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Boo doesn’t have many friends. It makes sense; she doesn’t go to preschool yet, and “Myk” and “Ceela” take care of her when Kitty has to go somewhere. They’re her friends, obviously, but there aren’t many others.
Well… maybe there are others.
Boo trots up to the Bride, who is fiddling with her phone, smiling faintly. The Bride… confuses Boo, a little. Her words sound strange when they come out of her mouth, and her face doesn’t look like it belongs on top of a dress. Still, the Bride is nice and smiles at her in a friendly way.
“ ‘Ello, dear. What do you need?”
Boo points to the phone and babbles a question. "Wha' onna?
The Bride chuckles. “I’m textin’ me fiancé.”
The Bride pulls Boo into her lap and flips through her phone, showing off pictures of a bald man with a funny smile. “ ‘E’s an inventor. Makes all kinds of fancy things. Smartest bloke I’ve ever met.”
The pair look at photos for a while, with the Bride chattering and Boo jabbering. Eventually Boo climbs down and returns to her crayons. She draws a green man and a pink lady, and a gray box with wires and sparks. When the meeting is over, she shoves the picture into the Bride’s hands, and beams while her artwork is praised.
Kitty carries her to the car, and he smiles. “The Bride liked that picture a lot, didn’t she?”
Boo nods proudly and chatters an agreement.
“Maybe you can draw some pictures for some of your other friends,” Kitty suggests, as he buckles her into her car seat.
Boo doesn’t respond, just considers his statement.
Hm. Yes. Yes, okay.
The Bride is Boo’s friend.
~
Boo watches the Bodyguard from a distance. She likes him - he’s big like Kitty, and he can talk in funny ways that are different from the Bride’s words but still vastly entertaining - but she worries about the Emperor. He’s… too skinny.
Still, the Bodyguard likes the Emperor, so she draws them both. A figure in red and a figure in green.
Boo walks over to the Bodyguard, watching the Emperor carefully. He’s talking, they’re both talking, using funny words.
The Emperor sees her first. He smiles and waves and makes a strange sound. Boo ducks closer to the Bodyguard, who laughs.
“Hey, Boo,” he says. “The Emperor says ‘hi’.”
Boo frowns, looking at the Emperor. He makes the sound again.
“That’s ‘hello’, in Spanish,” the Bodyguard explains. “The Emperor speaks Spanish because he’s from Peru.”
The child shakes her head slightly, and hands the Bodyguard her picture. She moves away before he responds, returns to her crayons.
It’s about fifteen minutes later that she notices the Emperor is sitting on the floor, a tad closer than she’d like him to be. He cautiously reaches for a red crayon. She doesn’t stop him, but she also doesn’t hand it to him. The Emperor begins drawing on a piece of paper, and Boo watches.
Rectangles.
The Emperor reaches for a green crayon. This time, Boo pushes the crayon closer.
Lines.
Yellow crayon; repetition.
Shapes.
The Emperor holds up his drawing. “Peru,” he states. He waves it gently, like a flag in the wind. Boo giggles. The Emperor smiles.
The Bodyguard is her friend; and the Emperor isn’t too bad either.
~
Boo likes the Heiress, likes her more than almost anyone else in the group. Which is funny, because the Heiress likes the Page, and he scares Boo more than anyone.
(Too skinny, shifting eyes, marks across the arms that aren’t the same but even so…)
Well, he doesn’t bother her, so it’s okay. And if he ever did, the Heiress would stop him.
“Nobody better mess with you, ‘cause I’ll eat ‘em!”
The Heiress is older than Boo, and stronger and faster. And she’s dirty, like Boo once was, and she smells like the house Boo used to live in. She’s familiar, but also better, scary like Boo wanted to be.
The Heiress sits next to Boo on the floor, and they both snatch crayons and scribble across sheets of paper. Boo draws a figure of brown and yellow with sharp teeth, and passes it to the Heiress.
The girl studies it for a moment. “Is that me?” she asks.
Boo grins. “Airiss,” she says proudly, nodding.
The Heiress drops the paper and pushes it to Boo. “You should add some bat wings! Then I can be like a vampire!”
Boo giggles and grabs a black crayon, adding more details. While she works, the Heiress draws a pink stick figure with brown pigtails and red claws. When the meeting is over, they trade pictures. The Heiress doesn’t rip her’s for once, which makes Boo smile.
The Heiress might be her best friend.
~
The Bard brought someone new today.
Boo doesn’t know his name, and she’s not sure how to feel. He’s thin, but short, and dressed mostly in green. His hair is funny; it seems to change colors sometimes. He sticks close to the Bard, and shies away from the grown-ups… even the safe ones like Kitty.
This time, he comes to Boo. “Mind if I use these?” he asks, pointing to the crayons and paper. Boo babbles an affirmative response. Together, yet separate, the two of them make pictures together. After a while, the new boy shows Boo what he drew. “This is a pirate,” he says, pointing to the figure in red. “And this boy is the one who fights him.”
Boo looks closely. The pirate looks a little funny. She points to the silver curve that’s there instead of a hand.
“Oh, yeah, the boy cut off his hand and fed it to a crocodile after the pirate tried to hurt him. So now he has to use a hook.”
Boo nods, and shows him her picture. The same purple and pink figures. The new boy nods as well. “Oh, I get it.” He points to her figure, and to his pirate. “He hurts people too, right?” Boo nods. “Yeah, grown-ups are like that. But at least we’re not ever going to hurt each other.”
Boo smiles. Before she leaves, she hands the new boy a picture: a green boy and a pink girl.
She doesn’t know what his name is, but the new boy is her friend, too.
~
Two Nine is hairy, like Kitty. And shorter, like Mike. He doesn’t smile too much and usually sounds kind of grumpy, but he still looks okay. So, while Boo is bored and can’t decide what to draw, she draws him.
Two Nine rolls his eyes when she gives him a scribbling of blue and green. “Yeah, thanks kid,” he mutters. Boo smiles and waits a minute, but he doesn’t say anything else.
Kitty has something to say, though.
“Hey, look at that!” he says as he walks over, his voice just a little too loud. “Looks just like you, doesn’t it, Two Nine. Bet Boo worked really hard on it. Hope you appreciate it.”
“Yeah, yeah,” the older man grumbles.
Kitty gives him a look - the same kind of look she gets when she’s picking at her corn - then he walks away. Boo trots after him, glancing back only once. She watches Two Nine slip the piece of paper into the garbage can. Boo doesn’t really mind.
Two Nine is still her friend, even when he’s being a grump.
~
Boo likes Pua Mae because she talks so much. She tells cool stories about bears and aliens and fish and a guy named Elvis, all living on a big jungle island. Pua Mae is like the Heiress, in some ways; neither of them mind that Boo is quiet.
Pua Mae’s favorite thing to talk about is her dog. “He’s kinda blue, and he’ll eat anything, he even tried to eat a car once! That’s how I got him, ‘cause the driver didn’t know he was chewing on the tailpipe and bumped into him. They sent him to the dog shelter and my sister brought me there and I picked him out and paid two dollars for him! My uncle didn’t like him at first ‘cause he tried to eat Auntie’s head, but now we’re all an ‘ohana.”
Boo nods while she listens, drawing a little girl in red and a stick-figured blue dog. She lifts her picture, and Pua Mae studies it critically.
“Pretty good,” the girl says thoughtfully, “but Stitch doesn’t look like that.” The older girl grabs a crayon and makes a quick sketch of a stumpy dog with a large smile. “There we go!”
Boo smiles and takes the drawing, handing her own back to Pua Mae.
“Oh, can I keep it? Thanks!”
Pua Mae is Boo’s friend, and maybe she can make friends with the dog someday.
~
The Heiress says that Sire used to have lots of bugs all over him; but then the Swan bought him some special shampoo, and now he doesn’t have so many. That was before Boo really knew them, and it annoys her, just a little. She likes bugs, and she wishes she’d gotten to see them. But she still likes Sire.
Well, sort of likes him.
He’s still young, but Boo knows he’ll get bigger, and he’s already… skinny. So she keeps a bit of a cautious distance. But the Heiress says he’s pretty okay, even if he calls her names sometimes, and he’d never hurt her or Boo or anybody. So… it’s okay.
The Heiress snickers, watching Boo draw: a brown figure with black hair and black bugs jumping around. Once it’s been signed, the Heiress jumps to her feet. “Hey, Nuka!”
Sire walks over to them, rolling his eyes. “Your legs work, you don’t need to yell.”
The Heiress grabs the drawing and forces it into her brother’s hands. “Look what she drew for ya!” Her voice is full of excitement and pride. “It’s good, huh?”
Sire studies the picture, laughs, rolls his eyes again. “Great. She’ll be famous someday, have people lining up for autographs.” Sire hands the picture back to Boo, but she shakes her head, grinning.
“It’s a present, dummy!” the Heiress scoffs.
“Watch who you’re callin’ dummy, worm.”
Boo giggles as the pair start to argue. It isn’t loud and scary and dark. He never raises a hand. She doesn’t need to run away. It’s okay.
Sire is her friend. He might even stay her friend once he’s a grownup.
~
Boo… isn’t sure about the Countess.
She’s nice, certainly, pretty and happy and generally safe. But she doesn’t seem to like Kitty, and that’s a dealbreaker.
Or it was, until she saw the Countess drawing.
Boo creeps closer to the Countess, watching her pencils fly across paper. Gentle colors, subtle shades, delicate marks. The shaping of a large, blossoming flower.
It’s a long time before the Countess notices Boo watching her, and after a frightened squeak and an embarrassed giggle, she shows off her drawing. “Do you like it?” she asks brightly.
Boo nods, babbling affirmations.
The Countess smiles and takes back her drawing. “I need to draw some pictures for Mother. She usually doesn’t ask but, you know, I told her this was an art group and if she did ask to see some work and I didn’t have anything, she’d be upset to find out I was lying. I know I shouldn’t keep lying to her, but she wouldn’t like me being here with all these men.” Her voice becomes very soft and conspiratorial when she says this.
Boo frowns a little, but doesn’t comment.
The Countess takes a new sheet of paper and begins sketching a night sky over a forest. Boo likes it a little better when she’s drawing instead of talking.
The Countess doesn’t notice when Boo creeps away, or when she comes trotting back. She’s absorbed in her artwork up until the moment the childish doodle comes into her line of vision.
Boo smiles as the Countess gushes over her drawing. She knows the Countess could have drawn something better, but she likes the praise.
And, for the most part, she likes the Countess.
~
The Wiseman keeps an eye on all the kids, even the big ones like Sire and the Princess. When Kitty steps out to use the bathroom or get a snack from the vending machine, the Wiseman wanders over to wherever Boo is.
She only pays attention while he’s watching her. She knows him, just like she knows everyone in the group, but he’s not scary enough for her to constantly keep an eye on and not fun enough for her to try to play with.
So now is the first time she’s noticed the weird shape slip out of his pocket and into his hand.
Boo gets to her feet, points at his hand. "Whatta is a?"
The Wiseman studies her for a moment, then carefully holds it out, too far for her to grab but close enough for her to see. It’s a bear, a bear’s head with bear hands made out of a rock.
“It belongs to my brother,” the Wiseman says. His voice is rough and sad. “He’s, um… he’s missing, right now. When he comes back, I’ll give it back to him.”
Boo nods, then turns to wave at Kitty, coming back down the hall. The Wiseman has moved to another end of the room by the time she looks back. The girl settles back onto the floor and draws a figure of brown, and a shape with round ears.
The Wiseman’s face changes when she gives him the drawing. He thanks her, but he looks like he’s going to cry.
Boo hopes he doesn’t. She wants her friends to be happy.
~
The Champion is fun. She tries to get the other kids to race with her, and she’s almost always the fastest. Boo isn’t a very good racer, but she likes to chase the Champion around the theater.
“I’m gonna be a NASCAR racer when I grow up,” she declares proudly, to Boo and anyone else within earshot. “I love running, it’s fantastic, but just think how fast I could go in one a’ those babies!”
The Champion jerks slightly (the jerking isn’t fun, but it doesn’t last and she doesn’t cough or fall or get sick, so it’s okay), then grins and keeps chattering. Boo smiles and starts scribbling. A greeny-blue girl with a greeny-blue car.
The Champion grins, announces to Boo and anyone else within earshot, “Wow! This is great, thanks!”
The Champion is definitely Boo’s friend.
~
Sire misses a meeting, and the Wiseman makes the Heiress leave early. Boo misses the next meeting because she has a cold. When she returns to the theater, the Heiress is there.
So is a baby.
Boo trots over to look at the infant in the car seat, and the Heiress kind of smiles. “This is Kovu,” she says. She sounds wrong. She should be louder.
Boo pats the baby’s cheek, and he squirms and yawns. She looks at Kitty, who’s talking to the Wiseman. They both look sad.
“Nuka’s at the hospital,” the Heiress says softly. She turns and starts kicking the stage, hard enough to leave little marks. Hard enough that it has to hurt. “Mother beat him up real bad.”
(Shadows and monsters and blood and hands…)
Boo tries to hug the Heiress. The girl pushes her away. “You should draw a picture for Kovu.” The words are sharp. “You did one for me and one for Nuka so he needs one too.”
Boo doesn’t respond, because the Heiress is mad and scared and nothing Boo says or does can actually help. She just sits and scribbles a baby wrapped in a blanket.
The Heiress barely waits for it to be finished. She grabs the drawing and forces it into the infant’s face. “Look at that,” she orders. “That’s you.”
The baby squirms away, and when the Heiress pushes it closer, up against his skin, he starts to cry. Tears and drool smudge across the drawing.
“Hey!” The Wiseman gently moves the Heiress out of the way and lifts the baby into his arms. The Heiress glares at him; her eyes are shiny. She spends the night beating up the stage.
Boo wants to draw all three of her friends together; but they aren’t all there.
~
On Saturday, Mike and Celia come to the apartment for dinner. Boo stays in her room for a long time, drawing. She hears the grown-ups talking, and Celia finally comes to get her.
“Hey,” she says gently. “Sul- Kitty told us a friend from your group got hurt. Are you okay?”
Boo doesn’t answer, because no, she isn’t.
Dinner is quiet. Boo sits on her booster chair and drops more of her food than she eats. She doesn’t get a lecture about it, and that just makes it all the more real.
They’re all in the living room, pretending to watch a movie, when the phone rings. Kitty answers, and…
When he comes back, she knows. She can see it; his face isn’t so tight anymore.
He kneels, looks her in the eye. “The Wiseman just called. Sire’s still at the hospital, but he’s doing better. They think he’ll be able to leave in a few weeks.”
“Hey, that’s great!” Mike says, while Celia gives Boo a tight hug.
Boo doesn’t cheer or laugh or dance, because she’s learned enough to know things aren’t good, not yet; but things are getting better, and she smiles.
After Mike and Celia leave, while Kitty is cleaning up the dishes and pulling out his couch bed, Boo draws a picture. It’s a pink girl, and a big hairy man, and a small man with a pretend green eye, and a lady with purple hair. It's not a good picture, not like what the Countess draws (she messed up the kitty on Kitty's arm and had to make Celia stand in the back); but it’s a happy picture. She puts it on the fridge by herself, so Kitty will be surprised when he makes breakfast in the morning.
Boo is lucky. She has Kitty and Mike and Celia. She’s glad she has a family who love her so much.
She hopes all her friends do, too.
