Chapter 1

Lying in bed, Niko was listening to his alarm clock go off. He turned to see the flashing 6:00 am on the clock. He had an hour and a half to get ready to go to church to take the bus to the Olympics. Remembering he packed nothing last night and the fact that it takes him an hour to decide on everything, he jumped out of bed and headed over to his dresser. Thinking about what to pack first, he opened the bottom drawer and took out a bottle of vodka and a bottle of Ouzo. His friends had all decided that everyone would bring a bottle of whatever liquor they wanted to have after the dance.
While contemplating which one to choose, he heard a noise from down the hall. ‘Parents woke up.’ he thought. He turned around and realized that he forgot to turn off the alarm clock. As he heard footsteps approach the door, he threw the bottle of vodka back into the dresser. He jumped back into the bed and threw the bottle of Ouzo under his pillow. Not a second passes before his mother walked through the door.
“Niko, get out of bed. Don’t you hear your alarm clock”
Realizing that if he moved away from his pillow his mom would see the bottle hidden underneath the pillow, he replied in a fake sleepy voice, which he had perfected because it’s also his sick voice that got him out of school many time, “Give me 5 more minutes.”
His mother started raising her tone, “Niko, I told you last night to pack your bag, but you told me that you’d do it in the morning, we have to leave in an hours in order to make it to church on time. And you still have to shower.”
“Mana!, Just give me 5 min, I’ll be ready by 7 don’t worry.”
“Niko, if you’re not ready by 7, I’m not driving you to church”
“Ok. Now let me sleep 5 more minutes.”
With that final exchange of words his mother stormed out of the room. Once Niko heard his mother walking down the stairs, he got up and grabbed his suitcase out of his closet.. lifted his pillow and placed the bottle of Ouzo into the suitcase. He put two sweatpants with his church’s logo, two gym shorts, two sweaters and two t-shirts with his church’s logo on top of it. As he zipped his suitcase to see if he could see the bottle by looking at the suitcase and realized that he could see the outline of a bottle on the back of his suitcase. He reopened his suitcase and decided to put the bottle in between the sweatpants and the sweaters. He then threw his suitcase back into his closet and ran to the shower. The only thing left to pack was his outfit for the dance. Although he is not the most attractive person in GOYA, the one thing that always makes him stand out is his sense of style. Although on normal days he doesn’t put too much thought into what he wears, when it comes to dressing up, he is always one of the best dressed guys. He hates wearing the same combination twice, and always remembers when others do. The only thing that he’s thinking about in the shower is what outfit he wanted to wear to the dance. Being that the dance is semi-casual, Niko decided to go with a black, navy blue, and dark blue striped button down from EXPRESS MEN, a cobalt blue denim straight cut jean from Tommy Hilfiger, and black Agile shoes from Spring. If anyone knows Niko, they know that when it comes to picking out shoes, he always has the best taste. His friend Youla always calls him to go shoe shopping. When Niko saw the Agile shoes at the Spring store, he had a shoegasm. They are comfortable and look like sneakers but could also easily be worn for a night out on the town. Niko stepped out of the shower and was now ready to finish packing. Having put his outfit for the dance in the suitcase, Niko found his third set of sweats with his church’s logo, and puts one set over his jersey and shorts with the same logo, and the other set is put in the suitcase for the second day of Olympics. Having packed his suitcase and gotten dressed, Niko checked the clock and saw that the time was 6:55. He grabbed his suitcase and ran down the stairs to his mom.
“See I told you I could make it on time”
“Bravo Niko, now make yourself a bagel so we can get going.”
“Mom, the GOYA always supplies us with bagels or donuts before we go.”
“Well eat a little bit now so that people don’t think I starve you and you eat a lot at church. Then get in the car and let’s go.”
Niko had never been happier to leave his house for a weekend.