I quickly ran after my friends.

'Hey, wait a sec!' I called out, hastily zipping my bag shut.

'Come on then, slowpoke!' Simon yelled, the 'kind of' leader of the pack.

The five of us walked towards our usual spot, the ping-pong table. Simon immediately sat down on the table. The others followed his example, not leaving any room for me. I leaned against the side of the table and tried to act as if I didn't care. I was used to it.

'Hey, I was thinking,' Simon said.

'Since when do you think?' Max joked.

'Very funny, Max. No, my cousin told me a while ago that there is a program that you can download on a mobile phone, and then you can hear everything that is going on near that phone. I thought, if we do that to that girl Marise, eh, we might find out why she's always so down.'

Sure, I thought. So you can spoil it all to Eva, so she thinks you're interesting. No way.

'Ahmed, I asked you something, slowpoke.'

'Um, yeah, what?'

'If you could pull that off. Or are you not clever enough, eh?' The other boys laughed. I wanted to protest, but then they would kick me out of the group for good. I laughed with them.

'Sure, of course I can. What's the name of the application?'

'Miccontrol,' he said.

'Okay. But I think I'll have to do it during gym class tomorrow, and-'

'You'll figure out a plan, eh?' Simon clasped my shoulder. I smiled.

'Yeah, it'll be okay.'

Nope. No, it won't.