He never behaves like he’s meant to. His hackles don’t rise when he sees them. He never humiliates them; it’s as if they’re just kids, nothing else; he’s not seeing anything different; not seeing a colour or a religion or a race. You can’t get your head around it. It can’t be this simple. ‘I feel the opposite of lonely here,’ he says with a smile one day, flopping on the bed, ‘whatever that is. Filled up.’
He brings gifts. They start anticipating his arrival. For Tidge, any stick-like object that has the potential to be a sword. For Soli, nail polish and glitter pens. For Mouse, one time, a strange white sphere with green stains.
‘Um, thanks. What is it?’
‘A pukka. For polo. It’s the only ball I could find. Until you can get your other one back.’
‘Huh?’
‘The one on the lawn. That’s waiting for you.’
Heart, swell.
‘Gee. Thanks. But I can’t catch, you know.’
‘Mate, you are all talk.’
‘I can’t catch, Pin.’
The boy lobs the ball and Mouse reaches up and snatches it crisp; ‘eeeeh,’ he squeals and Pin stands there smiling, all his paleness gone and colour in his cheeks, and your daughter’s staring with her hands on hips, nodding, appreciating. ‘There you go.’ He laughs. ‘What did I tell you, dude?’ grinning at little Mouse who’s responding with, ‘Thanks, mate, thanks,’ over and over, he can’t stop. Because he’s feeling quite someone else, suddenly, someone better and bigger and straighter than himself. Because he caught a ball, the cool way, overhand, and he’s never done that. His smile is one huge watermelon split. Because no boy except his brother has ever looked at him like this. Like he’s whole. And in that golden moment your awkward, self-conscious, clotted little Mouse has his entire world filled up and you love this stranger for that, you will never forget it. Something has changed in this room, loosened; you’d battened down the hatches for so long but now, softly, something is breaking out.
How great a matter a little fire kindleth.