Like Fire in the Wind

46 Braemar Road, Manchester - Tuesday, August 28, 2017 - 6:23PM

Alessia Campana looks around the five people seated in front of her in the kitchen. She’s finally managed to get them all to sit down and listen to her. She smiles. She already know she’s going to be the mum of this group.

It’s been chaos all afternoon. When she arrived at the house she is going to stay in for the rest of the year, there had only been two people before her and they both had gone to settle in. Rob the owner was still calm.

But he had barely started talking, explaining some things to her when the doorbell rang again and new person had arrived. Rob went to open the door to let in the newcomer and wanted to start his explanation once more before the doorbell rang again. And kept ringing until everyone had arrived. By that time Rob had gone red in his face. Even redder than before.

Everyone started talking to one another, introducing themselves and Rob couldn’t get a word in between to finally go ahead with his explanation. It took him more than an hour to say what he wanted to say to everyone and give them all their key. And then he took off, seemingly unable to take any more of their chatter.

Now everyone is gathered in the kitchen, except one. Alessia hasn’t seen her yet, even though she supposedly arrived as first. No one has seen her yet and she isn’t sure what to expect from her.

“So,” Alessia start and everyone turns to look at her. “As you may have noticed, everything was a bit chaotic today. So if we want to survive this year and I think we should organize this household a bit.”

Before she can continue her little speech, she’s already interrupted. “Are you seriously going to make rules already?” She looks at Luke, the person who is already questioning her methods. He looks at her with raised eyebrows. He’s sitting at the end of the table, furthest away from Alessia

Luke Pieters is a twenty year old male. He’s brown hair that is swept to one side and matching chocolate eyes. He’s from Cape Town in South Africa, but his accent sounds just as British as Robs, to Alessia. But she guess there’s probably a difference.

“I’m not making rules,” Alessia replies. “I just want this to be a little organized. In my experience if you don’t do that, it’s going to be a mess here within a few weeks. And I’m not planning to live in your boy stink a whole year.”

“I don’t stink,” is Luke’s smart reply. Alessia simply rolls her eyes at him. “How are you going to do that anyway?”

“Well, if you would’ve let me finish talking, you would’ve know by now.” Luke holds up his hands in defense and lets her continue. “First of all, we should work out a schedule for cooking, cleaning and laundry. Also, I think we should have a grocery jar or whatever you want to call it. If we’re going to eat the same food, we should all pay for it, not just the person who’s cooking or whatever.”

“Okay, so how much do you have in mind?” Camila asks. She’s sitting in the first seat on the right and has to strain her neck to look up at Alessia. She’s from Brazil, so her dark brown curly hair, her dark eyes and tan skin are not a surprise.

“I don’t know. How about a hundred pounds a week?” Alessia shrugs her shoulders.

“That’s seven hundred pounds a week. Do you really think that’s necessary?” Sam asks. Alessia looks up at where’s sitting at the back of the table, next to Luke. He’s got a thick Australian accent, which Alessia doesn’t think it sounds anything like the British.

“Do you know how much food costs? I think seven hundred is not going to be too much to feed seven people,” she replies. Sam opens his mouth to say something else, but stops in his tracks to avert his gaze to the opening to leads to the lounge.

Alessia and the others follow his action to find the last housemate standing in the doorway. She’s wearing a too big sweater and some leggings. Her blond hair is pulled into a messy bun and her eyes are heavy lidded.

“Hi,” she says. “Sorry to interrupt your, uh, meeting.” She gestures with her hands to the table everyone is seated around except for Alessia. “I guess I fell asleep and kind of lost track of time.” She goes to sit in the empty chair next to Finn, the Norwegian boy, and smiles at him.

“Are you jetlagged?” Alessia asks once the girl has sat down. She doesn’t know where she’s from and since everyone seems to be from somewhere other than England, she figures she might be from some place far away.

“No, just tired,” the girl replies. “I haven’t gotten much sleep this week. You know, lots of goodbye parties and stuff. I’m from Belgium anyway, so it’s only an hour time difference.” She smiles a big smile. “Oh, I haven’t told you my name. I’m Noor and it’s really nice to all meet you.”

“Okay, thanks Noor,” Alessia says and Noor smiles at her. She then tells her what she told the others just a few minutes ago. Noor seems to agree with everything and Alessia thinks that they’ll probably get along quite well.