Friends

In the car Small Sprog taunts his sister "You've got no friends!" He says. She says something suitably scathing to him and he makes a face back at her which she doesn't see.

She has large group of quite close girl friends and she has worked hard to get to where she is. She is shy and knew no one whatsoever when she started her school 3 years ago. Now though, she seems happy with her lot, she has a nice group and they have a place somewhere in the middle of the school pecking order; all is well with the world. However, there are no boys. Her little group have resorted to 'marrying' each other on Facebook just so their status doesn't say 'single'! She may be feeling she is 'on the shelf' but I am more than happy I can tell you. On the other hand though, Small Sprog is keeping his end up (if you will excuse the pun!)

I noticed him carrying around a bit of paper yesterday evening. It was a little tatty, but I noticed he was squirreling it away rather than binning it. I didn't ask him about it, just in case.

At bedtime I went into his room to say goodnight and he was all tucked up. As I pottered around sorting out his man habit of hanging clothes up on the floor, he nipped out of bed saying "I just found this in my drawer"
"What have you got?" I ask as I notice it's the bit of paper he's been carting around all evening.
"This" He says, carefully unfolding the paper.

He is smiling proudly. There, drawn in 'Manga' style, was a brilliant drawing of him in his school uniform, waving. It was the sort of wave he does which is somewhere near his shoulder shrug, the one he does when he's not sure what to do, the one that works really well for him. It was a great likeness. "That's a fab drawing" I say to him "Who drew it for you"
"Shania" He says, all proud and a little shy.
"She's a good artist, it looks just like you" I say. He's holding really tight to it, I can see there's writing on the back but I can tell he's not going to offer up that bit for inspection.

I find him some Blue Tack and he fixes it onto his wall next to the frog photos, as I wonder if it would be really out of order to read the back of it when he's gone to school tomorrow.

He plops back into bed happily. I am glad he wanted to share his picture, he looked so proud, I don't think any one's done anything nice like that for him before. "You ought to make her something" I say, thinking that he'll not like the idea. However he says "Yes, I thought I'd make her a model, but it might get squashed on the way to school"

Gosh, I thought later, Perhaps he's a bit smitten (goodness me I am using words that my mum would use!). Then I spend the rest of the evening hoping his soft little heart doesn't get broken too easily.