Day Twenty-five - Just

That kid who I sort of made friends with on the fourth grade, his parents a newsagent's just across from the school, and besides the usual magazines and newspapers, they'd also stock some comics and these crappy Mastesr of the Universe knock-offs. Now, for some reason I never quite knew why, I always sensed that his parents harboured some animosity towards me. Maybe it was because I was having my own 'punk' phase, and as I said, styling your hair in the fashion of spikes with gel wasn't seen in a good way, and that's how I rolled back then. I remember there was one incident at school one afternoon where I was chasing after some kid down a school corridor, and I hoenstly can't remember now who it was, but whoever it was, was faster than me, and as we reached a dead-end - actually the locked door to our classroom - the kid ducked and turned round past me and I put my left arm straight through a window, making a nasty gash in my wrist. I was then taken to a nurse's office by one of the school's employees, and on one hand the nurse just looked at my gash, threw a bit of iodine on it, cleaned it up and maybe stuck a band-aid there. Then, instead of promptly returning to school, the employee and the nurse talked for hours while I listened to their seemingly unending drivel.

But I'd remiss if I didn't mention this girl Sara who was also so, so nice to me. She was directly related to the family who owned a bookshop where I'd go pretty much every day to check what was new and we struck a kinship right then and there - we weren't what I'd say the best of friends, but we got along very well. Midyear there was a returning student who joined the class. Everyone but me knew her, and I was completely taken aback by this girl's beauty - she was most likely my very first crush! Obviously, I was all but oblivious to her, but damn... that girl really made my heart skip a beat. I remember little about her now, other than her shoulder length blonde hair, and very clear blue eyes. About a couple of years later, in my sixth grade, I'd meet another girl who I think was also called Joana, and looked extarordinarily like her, yet they were not the same girl... I had to know, so I asked! 

This year was almost uneventful, both in school and at home. With greater or lesser difficulty I cruised through my fourth grade, and even before the school year ended I knew that next year I'd be moving to yet another different house. And that was because my parents had decided to move house - we went from the small town we lived in to a tiny, tiny village even further on the suburbs. My father had an office on a somewhat larger village some 8 kilometers away, but my mother had to commute to the big city every single day, and she'd bring me - and maybe my sister - to go to school. As we move from one stage of my life to another, I am now ready to tell you The Story.