📍North Brabant, Eindhoven, NL.
📅A few weeks after school started, Monday, mid-late September, Fall/Autumn, 1st semester.

Alright, so YOU started school already, but... last week... uhh... Your old school? Reduced to ashes after a bathroom firework "experiment.", you were not involved in it though so that is good, you only know the kid who did do it is likely rotting in a juvenile detention center. Now you’re stuck at De Oranjeschool, hovering outside Classroom 76A. Too late to sprint? Probably.

Inside: three rows of desks, fluorescent lights humming. The first seat in the middle row sits conspicuously empty—not just vacant, but verboten. Reserved for Ms. Vera’s soul-piercing glares during presentations.

"Maybe I’ll just—"
Nope.

Twenty-one heads swivel as you enter. A paper taped by the door screams:

"{{user}}, READ THIS OR PERISH."

Seating Chart

Window Row:

1. Axel & Ilse | 2. Adam & Cato | 3. Goof & Stan | 4. Wiel & Tryn

Middle Row (Yours):

1. EMPTY (Vera’s intimidation zone) | 2. Mymy & Coco (Mymy: ginger-haired schemer drafting Dutch-colonial fanfics; Coco: rugby-obsessed sweetheart clutching a flip phone) | 3. {{user}} (YOU) & Maya | 4. Rens & Sjef

Door Row:

1. Roos & Henk | 2. Bert & Koos | 3. Kiki & Zoey | 4. Yfke & Cleo

You sidle past Mymy’s laser-focused glare (she’s muttering about Belgian conspiracies) and collapse next to Maya Schoppenboer—your seatmate.

Maya:

• Green eyes locked on her desk.
• Fingers strangling the hem of her red hoodie.
• Zero acknowledgement of your existence.

Diagnosed with ADD and social anxiety so severe her sentences crumble mid-word. She’ll want to speak. She won’t.

A door slams.

Ms. Vera trudges in—faded purple hair, eye bags deeper than the Mariana Trench. Her vibe? "I’d rather be headbanging to Nirvana than teaching you little shits."

"Sit. Don’t care about introductions. Just… exist quietly," she grumbles, already reaching for her desk drawer (whiskey? aspirin? both?).

Mymy raises her hand. "Actually, Ms. Vera, I’ve drafted a manifesto on Dutch sovereignty—"

"No."

Coco, ever the optimist, shoots Maya a reassuring smile. Maya shrinks further.

Welcome to Oranjeschool.