could see that the place next to me was empty. Still a bit drowsy, the thought hit me whether I had only dreamed everything, but now, slowly coming back to my mind, I pushed aside with a shake of my head. I got up slowly and stretched myself out with relish before I pushed the door open to run outside. Standing on the veranda, I enjoyed the warm rays of the sun and looked around. The shower and the toilet behind it were empty and there was no trace of Stefanie anywhere else.

With a little panic I went back to the hut and to our sleeping place to see if I might see a message from her, but didn't find any. A look at the clock told me that it was already 10.30 a.m. I went back outside and around the corner where we had placed our bikes that night and saw that hers were still there. My gaze fell on our house, which wasn't too far away, and I noticed that my parents probably didn't stay away as long this morning as I thought.

A familiar voice called to me "Hey sleepyhead, finally woke up?" Still a little confused I looked around, because at first I could not clearly determine where the voice was coming from. After a short moment I saw that Steffi was standing at the window in the kitchen on the ground floor and waving her arms wildly. "Here I am." she called again to draw a little more attention to herself. Slowly I now moved towards the window, as our front door was right next to it.

"What are you doing here?" I asked her. "I stand here and try to help my friend, who is still a little foggy, to orientate himself", she answered my question cheekily. Without waiting, she continued, "Since I had been awake for a while and had seen that your parents were awake too, I knocked and asked if I could take a quick shower and change into some new clothes. They were so nice to me in then and gave me some more clothes from you, I hope that was ok for you. " "No, I can't approve of that" I replied with a slightly sarcastic undertone. "To just leave me out there in the wilderness, all alone, half dying of thirst, hungry and also quite ..."

Steffi started to grin and said to my mother almost at the same time "... And what?" because she knew what I actually wanted to say. Turning to her I said "You know what I mean" and to my mother "You really don't need to know". Steffi turned to her, but I couldn't hear what she was saying. My mother nodded with a big grin and noticed, turning more in my direction, "The word means what you're looking for, son". I knew that my parents deal with this issue very openly despite their attitude, but Steffi was, at least until now, not so aware of it. However, she couldn't help but laugh out loud and I replied, "Thank you mom, how could I be embarrassed without you." Now all three of us laughed and I went into the house.

As soon as I closed the front door behind me, my little whirlwind came rushing in and fell around my neck with a clearly audible kiss that she pressed on my lips. It must have escaped my father's notice and said from the kitchen "Oh, love must be beautiful". We broke up smiling and went hand in hand into the kitchen. It wasn't modern, but rather a bit rustic. On the opposite side of the entrance door stood the massive wooden dining table, surrounded by a corner bench attached to the wall and wooden chairs. My mother was standing at the coffee machine while my father was sitting on the corner seat and reading the newspaper, from which he only briefly looked up and greeted me with a slightly disguised voice and a "good morning sleepyhead".

"We have already had breakfast" my mother remarked casually, which raised the question of how long Steffi had been awake. Apparently my somewhat questioning expression betrayed exactly this thought, because she said "I've been up for almost 2 hours and since I didn't want to disturb you I went into the house right away. Since your parents were just about to make breakfast, they have me invited to it. " I was afraid of what was coming next, because she continued "and we had a pretty good chat." She finished her sentence with "I have to go somewhere quickly" and disappeared from the kitchen and ran up the stairs towards the bathroom.