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“Dad, can you teach me?”
“Teach you what, kiddo?” Pok looks down at his son, Riz; the young goblin barely reaches past his waist. Riz stands next to his father with outstretched hands, a length of cloth dangling from them.
“Can you teach me how to tie this like you do?” Riz holds in his hands the belt from Pok’s bathrobe.
“Kiddo, you know how to tie a bow. I’ve seen you tie your shoes every day.”
“No, not like that!” Riz samps his foot in impatience. “The way you wear it around your neck!”
“Ah, you want to learn how to tie a tie?”
“Tye-a-tye?
“Yeah. Sure thing. But let’s not use the belt from my robe, okay? I’ll get you your own tie, how’s that?”
“Yeah!”
Pok walks to his and Sklonda’s room, Riz at his heels, and rummages through their closet, selecting an older, burgundy tie that he no longer wears. He passes it to Riz.
“See how this has points at the end? One large and the other small? That’s a tie.”
“Oh.”
“Now, let’s see. How about we sit on the sofa and I’ll show you how it’s done.” The two walk to the front room and Pok sits on the sofa, legs akimbo. He pats his lap, signaling to his son to join him and sit between his legs. The young goblin is too happy to oblige, and scrambles up the furniture and into Pok’s lap. Pok tousles Riz’s hair.
“You’ll have to turn around so you’re facing away from me, sport.”
“Okay.” Riz turns and lets his own legs dangle off of the sofa.
“Alright, so. First, let’s drape this around your neck, like so." He puts the tie around Riz’s neck, the thinner end on Riz’s left. “The smaller end goes on your left”
“Small end on left…” Riz mutters.
“And we’re going to pull the small end up so it’s shorter. Maybe a little more than halfway up.”
Pok adjusts the tie so it’s the proper length on either side.
“Now, let’s cross the long end over the short end, and tuck it underneath…” Silk slides smoothly over silk as the tie goes over and around.
“Keep the short end straight, ok?”
“Mmm…” Riz mumbles as he concentrates.
“Then the long end is going to wrap over and around the loop on the right side, like this. …See how I keep the cloth smooth? We don’t want it to wrinkle and twist alright?”
“Wrap it around and keep it smooth…”
“See how there’s sort of a lump on the loop from where the tie has been looped around?”
“...Yeah.”
“We’re going to fold the long end over that lump …make sure that we’re holding onto the lump so the tie doesn't come undone… And then we’re going to wrap the long part under the left part of the loop, like we did on the other side.”
“Over first and then under?”
“That’s right.” Pok guides the tie under and around itself.
“We’re almost done, alright, kiddo? So next we take the long end and we are going to slide it through this hole we have here over the lump. See how easily it fits?”
“Uh-huh.”
The end of the tie goes through the hole, just as Pok describes.
“We pull the tie allll the way through – but make sure not to bunch it up!” He pulls the long end down until the knot is the appropriate tightness.
“And all that’s left to do is to adjust it, like this!” Pok holds the knot with his left hand and uses his right to pull the short end of the tie down, bringing the knot up to just below Riz’s chin.
“And we’re done!”
“Done!” parrots Riz.
“Are you ready to try it with my help?”
“Yeah!”
Slowly, over the next ten minutes, Riz tries again and again to get the knot right, his nimble fingers easily maneuvering the fabric around. He mostly has difficulty with getting the length correct, or tightening the knot as he goes, but soon enough he’s making passable knots around his neck.
Finally, Pok goes hands-off and lets Riz try it all on his own. The child goes slowly, concentrating as if it’s the biggest test of his life. His thin, black tongue pokes out of the corner of his mouth as he focuses, sizing up the length of cloth to make sure the proportions are perfect, then diligently folding and twisting the tie.
At last, he slides the large end through the loop and pulls, slowly and gently, working the knot up to his neck, and then stops.
He turns his head back to look at his dad.
“I did it!”
“You sure did, kiddo! Great job! Let’s go show Mom!”
“Yeah!” Riz scrambles out of Pok’s lap and bounds off towards the kitchen where Sklonda is reading a book.
“Mom! Mom! Don’t I look just like Dad!?”
“Pok?? How did you get so small??” asks Sklonda. Riz giggles with glee.
“No, I’m Riz!” he says as he laughs.
“Whaaaat!?” Sklonda feigns shock. “But Dad always wears a tie!”
“Now I do, too!” announces Riz, who stands up as tall as possible.
“Oh sweetie, you look so handsome!” Sklonda says, bending down to kiss her son on the forehead before looking over his head to smile lovingly at her husband.
“I’m going to go practice!” Riz squirms out of his mom’s arms and rushes back to the front room where he plops himself spread-leg on the sofa, undoes the tie, and then begins to work it back up again. He cheerily hums a cartoon theme song to himself as he practices.
Pok moves to stand behind Sklonda, and she turns around in her chair and lifts her face up, pursing her lips. Pok responds and bends down, kissing her gently.
“Thanks for teaching him. He really does look like a mini-you now,” Sklonda says when they finally part their lips. Pok smiles.
“I hope he finds it useful in the future.”
Nearly ten years later, it’s Riz Gukgak’s first day of high school. He stands in his bedroom, getting ready, and browses the half-dozen ties that he owns. He settles on the oldest, a burgundy tie that shows love and wear, the silk looking a little duller in certain places where it’s been grabbed with grubby little children's hands. He pulls out the tie and wraps it around his neck. He begins to hum an old cartoon theme song as he methodically works the knot, before finally tightening the finished knot around his neck. He moves to a mirror to center and smooth out the tie. His eyes move to a picture stuck in the corner of the mirror; a picture of Pok in a suit and tie.
“I’m off to Aguefort, Dad! Wish me luck that I find the clues I need to save Penny!”