I'm sorry! Did I scare you? said Ella.
- Just a bit, I answered with a smile.
- Do you want to go out on the schoolyard? You can show me what you can do on breaks. Only if you want of course!
I'd love to, but I don't know many things the others do, I'm always alone at school...
- Then show me one of your places! She sounded exited. If you have one. I've always wanted to see a place like that.
- I do have one... And I'll show it to you if you would like to see it, but it's nothing special.
The way Ella looked at me said that she really wanted to see my secret place. So I took her hand in mine and started walking. We went out through the doors out in the sun. Many of the other children in our class were playing with each other. They saw Ella and waved at her to come to them and play, but she just shook her head and kept following me. I led her behind the school. It was completely empty. I led her into the little copse.
-Here it is. I said.
Ella looked around. The ground was covered in grass and some of my things were laying there. The trees stood so tight and had so many leaves it was impossible to see through them. They were quite high, and even though the tops were leaning towards each other a little bit, you could still see the clear blue sky a bow. A light green light filled up the copse and added to the calm feeling which existed in there.
-As I said it nothing special at all, but it's quite nice to have a place where I can be alone and not seen or herd. And it's almost always quiet here, so it's easy to concentrate on my books.
-I think it's beautiful. I have never had a place of my own where no one knows where I am. I have sometimes wished to have one, but never found a good place.
We spent the rest of the day together. We played on the breaks and sat together in the classroom. We ate lunch together to. I had not eaten lunch together with someone else in school for three years.
I don't think my parents could not notice the difference when I came home. I talked to them for a longer time than I had done for a very long time. And I was happy the whole time too. I had a good appetite at dinner and ate a lot more than usual. I even helped my parents with Emma and David. I wasn't so good with them, because I had always kept my distance from them. Mum and dad didn't say anything about the changes. I think they were scared that if they said something about it, maybe I would stop being happy again. But I could see that they were content with my behavior.
I now took Ella with me almost every time I went to my copse. We sat on the grass or in the trees and talked and talked. One day, a Wednesday, when we sat on the ground something strange happened. We were reading, although I think Ella concentrated more on her own thoughts than on the book. Suddenly she said:
-Do you know what would make this place even more beautiful?
-What? I said without looking up.
-Flowers! I have always loved flowers. Just think about it. Flowers of all sorts and colors covering the ground and the branches.
-Yeah, that might be nice. I said, although I did not know if I would like that or not.
I then got a feeling I had not felt in a long, long time. I wanted to please her, even though I did not really like the idea. I wanted her to get her flowers. This is when the strange thing happened. A sudden smell of flowers appeared. Both I and Ella looked around to see where it came from. Flowers had started to appear. They showed up mostly in the grass, but also in the trees. But they did not just pop up. They started as buds, and then developed in super speed. They just opened up and out came flowers in many different, beautiful colors. When the scene was complete, Ella looked at me.
-What just happened?
I could see fear in her eyes, but also admiration and amazement. She both feared and loved what had taken place right in front of her big, green eyes.
