The History: Chapter 2

He sat down by the tree. He sat in between two other boys Sam and Charlie who, apparently, really didn't like him. He hadn't done anything but the second he started to answer questions they started to laugh silently. He didn't want to say anything to Ms. Laura because he wasn't sure how she'd respond and as he mother always said, don't look like a wuss, so he wouldn't.

Audrey came and sat next to him. She picked up a clover flower from the ground and twirled it in her fingers. "Do you like your class?"

He nodded eagerly.

"I don't. My teacher is the meanest person in the history of meanest people." She said turning over onto her stomach. "No one in my class likes me. Do you like me?"

He nodded very quickly.

"Why don't you talk?" She asked.

"My mom says 's better to be quiet that way my ideas don't come flooding out of my mouth like water out of a faucet." He whispered before snapping his hands over his mouth. He started to cry shaking his head as if he'd done something awful.

"Hey, hey kid, Once, it's fine we all complain about our parents it's not like you did anything wrong," she said to him.

"Really?" he looked up at her his blue eyes shining with tears.

"Yeah really," she grinned. "We ALL do it at one time or other. My dad's trying to stop smoking so sometimes he's a little on edge. My mom's always tired and spends like no time with me unless I go to work with her on the weekends, which, now that Laura's back I've stopped doing."

"Oh." He said smiling.

"Yeah my mom works at a huge factory owned by DeMode and company."

"She's my aunt."

"You're kidding," she said a look of pain, pity, and worry over her face.

She hugged him. She was quite affectionate. He didn't mind at all. Laura had the same motherly gentleness. Audrey was comforting but a lot less gentle or refined. She just did whatever her brain told her to without a second thought.  

That's how they sat for the rest of the recess under the big oak tree at the far right corner of the playground. The boys played football, the girls played four square.

However, there in that right corner sat a little dark haired boy and a strawberry red haired girl who just enjoyed each other's company.

"I love summer." She whispered.

"I like flowers," he mused.

She laughed. "I do too."

"I like trees." He admitted.

"I do too."

"I've never got to do this before just lay in the grass under a tree. My mom is convinced they make my lungs hurt even though my dad says she's wrong."

"Oh?"

"He wanted to plant one in our yard. He wanted a Trufula Tree. My mom said no. She said it'd be bad for me. He said the only reason my lungs hurt was because of the air pollution; I have asthma or something like that. They're sensitive apparently, not insanely just sometimes I have trouble breathing. I don't know why. My mom says with my dreams that I'm going to need to get over it as I see myself someday making cool inventions. She says the factory might spew Smogulous Smoke in which case I just gotta get over this thing. She knows about business I don't."

"You could always do it in an eco-friendly way. You could make your inventions handmade and then sell them for trillions of dollars because they're one of a kind."

He smiled.

"I want you to take care of yourself." She said. "I hear a scream from my neighbor's house every night.  I want to know who that is. Do you know the people across from my house?" She realized that was a dumb question

"No, at least, I don't scream." He lied through his teeth.

"You are," she said breathlessly.

Oh how she was praying he would have phrased that differently. Her new best friend was the shriek. She wouldn't let him lie. She knew he was in big trouble. She prayed for him to say I live on the opposite side of the neighborhood, or I don't know where you live but certainly not those three words: I don't scream.

"I can see in your eyes you're that kid! You're that little kid who screams every night I want to go across the street and smuggle away the child that's screaming because he sounds like he's in pain. Every night I want to go over there and hold him because . . . because it happens to me here every day."

He looked at her. "I feel like we've made a lot of confessions." He said slowly.

"Yeah," she looked at him.

"Pinky promises never to tell anyone what we know about each other?" He asked.

"Okay," she nodded eagerly.

"Come to my house after school and I can help you with your homework."

"But I'm only in first grade we don't have homework."

"Oh right," she smiled. "Well, at least come over for awhile so we can talk and stuff. That way if ever you need out you can have my number." She squeezed his hand.

"Thank you Audrey for listening to me."

"No problem Once, I'll watch out for you, now and for always."  

So the recess bell rang with two students on their backs looking up at the sky trying to make pictures out of clouds and the smokey air polution that filled the sky underneath a beautiful oak tree. Once-ler closed his eyes. Today was a good day. It was a perfect day It was the first perfect day he ever had.