Building a Relationship

Henry hadn’t had a play date for a really long time since he had came to the island. He’s made a couple of friends, but mostly they played together in the school courtyard, because it was nice there and there weren’t grownups here who were terribly worried about them, so they were allowed to. But he’s been invited to Arjean’s house to play, and he was quite excited about that.

Arjean was his friend. They weren’t really human, but that didn’t matter much to Henry. Not many people here looked like the people he’s used to at home, but they were nice. Arjean was nice. They were quiet but that didn’t matter to Henry, because he could understand people without them speaking. Arjean was younger, too, but they were really smart, and Henry really liked them.

Since he was only 9, he wasn’t allowed to go out on his own to where Arjean lived, so Mr. Theo went with him. Mr. Theo used to study in the school that mummy taught at, so sometimes he looked after Henry. He had brought the new set of Lego that mum and dad had given to him, a model of a police boat, and also the box of mixed Lego’s that he’s had for a while now.

“Hi, Arjean! I’m ready!” Henry said. Arjean had dressed up really nicely, he noticed, but they weren’t going to run around much today, so it should be okay. “Look! I brought some Lego with me. We can go and build things.”

Henry took a good look at the room. He had never seen a house so big before. It was more like a museum, really, the rooms were as big as the ones in the natural history museum in London when he went with MUN and dad as year. And there were so many plants! He had been to botanical gardens, as well, but he didn’t know that you could keep so many plants in a house. It must take a really long time to water every day.

Mr. Theo went off to the side. He had brought a book. Henry couldn’t understand much of it, apparently Mr. Theo had to study it for class. Henry definitely wouldn’t want to study that.

“Oh! You don’t know what a Lego is?” Henry asked. He knew that Arjean sometimes didn’t know a lot about toys. But he could always show them. It was fun showing people the things he liked. “They’re like little blocks that connect together. You can build with them.”

He opened the box and took two bricks, connecting them together demonstratively.

“You can try now. It’s really easy. We can build whatever we want, or I brought a set and we could build a boat.”

Henry watched Arjean stack the bricks for a while. He hadn’t thought that there’d be any kid who hadn’t played with Lego before, and he got a little happy himself seeing how excited Arjean was with these bricks.

“Of course these are fun,” Henry said, reaching into his bag to pull out the box set of the boat. It wasn’t one of those really big sets, but it wasn’t small, either. It would take two hours, maybe, but maybe it’ll go faster since he isn’t alone. “Well, the boat comes in a box, so there’s instructions that you have to follow.”

He opened the box and took out the instruction manual. “They’re really just pictures, see? So you do it step by step.”

Henry watched Arjean put the pieces together, offering a bit of help at points by fishing out the right part or demonstrating what the instructions were asking for. They caught on faster than he thought they would, rapidly going through each step. Though he wasn't participating as much as he could, he still found this fun. He enjoyed introducing new things and seeing his friend liking it so much. It made him feel good about himself.

"Oh! Floating in water?" Henry said. This he had experience with. "I don't think it does, because the bricks aren't totally waterproof, so some water gets inside, and it sinks. That's okay! We can make a paper boat, if you want. That floats on water."

"You can try," Henry said, knowing that Arjean was serious. Lots of people on this island can do a lot of cool things, and Henry would love to see a lego boat float on water. Of course he can try more normal ways, like real boats. Like having a water draining system in the back. Or maybe putting waterproof spray on it like you do with tents.

He noticed, suddenly, that Arjean's thoughts were flying all over the place. This happened quite often with them, and it made Henry a bit nervous himself, hearing all their thoughts.

"Hey, how about we take it one thing at a time?" Henry asked. "Should we finish the lego boat, or make the paper boat first? And don't worry if the you can't make it float. It doesn't matter, Legos don't dissolve in water or anything."