Vanilla

Two

Past the Victorian gate of Evergreen Kindergarten for Future Leaders down the longest avenue in town not far from Rivendell High School, children were scattered across the sidewalk, climbing trees and standing on benches, waiting to be picked up and brought home. Amongst them was a boy whose hands were gripped onto the straps of his bookbag that was bigger than him, staring down the road as though waiting for someone to appear in the distance.

He seemed to remain oblivious to the noise and movement around him, eyes the shade of lapis lazuli, hidden behind a pair of round, oversized glasses, looking straight ahead and with the clarity of a cloudless sky. He observed a group of friends—three boys and a girl—crossing the street in the midst of a conversation he could not hear. One of the boys, sensing his gaze, glanced over his shoulder and there, their eyes met briefly.

One would expect there to be some form of reciprocity in every bond between existences. Where there was love, it is—by the rule of some forgotten tale read by every bed—and would always be, returned when given. The receiver, enthralled by the gift, would thus willingly breed in themselves a nestling creature, ready to return to its owner, the giver, once ripe and ready.

He was four when he'd began to see the truth of it all; that though the creature had been given, it often did not return. That which it'd yearned to nest with would soon flee and nestle, instead, with another and that, was the true tragedy of them all. Simply because Leroy was his only friend didn't necessarily mean that he was Leroy's only friend and that there were not many others who adored him and yearned for his attention.

Not many a time did he see his only friend in school or outside of it. The closest they ever got after introducing themselves at the seesaw was the walk home after school—often which he would be accompanied by his uncle, watching the backs of Leroy and his friends. Sometimes, they stopped for ice cream.

*

It was a chilly November afternoon when Alfred Dempsey was sent to review the sudden catastrophic new menu of the Italian dessert store down town, leaving his schedule in a mess and his nephew, Vanilla, alone before the gates of his kindergarten after the bell.

By the time Miss Buttons had received a call from his uncle and relayed the message to him, the school's front porch was completely empty. No one jumping onto the benches; no one climbing the trees, scaling the gates; shouting and running about playing tag—no one at all. Just him. Vanilla.

He tightened the scarf around his neck, shivering a little and unconsciously sinking his head into the woolly material so as to prevent his lips from freezing. Miss Buttons had told him to wait inside since Miss Julie, his uncle's fiancé, would take a while to come over. Yet, the characteristic stubborn behaviour he'd somehow inherited from his uncle the critic made him root every grain of himself onto the concrete beneath his feet; and there, he stayed.

"Your uncle's always late," he heard all of a sudden. Startled, the boy raised his gaze—glasses fogged up from the heat of his breath.

"Leroy?" He couldn't resist the smile that threatened to surface. It broke through like a creature free of reins, taking to the skies and spreading its wings. Wide. "You're still here? I thought I saw you leave with your friends!"

"I left my homework under the table," said his friend, stuffing several papers folded in half into his bookbag. "My mother made me come back."