Unicorns, Broken Noses, and Rain for England

Frank only popped in for a few minutes, but somehow he still managed to make me laugh before disappearing again. He leaned into the conversation with that amused smile of his and announced that he would leave me and Fruitloop—his nickname for Janita—to continue talking. He only wanted to say thank you for coming back to Brida.

I thanked him, but he immediately waved it away as if he had done nothing important. According to him, all he had done was “give me to Fruitloop.” Then he mentioned that my mother had written a very kind comment saying that I finally felt ready for England. He looked at me suspiciously and asked if that was actually true or if it was only my mother speaking for me.

I admitted it was true. I really did feel confident now.

That started another discussion about my future plans because Frank said he never fully understood how long I would actually stay in England. He remembered Birmingham, but not the details. So I explained it again: four months in Birmingham first, then I would return for a year, and afterward I still had to finish five years of study in Laval. My school was not exactly in Laval though. Maybe later I would continue in Cranfield in the UK.

The moment I said “Cranfield,” Frank immediately reacted. According to him, Cranfield was one of the best universities. Then he suddenly had an idea that was apparently not part of any official course. He reminded me that he and Janita had “The Pineapple” publication, and he asked if I would maybe like to have a meeting once a month to share my experiences in England so they could write articles about it.

Honestly, I liked the idea. Why not share what happens there? So I agreed.

Frank promised he would send me a WhatsApp message later so we could organize everything. Before leaving, he gave me one final mission: do not take the beautiful Alsace weather with me to England. We needed to keep the sun in France. Instead, he requested that I send rain back because they needed it there.

I promised to try.

Then he warned me that he was leaving me alone with Janita and her “horrible questions.” I laughed because, honestly, he was not wrong.

After Frank disappeared, Fruitloop immediately switched into interviewer mode.

She asked how I was doing and how my weekend had gone. I explained that I had spent the weekend with a friend of my father and with the family of my sister’s boyfriend, who happened to be one of my father’s old military friends. Mostly we relaxed, ate too much food, and spent time together. To compensate for all the eating, I ran fifteen kilometers on Sunday morning.

Janita seemed impressed by that.

She also asked whether we celebrated Mother’s Day. I told her not really. Honestly, I was not even sure if it was Mother’s Day in France that weekend.

Then the conversation suddenly became about childhood games.

The first thing I remembered was playing pretend games with my sister. We used to act like doctors, which apparently included taking scissors and cutting each other’s hair. My parents did not enjoy those games nearly as much as we did.

Janita looked horrified and asked how bad the haircut had been.

I honestly could not remember. I only remembered that we both destroyed each other’s hair equally, so at least it was fair.

She asked whether I preferred games with rules or games where people invent their own rules. I told her it depended on the number of players. With many people, rules are necessary; otherwise nobody takes the game seriously. But with two or three people, changing the rules can make everything more fun.

Apparently my sister specialized in changing rules to benefit herself.

Fruitloop laughed when I admitted that I had probably done the same thing before by secretly adding Jokers into games.

Then she asked what I missed most about childhood games.

That question hit differently.

I told her I missed the moments with my family. We used to play Monopoly and Uno together. Today everyone just sits behind the television, and those shared moments do not happen anymore. I think that is one thing modern technology changed. Children today often get phones or laptops instead of spending entire days outside.

When I was younger, life in my village was different. There were only around six hundred people there, and my friends and I spent all day outside biking, playing football, or exploring the forest.

Janita agreed and started talking about the old internet days with slow dial-up connections. I laughed and told her it once took maybe thirty minutes just to upload one photo.

Then she asked which smell instantly reminded me of childhood.

That answer came immediately: the smell of two-stroke motorbike fuel.

That mix of gasoline and oil always reminds me of riding bikes in the forest. Even now, I am repairing my father’s old Ducati because vibrations broke both turn signals last week. Since replacement parts from Italy take forever to arrive, I recreated the broken pieces on my laptop using my 3D printer software.

Unfortunately, before I could print the new parts, I first had to repair the 3D printer itself.

Janita seemed fascinated by the fact that I could create motorcycle parts in an hour instead of waiting weeks for Italian deliveries.

The conversation kept drifting between serious memories and completely ridiculous questions.

She asked whether I still had childhood toys somewhere in the attic. Probably yes. I remembered my remote-control car from the years when Sébastien Loeb was winning championships. I used to drive that thing everywhere.

Then we talked about the giant slope between my street and my friend’s street where we spent entire afternoons with bikes and roller skates.

That led naturally to injuries.

Many injuries.

So many injuries that my mother had to take me to the hospital almost every month for half a year because I kept breaking my nose or smashing my head open. Apparently the hospital staff eventually became suspicious enough to question my sister privately because they thought my parents were abusing me.

In reality, I was simply an extremely reckless child.

Fruitloop laughed in disbelief.

Then the questions became even stranger.

If hide-and-seek became an Olympic sport, would I win gold? Probably yes, because I always try to find the best strategy to win games.

Would I survive “The Floor Is Lava” with my family? Definitely not my mother because she is afraid of heights. I would probably survive longest because of my gymnastics skills, although my father would also have a good chance because he used to be a gymnast and loves climbing.

Which childhood game would look strangest in an office? Adults jumping across desks while screaming “the floor is lava” would certainly look ridiculous.

If tag lasted twenty-four hours, who would I tag first? Obviously the slowest runner.

She asked about my funniest injury, which is difficult because injuries are rarely funny. But I remembered crashing my two-wheel scooter into a wall when I was three years old because I could not turn properly on a slope. Hense, the broken nose.

Then came perhaps the most impossible question of the day: would I survive dodgeball against one hundred angry toddlers?

Absolutely not.

No human survives that.

Janita also asked whether I had ever pretended to be injured to stop losing a game. I admitted not for games, but definitely to avoid school sometimes. Unfortunately, it never worked.

When she brought up Mario Kart, I immediately chose the rocket or the invincibility star because obviously everyone wants speed and chaos.

Then she asked which game made me feel like the main character in an action movie.

Strangely enough, Monopoly.

There is something powerful about becoming rich and controlling the board.

Toward the end, the conversation became unexpectedly philosophical. Fruitloop asked if the world would be more peaceful if adults solved conflicts with rock-paper-scissors instead of arguments.

I told her games could sometimes be better because words can hurt people deeply.

But when she asked whether presidents should use rock-paper-scissors to stop wars, I admitted it would probably somehow make things even worse.

Finally, she asked the most important scientific question of all: if unicorns played hopscotch, would they use magic or just jump badly?

I answered seriously, of course. If unicorns had magic, they would use magic tricks. Otherwise it depended whether the unicorn walked on four legs or two.

Perfectly logical.

At the end of everything, Janita thanked me sincerely for sharing my stories, my memories, my strange childhood injuries, my motorcycles, my studies, and my future plans.

She wished me luck for England and for my competition on Thursday.

I told her I would share my future adventures with her too.

Then we said goodbye.