{ELEMENTISTS OF WILLOW FOREST BOOK V} The Journey Across Water

Friendships Always Sink

12: Friendships Always Sink

I managed to get over the first disappointment about Care because for the first time in my life I had a friend, and when you've never been anyone's one before, having one is a very big deal.

The second big disappointment about Care was when somebody called up that it was tea time.

Tea time.

You mean, we had to come down for food? We couldn't just have it brought up to us on silver trays?

Oh well. As long as the waiters all wore smart suits and bowed down before you and called you 'your majesty'.

I scrambled up on a chair next to Lucinda, which was exciting in itself, sitting next to your friend. Other children joined us. Lucinda and I said 'hello' in English, then some mean boy said back to her, "Oh, so you're not stupid?"

I frowned. "No. Lucinda is not stupid."

"Oh." Said another person, a girl, this time, with long blonde hair I wish I had. "Because, Lucinda can't speak English, or at least not very well. So, she's stupid."

I opened my mouth to protest. "Not being able to speak English doesn't make you stupid or an idiot. You're stupid or an idiot when- when- when- when-" I struggled for he right words.

"What?" The girl taunted. "Are you stupid too?"

I began to get angry. I was about to be really angry. But Lucinda reached out and whispered to me in French before I had the chance; "Don't. Ignore them. Please?"

I wanted to be angry, really, but Lucinda was so nice and so special and it felt so nice and so special to have things whispered to you that I stopped. Because she was my friend.

We all sat there for about five minutes, still in silence, and still no waiters appeared. Instead, one of the care workers appeared, handing each person a plate of sausages and mash.

Sausages and mash? What an outrage! Could I not order my own food from an endless menu? Could I not have pizza and chocolate ice-cream every meal? How stupid was this?

I felt wronged. I felt deeply, deeply wronged. It was almost like people were saying that there wasn't an endless team of people looking after me, which, surely there was.

What if there wasn't? What if people weren't spending millions of pounds on me every second, because I was just that amazing? What if I wasn't just that amazing? What if I was exactly the same as everyone else?

There must be some mistake. I was more important than everyone else, because everyone else was an idiot, and idiots couldn't be important. I was the best. Everyone else was not the best. Everything centred on me, surely. Even if nothing else, I still ought to have everything better than everyone else, because I hadn't had everything better than everyone else the rest of my life. I had some vague memory of a mother who made me very angry. I spent over a year with this horrible grandmother who dared to try and buy me presents and take me on special outings and who was bad enough to never, ever get angry with me, however hard I tried. Then I had to go over to Calais, and there was my aunt who said she hated the sight of me. Then it was them. Les Serpents Rouges. They were the best bit. The most important bit. The most special bit.

And now I was here.

I went to bed painfully, numbingly miserable.

*