The Knight: chapter 2

2. An older brother for me?

The next day in kindergarten I played “castle and kingdom” with my friend Eric. It’s not a proper game of any sort we just pretend we’re kings and knights. Eric and I usually play together and it’s often nice, but this very day I was quite absent-minded. Knowing that I had a knight called Christopher living in my house made me unfocused on the game as I was dying to go home and get to know him better.
”Don’t you want to be a king, Mike?”
“No. Knights are much cooler,” I answered him, all while feeling very confident.
“But if you’re king you get to be on a stamp!” Eric persisted.
I had to stop and think for a bit. Stamps are nice, but it might hurt to get marked on the forehead by the post office all the time. I hesitated a little and Eric made a silly face. An ugly-looking silly face. He rolled his eyes and pushed the tip of his nose up. It looked like a pig’s snout.
“Don’t do that!” I complained fearfully – but Eric had no intention to stop. ”Your face can get stuck like that!” I burst out horrified.
“It can’t get stuck.”
“Yes, it can too!” I persisted “My mom says so and she’s a nurse!”
Eric went quiet and let go of the tip of his nose. He probably didn’t want to look that ghastly when he got older and I could well understand that. I was happy he had quit making ugly faces.
”Mike, your mother is here”, said Charlotte, the kindergarten teacher. I hadn’t even noticed when she came to the doorway and was therefore rather surprised that I’d already played an entire day with Eric. Time had gone by really quick.
Immediately I got very excited to hear that my mother was there to pick me up, especially since I knew Chris was home and to be honest I hadn’t really let go of the thought of playing with him all day.
”Mom!” I shouted cheerfully and ran to the hallway without even saying goodbye to Eric.
When I got there I threw myself around her neck. She was totally taken by surprise and laughed so that all her teeth showed and her green eyes glittered. My mother is pretty.
“Hi, Mike,” she said gently. ”Are you that happy to see me?”
“Yes”, I answered and started to struggle to get my shoes on, without her having to nag on me like she usually has to do since I really love kindergarten. Most of the time I’d like to play some more with my friends and with all the fun toys they have. But not today.
Mom looked at me baffled and reached for my bag on the shelf just above my jacket hook.
“Did I miss something, or are we in a hurry?” she wondered.
“No,” I answered lingeringly.
She smiled while adjusting her long dark brown hair. She started to understand why I was so eager to get home:
”Mike?”
“Yes…” I understood it was time for a confession. I could tell by the meaning tone of her voice. “I want to go home to Christopher,” I reported rather shyly. “Perhaps he is feeling better today and would like to play with me.”
”I see.”
Mom helped me to close the zipper on my dark green jacket and I couldn’t stop myself from asking a little more.
“Do you think he’s better today?”
She thought about it a few seconds before replying.
“I don’t know,” she said truthfully. “We’ll have to ask Oscar as soon as we get back.”
I grabbed her hand and waved goodbye to the kindergarten ladies with the other hand. I was still cheerful, mainly because she hadn’t said that it was an impossibility to play with Christopher.
We walked off to our blue car in the parking lot. I like blue cars. When I grow up I’m going to have a blue one. Or maybe a yellow. But I’m not having a red car, ‘cause red is a girl’s colour.
I followed mom and glanced wistfully at the huge piles of colourful leafs that had formed along the edges of the parking area. Normally I would most likely have thrown myself in them and started to play. But not today. Today I just wanted to go home as soon as possible. It was very exciting to have a brother.
Of course Christopher wasn’t really my brother, I knew that. As a matter of fact, I didn’t even know him yet but I was sure he was a nice boy and I had always wanted an older brother.