The Journal of Beatrice Grace Parker

Creepy or Nice?

Before I could take the matter to Dr. Russell, though, Theo came to us today. We tried to ignore him, with his dark brown (overlong) hair, and his fluid gait. We really did look away. I focussed on the thin, long crack in the wood of my bench. But he kept coming closer. I almost got up from the bench and stalked away, but he stopped me. “I’m sorry.” He said, seriously, like he really really meant it.

I turned to look. He was dead serious, not a hint of a smile on his face, or in his chocolate brown eyes. We took the moment to notice him properly for the first time. He looked a lot like us. We had similar dark hair, which was something of Brack (yep. We call the colour Brack, because it’s such a dark brown, it’s almost black), and the brown eyes. We lacked freckles that abounded on our respective parents’ faces (Mom and Dr. Russell both have a smattering of freckles and neither Theo nor I had one). I felt, for the first time, that we could’ve been friends in another world.

He waited patiently for our eyes to meet, and when they did, he continued. “I’m sorry I’ve made things difficult for you. I’ve been most insensitive. I did read your journal when you’d left it with Dad. I didn’t mean to, please believe me. I thought it was his diary, so I wanted to sneak a peek about what he felt about me, that’s all. When I read the first line, I knew I was mistaken. I was going to close it right away, but my name caught my attention. I couldn’t help but read that part, and after that I was kind of hooked. You are fascinating, that’s what you are. I had to read on because you’ve actually got a story, you know? It was so engrossing to see the world from your perspective. It had me completely captured and I couldn’t put it down. I think it takes guts to embrace being mental. We all need a little bit of mental in our lives. Otherwise, we’d just be normal. I know I shouldn’t have read your journal, but I am truly sorry. Could you please forgive me?”

I remember every word of what he said. Because initially, I was specifically looking out for something to criticise him about. Then I was actually surprised that someone would find my condition interesting, rather than condemning it as an abominable anomaly. He even made it sound as if I was special, like being mental was something desirable, and being normal was just plain old boring. I did not forget that he was Dr. Russell’s son, and he should have asked before reading our journal, but I did believe him. Without the hint of a headache, we agreed that he did deserve forgiveness.

I nodded.

He smiled. This time I saw what I’d refused to see for so long. He really did have a wonderful smile. And it wasn’t actually creepy, although it did seem to be meant only for me.

I smiled back. But since I was Beatrice Grace Parker, I still had an image to keep and so I had to end it with “Nice smile, creepy boy. Oh, sorry… Creepy smile, nice boy. Whatever.” And I got up, and stalked off, but not before I caught him grinning and had grinned back in return.