Children's Story

Here is a little children’s story I whipped up when I couldn’t be bothered doing homework:

Matthew appeared to be an average boy. He was an average height, an average size, had average brown hair, lived in an average house with an average family, had an average pet dog, got average marks in all his average VCE subjects, brushed his teeth in the morning and afternoons (which is a fairly average thing to do) and he even ate his meals at the average time of day. But Matthew was anything but average.
At the beginning of high school the other boys were kind to him and welcomed him warmly into their lunch time conversations, but Matthew didn’t like wasting time talking about the latest computer games or how complicated maths class was getting, and so he turned down their offers of friendship and went on a mission to find someone more fun. He missed primary school profusely, he longed for a game of chasey, hide and seek, four square or British Bulldog, but mostly Matthew just wanted to play adventure games. At his old school the boys tended not to play imagination games and were more into running around or playing sport, so Matthew almost always played with the girls. There were no girls at his new school, but his older sister had wisely told him a few days before he finished primary school “when kids go to high school they stop playing games, Matt. No one runs around and no one plays adventure games. Everyone sits and talks” Matthew couldn’t believe what he was hearing
“What do they talk about?” he asked his all-knowing sister
“Boys” she sighed gloomily as if she was rather sick of talking about boys all the time. On his first day of high school Matthew soon realised that his sister had been right, everyone did sit and talk at play time. So he sat down with a friendly looking bunch of boys and said
“There’s a boy who works at the bakery near my house. His name’s George and he’s worked there for fifty years” the other boys stared at Matthew for a second or two and then burst into a flood of laughter. Matthew couldn’t understand what he’d done wrong, George was one of the most interesting boys he knew and if his sister had been right (and his sister was always right) then striking up a conversation about boys should have been a great way to start.
One afternoon Matthew’s sister had a friend over, her name was Clarissa and she was very pretty. Matthew told Clarissa all about his first day of high school and she laughed when he said “I don’t know why they didn’t want to talk about George, Phoebe told me that high school kids just talk about boys”
“Don’t be silly” she had said “boys don’t talk about boys.” This had made Matthew very confused, and it took him a whole two years of solitude to understand it. At the start of year 9 Matthew fell in love with Clarissa, he had never seen his sister’s best friend the way he did at the Christmas party that year. After a fairly awkward conversation with his mother, Matthew realised that he wasn’t ‘in love’ with Clarissa but was simply experiencing his ‘first crush.’ Apparently his mother had been waiting several years for this moment, Matthew blushed and promised himself he would never like another girl again. He had decided that girls were far too complicated (it had, after all, taken him two years to understand that girls talk about boys and boys talk about completely different things entirely.) He was still disappointed that girls, as well as boys, didn’t play adventure games anymore.
Another couple of years passed until Matthew entered his final year of school. He still hadn’t managed to make any friends, the other boys still just talked all the time and no one had signed Matthew’s “Adventure Game Players Club” poster, which he had pinned up on the notice board. He knew that he had been by himself for too long now to make any friends anyway, he had lasted five years alone, surely he could last just one more? But no, Matthew was tired of being called a ‘loner’ and wanted to fit in, so he went to his sister for help.
“I’ve decided that I want some friends”
“Is that right?” his sister replied, not looking up from her college report which was due in two weeks
“Yeah. I’m sick of spending lunch time and play time by myself”
“When will you stop calling recess ‘play time’ what are you, 5?”
“I wish” he mumbled under his breath
“Look” she said, putting her pen down and facing him “you can either be normal and get yourself some friends, or stay the way you are and..... pretend to have friends... whatever.” What Matthew’s sister hadn’t expected was that he would take ‘pretend to have friends’ incredibly seriously.
Matthew had a very productive holiday. On his first day of year 12 he walked to school with his new best friend: Archibald. Archie was a dashing young man and was in the same year as Matthew, luckily he was enrolled to start at the same school as Matthew, this made the two of them very happy indeed. Archie’s family was still living in the Himalayas and so Matthew let him stay at his place over the summer “we should find you a place to stay once school starts” Matthew had told his friend, but he knew that Archie would have no were to go and so added “you’re welcome to stay at my place until everything’s certain, of course.”
Archie was a lot of fun. He enthusiastically played adventure games with Matthew all through play time and lunch. They took all the same subjects, Archie was very smart and Matthew encouraged him to contribute to class discussions but Archie was simply too shy. One day Archie banged his leg rather hard on the teacher’s desk, but the nurse refused to treat him. Matthew was furious and stood up for his quite friend “this is because he’s from the Himalayas isn’t it!? You’re just a prejudiced old cow!” this bought Matthew a trip to the principal’s office.
“Archibald doesn’t fit in, just like me. He’s too different to play-I mean, talk- with the other boys. It’s bad enough that no one but me pays him any attention, and then the school nurse goes and refuses to fix his leg!”
“Matthew” began the principle, a concerned look had spread across his face “you’re far too old for imaginary friends. I’m going to recommend you see a good friend of mine, his name is Dr Carter, I think he might be able to help you” Matthew’s eyes widened, was the principle accusing him of being mad? “You’re a bright student, Matthew” he went on, flicking through what appeared to be Matthew’s files “but not very social, I see”
“I don’t want to be friends with any of the other boys!” Matthew sobbed “all I want to do is play the adventure games I used to play at primary school with the girls, but there are no girls here, and even if there were they would just sit and talk about boys” the principle looked overwhelmed with confusion “but Archie’s different” Matthew continued “he doesn’t tease me for calling recess ‘play time’, he doesn’t laugh when I play in the playground on the way to school, he doesn’t judge me for wanting to escape this world and create my own, he’s always there for me and he always supports me” Matthew whipped back the tears which had uncontrollably streamed down his face “but most importantly” he paused to swallow down some tears “Archie misses playing games as well.” There was an intense silence as the principle absorbed all that had been said, Matthew concluded by saying “don’t call me mad. Don’t call Archie imaginary. Because, if you do, then I’ll go back to having no one.”