theophilus and me

Chapter 1 (Introduction)

'Against a foe myself I can defend-

But Heaven protect me from a blundering friend!'

- D'Arcy W. Thompson, Sales Attici

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In 'Willy and the Lady' by Gelett Burgess, there is a line that I will never forget. It is not that I have ever read 'Willy and the Lady', nor do I have any desire to, but the one line has become something I have lived by, changing my outlook on priorities of friendship and love for good. The line is:

'Love is only chatter

Friends are all that matter'

After coming across this in my aunt's old copy of 'The Pocket Book of Quotations' I haven't cared much for finding love and insist on only pursuing friendship, and only after finding contentment in a strong and true friendship can I even think of seeking romance. 

But how would I find a true friend, you may be asking. Even more so, what is a true friend? In the end, a true friend is trustworthy, supportive and kind-hearted. These three qualities are what I constantly reminded myself of, whenever I met possible candidates for the ideal friend position in my life. Of course, there are many other things that would be beneficial to keep in mind while hunting for friends, such as good humour, common interests, interesting personality, good listener and fun to be around, but to go through a checklist of these things in your head whenever you meet someone new would simply not work. I don't think that there would be a single person that would ever meet all of the requirements, so I managed to shorten in down to three of the most important traits of a friend and I met one person who met the requirements. His name was Theophilus Brown. 

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It was a scorching day in January, right in the middle of summer  in the southern hemisphere. In Sydney, Australia to be exact. I couldn't feel the heat of course, I was in the air conditioned public library, looking desperately for something to read, listen to, anything at all to pass the time. I walked through the large print section, my hand trailing along the spines of the books, staring off in to the distnance, pausing only to adjust the neck line of my tank top that was persistently slipping down every 10 seconds or so. As I passed a group of HSC students almost buried in work I was almost ready to give up and head home, once again braving the heat but as I turned around I almost knocked into someone standing directly behind me.

"Oh I'm so-"

"Excuse me-"

We both started our apologies at the same time but were cut off by each other.

"I'm sorry I didn't see you there," I said lamely, looking up at the boy standing infront of me. 

He wore a  plain black t-shirt,  not-too-tight but not-too-baggy jeans and black converse. His hair cut had nothing special about it and his hair was light brown. His eyes were blue and his face was not exceptionally long but at the same time not exceptionally round, but I would not notice this until later on. The first word that came to mind when I saw him was 'plain'. Everything about him seemed plain.

"That's okay," He replied. His tone was friendly, but not inviting. I, of course, chose to ignore that.

"Wow, are you borrowing all of those?" I questioned, indicating the large pile of books in his hand.

"Um, no actually I was just waiting for you to move so that I could put them on the shelf," He explained.

 "So you work here?" I asked, wanting to know about this seemingly average boy. There had to be more to him. He nodded in reply while putting the books in there proper places.

"Just shelving books though. I've gotta put all of those away." He told me, pointing towards a trolley full of books.

"Oh okay, so do you like books then?" I pushed on, desperate for some sort of conversation. The idea of meeting someone new today was too exciting, I couldn't let the oppurtunity slip by me.

"Not really, I'm just really good at alphabetising things." He told me. I frowned. Was he being sarcastic or was he being serious? I had never met anybody who harboured a secret talent for alphabetisation. This boy was starting to get more interesting. Rather than forcing the conversation any more than I already had, I decided just to go right ahead and ask him.

"Well, I'm Francesca Furr. Frankie for short. Would you like to be friends?" I asked boldly. He hesitated for a moment before answering.

"I'm Theophilus Brown. Theo for short. Frankie I sure would like to be your friend. How old are you anyway?" Theo's tone became warmer and his expression more relaxed.

"I will be fifteen years old in April Theo, how about you?" I replied, a huge smile on my face.

"I turned fifteen yesterday," His expression was cheerful now and I knew I had made a real friend.

"Happy fifteenth birthday for yesterday, Theo!" 

That is the last I remember from that day, but from then on, Theo and I were the best of friends and a year later we were having our share of teenage worries, but now we had each other.