Human - phan

Ellie's Story: Girl Conquers World

The deadline was final and unnegotiable. When Matt turned 18, his case would be reviewed and, unless serious progress had been made, he would be moved to a mental healthcare centre for adults. Ellie and Matt had to get discharged before Matt hit 18, or they would be separated. Somehow, having the deadline only made them work harder. It wasn't Soon anymore, it was Before Then, and each passing day could be counted down.

"I'm taking Ellie out for a walk."

"Okay. Have you made a note of the route?" Caroline said, pulling the brush through the thick hair of one of the younger children.

"Yes. 35 minutes." Matt shrugged a coat over his shoulders.

"That's 5 minutes longer than yesterday. Are you sure?"

"Positive. We've got an emergency exit, we won't be more than 10 minutes away at any one point, don't worry."

Matt helped Ellie into her coat with a wink and they walked arm in arm out of the door.

They had scheduled 35 minutes, but only 20 of those were for walking. They met Knuckles in the park and fed the ducks from a bench.

"Your move." Knuckles said, handing Matt a small, black sketchbook.

They had been playing this game since their first meeting. The whole sketchbook was one, continuous drawing, passing through many different landscapes. They would pass the book back and forth at every meeting, with each boy adding something new on their turn. The result was one of the most intricate and detailed pieces of art Ellie had ever seen. It was rife with the emotions of several months of ups and downs and ins and outs and carried the stories of two vivid, undulating lives. They had asked Ellie to join, promising that it didn't matter whether or not she could draw, but she had declined. She didn't use art as a creative outlet. She wouldn't have known what to draw, it would have been empty and meaningless and glaringly out of place in that story. It wasn't how she poured.

Ellie wrote, and mostly she wrote about the boys.

Wednesday 4th

Knuckles has a cut on his lip. Matt noticed and he wouldn't stop staring the whole time like he wanted to say something, but he didn't. Knuckles knew what Matt was looking at, but he didn't bring it up. He looked uncomfortable. He doesn't like being stared at like that. He's more used to people staring terrified at their feet when he's talking to them.

Me and Matt spent the walk home talking about Knuckles. We talk about him a lot these days. It's a constant debate. To me, he's always been gentle and kind and kind of quiet in many ways. He talks to Matt as if he were talking to a God – there's an audible reverence in his tone. It makes me feel so proud of Matt, because I know he deserves that. I want the whole world to be in awe of Matthew Marwick.

But there's a problem with Knuckles. Good deeds don't always redeem bad ones, and just because we've only seen the nicer aspects of his personality doesn't mean we should ignore the way he treats other people, or at least has treated them in the past. All we've got to go on is what his friends had told us about him. As far as we can tell, he's returned to college and is keeping his head down just trying to finish his A Levels. He missed a lot of lessons though and he failed last term completely, so I don't know if he'll make it. I hope he does. I feel like he deserves it. Or at least, if he gets his grades then he'll be able to become a person who deserves it. I have a lot of faith in his vitality and endless strife to better himself and the world around him, and I think he can do it, but I'm scared of what will happen if he fails his exams. He won't get a scholarship to retake the year at Bradfield, and without qualifications he probably wouldn't be able to find a job.

Matt takes the discussion more seriously than I thought he would. I think he's become quite invested in Knuckles, the same way that Knuckles cares so much about Matt and I. We're fighting very different battles, but we're in them together. We stand united. Maybe we'll all end up buying a little house in the middle of a forest together. I'd like that.