Diary entry, Black Forest, 17 March 1999:

Dear diary,

The new one is called Nora and not Emma, as I mistakenly assumed. Sorry about that.

Black Forest, 18/03/1999:

The entire classroom was quiet. You could hear a flea coughing, it was that quiet. The teacher, Mr Jakobs, was writing something on a chalkboard, the chalk emitted a shrill squeak every time it touched the board. The pupils were busy writing in their exercise books. Well, almost all of them. Nora thought it would be a better idea to copy things out quickly on the board, forgetting half of them, and then just scribble wild sketches in her notebook.

Only 15 minutes of a double lesson had passed and Nora was already bored. She would have loved to play football with her older brothers, who had both ended up with the field agents, just like at home. But unfortunately there was no football pitch here, and Nora doubted that football would ever be taught in PE lessons. After 30 minutes she felt like she might die when the door was suddenly pushed open and the headmaster himself came in.

At 1.98, the warden was hard to miss, and he wasn't the type to sneak in anywhere quickly and secretly, although Calypso was sure he could if he wanted to. But Calypso was also firmly convinced that pigeons were actually just drones from the government and not real animals, and penguins could fly, so you always had to be a bit careful what you believed and what you didn't believe.

In any case, the headmaster went straight to Mr Jakobs, who stared at him in bewilderment and began to whisper with him. During the conversation, Mr Jacob's handsome face became more and more contorted and the charming smile he usually wore turned into a worried frown. He said something back and the headmaster burst into a whole trirade of very aggressive swear words. Everyone stared at the headmaster in bewilderment as he suddenly burst into Spanish.

"El lunes nos vamos, y ni una palabra de nada a los estudiantes, ¡¿entendido?!" He made a sweeping motion with his left hand.

Mr Jackobs stared at him in bewilderment as he stormed out of the room. Then the 37-year-old turned back to the class.

"So, class, go to your rooms and pack your things, just leave your sleeping gear and your Hygine items and Klammoten outside for three days, on Saturday we'll be moving at short notice er.... move." He then stammered.

Calypso raised her hand.
"Yes, dear?" Mr Jakobs asked.

"Change?" Calypso asked.

"Yes, sweetie, school will be er... so... renovated!" Replied Mr Jakobs and laughed nervously.

Now it was Nora who raised her hand.

"Yes, Nora?"

"Where is the school going to move to?"

"Well..." He paused for a while.
"To Miami." He then admitted.

"And why all the way to Miami? We're in Germany!" Steve, a lanky boy with acne whose limbs looked as if they didn't really belong to his body and were just attached to it by chance, replied.

"Tell me, is he on drugs or something?" Nora whispered to Calypso.

"No, he's just really ugly." Calypso replied and shrugged her shoulders. Nora had to suppress a laugh.

"Because the field agents are in Miami." Mr Jakobs replied to Steve.

"We're moving to the field agents?!" Exclaimed the whole class in chorus.

Miami, 20 March 1999:

"The Codebreakers are coming to us?" It sounded in the breakfast hall.

"Yes, and, students, I demand your best behaviour, they are not so resolute, we will have to watch out for them a little!" Thundered the headmaster of the boarding school.
"Do we understand each other?"

"Yes, sir!" Resounded from the ranks.
"And what's our motto?" He shouted.

"Never give up!" Came the reply.

"Very nice!" The man smiled contentedly before going back to his own table, which he shared with the rest of the teaching staff, and continued eating his breakfast.

"Why do they have to come to us, they're all weak!" Richard hooted, and Christopher, Gelatos, Eyke and Jennifer nodded in agreement.

"Hey, who knows, maybe it will be fun after all!" Maria spoke again. Maria always tended to see things optimistically. Sometimes that could be very encouraging, but other times it could just be annoying as hell.

"I-I've heard they're learning the foil." Esther spoke up for the first time in three days.

"Foil? The thing with the slobbery sword?" Eyke asked.

"That's a sword. But yes." Esther explained.

"Hey, funny, maybe they can teach me, I've always wanted to learn how to play epee!" Gelatos exclaimed enthusiastically. He had picked up his accent again a few days ago, ever since Esther had told him he would suit him in her semi-conscious state after the swimming accident.

Gelatos got scathing looks from Richard, Eyke and Jennifer.

"What's supposed to be cool about 𝑭𝒆𝒄𝒄𝒉𝒕𝒆𝒏?" Snorts Jennifer.

"It's the loser sport." Richard grumbled, leaning back in his chair and crossing his arms.

Black Forest, Germany, 20 March 1999:

"Yelena, Mark, Steve and Karla, on bus 34!" Mrs Meeré shouted and waved the students and their luggage to bus 34. Students had already been loaded onto buses for an hour, always with two teachers or two supervisors, etc.

"Calypso, Evelyn, Emma and Dakotia, you're going on bus 21 with Mr Jakobs and me!" Mrs Meeré now shouted.

Calypso groaned in annoyance. "Oh no, not them again."

"It's all right, Calypso, she can't sit next to your dad anyway, Mrs Meeré is already sitting there. So, I hope so." Evelyn tried to reassure her.

"Calypso, run!" Nora suddenly jumped up and pressed her Tashe into Calypso's hand.

"Eh?!" Calypso said, looking around in confusion.

Nora slapped the flat of her hand against her forehead before quickly grabbing her own suitcase and rucksack, sprinting off at an incredible speed, shoving her suitcase into Mrs Meeré's hand as she ran past and quickly sitting down in the passenger seat. Dakotia, who had had the same idea, only without the sprinting, stamped her foot in frustration and retreated to the back of the bus.

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A few hours later, the group and many others were on different routes to Miami. A few of the older students flew by plane with their teachers or chaperones, the rest were wildly scattered by minibus to the North Atlantic coast and from there either by seaplane or boat to America. Nora and her group were taken to France to a remote village on the North Atlantic coast, a journey that took about 9 to 12 hours, at least according to Evelyn.

While Calypso argued with Dakotia in the back and Evelyn worried that the two of them were about to go at each other's throats and Madame Meeré warbled along to some French song, Nora and Mr Jakobs sat in the front of the bus in an actually quite pleasant silence. Nora listened to music through headphones and Mr Jakobs concentrated on driving. After a while, about four hours, Nora took out her headphones and turned to him.

"What do you think of Madame Meeré?" She asked him.

"Er... well... a very... very enthusiastic woman and very... very... er friendly." He blurted out while blushing.

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After another hour, they took a break at a rest area. While Madame Meeré and Mr Hakpbs discussed what to do next, Nora, Evelyn and Calypso also had a discussion.

"Thank you for sacrificing yourself." Moaned Calypso. "I hope dad didn't get on your nerves too much."

"Nope, he was very calm and thought about Madame Meeré." Nora replied.

But it came as it had to. This time, Dakotia took the seat next to Mr Jakobs. Something that didn't suit Calypso at all.

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After 10 hours and 43 minutes, they arrived at a harbour.

It was an unpleasant atmosphere, fog was wafting around, you couldn't see your hand in front of your eyes. The only light was provided by dimly flickering street lamps and it was almost midnight. While Dakotia and Evenlyn clung tightly to each other for once, and Mr Jakobs also looked very tense, Madame Meeré walked fearlessly with Calypso and Nora.

"I feel like I'm in one of those horror stories." Calypso said. "I'm walking through a dark harbour and a werewolf could come and attack me at any second!" The 16-year-old clapped her hands enthusiastically.

"There are werewolves here?" Evelyn looked around in panic.

"No, of course not, you idiot." Nora hissed.

"A-well, according to the message, the ship is here." Mr Jakobs stuttered and pointed to a blurred shadow in the water in front of them.

Everyone looked at each other for a few seconds, then Mrs Meeré stomped resolutely ahead and disappeared into the mist. There was no sign of her for a few minutes.

"...Lydia...? Are you all right?" Mr Jakobs called into the fog.

Shortly afterwards, the horn of a ship's horn sounded and Madame Meeré emerged again. She spoke to him briefly, so quietly that Nora, Dakotia, Evelyn and Calypso couldn't hear.

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A few hours later, the girls were finally in their cabins. Although you couldn't really call them cabins, they were far too luxurious for that. Poor Evenlyn had to sleep in the same room as Dakotia.

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The next morning, everyone was sitting at the breakfast table, feeling quite tired. Madame Meeré yawned and stretched, exposing her neck, which was tucked under a woollen scarf. Evelyn's eyes widened. She leant towards Calypso and Nora.

"Madamé Meeré has red spots all over her neck!" She hissed.

Calypso almost spat her coffee right back out. "What?!" She coughed.

"Do you think...?" Evelyn began.

"That this is all coming from Jake? 100%." Nora finished. Jake was Mr Jacob's first name. Nora and Evelyn were allowed to call him that because they were friends with Calypso. But only in private.

"Who is Jake?" Dakotia intervened, who had just spent hours in the bathroom on the phone with her cackling friends, applying her make-up and going through an eternally long skincare routine.

"Nobody important." Nora replied.

Dakotia didn't need to know that.
Dakotia probably realised that wasn't the truth, but for once she didn't say anything.

"No, I actually meant a rash." Evelyn looked subtly disturbed.

"Oh." Nora let out a laugh.

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A black figure clung to the outside of the ship. Now it was grinning. In the figure's rucksack were a few security camera recordings and a few photos. Now a voice in the person's ear spoke up.

"Have you got them...?"

The mysterious person's grin widened.

"But I always do."