“All the aloofness, I think,” Matthew speculated.
“I’m a swot,” said James. “I read books all the time and I do not know how to talk to people. If I was a girl living in olden times, people would call me a bluestocking. I wish I could talk to people like you do. I wish I could smile at people and make them like me. I wish I could tell a story and have everybody listen, and have people follow me around wherever I went. Well, no, I don’t, because I am slightly terrified by people, but I wish I could do all that you can do, just the same. I wanted to be friends with Thomas and Christopher, because I liked them and I thought maybe they were—similar to me, and they might like me back. You were jealous I could get kicked out of school? I was jealous of you first. I was jealous of everything about you, and I still am.”
“Wait,” said Matthew. “Wait, wait, wait. You don’t like me because I am so very charming?”
He threw his head back and laughed. He kept laughing. He laughed so much that he had to come and sit beside James on the step, and then he laughed some more.
“Stop it, Matthew,” James grumbled. “Stop laughing. I am sharing my innermost feelings with you. This is very hurtful.”
“I’ve been in a bad mood this whole time,” said Matthew. “You think I’m charming now? You have no idea.”
James punched him in the arm. He could not help smiling. He saw Matthew noticing, and looking very pleased with himself.
*
Sometime later, Matthew ushered James firmly into breakfast and to their table, which James noticed was only Christopher and Thomas, and a rather select table after all.
Christopher and Thomas, in another surprise for James in a morning full of surprises, seemed pleased to see him.
“Oh, have you decided not to detest Matthew any longer?” Christopher asked. “I’m so glad. You were really hurting his feelings. Though we are not supposed to talk about that to you.” He gazed dreamily at the bread basket, as if it were a wonderful painting. “I forgot that.”
Thomas put his head down on the table. “Why are you the way that you are?”
Matthew reached over and patted Thomas on the back, then rescued Christopher from setting his own sleeves on fire with a candle. He gave James the candle and a smile.
“If you ever see Christopher near an open flame, take him away from it, or take it away from him,” Matthew said. “Fight the good fight with me. I must be eternally watchful.”
“That must be difficult, when surrounded by, um, your adoring public,” said James.
“Well,” said Matthew, and paused, “it’s possible,” he said, and paused again, “I may have been . . . slightly showing off? ‘Look, if you don’t want to be friends with me, everybody else does, and you are making a big mistake.’ I may have been doing that. Possibly.”
“Is that over?” Thomas asked. “Thank the Angel. You know large crowds of people make me nervous! You know I can never think of anything to say to them! I am not witty like you or aloof and above it all like James or living in cloud cuckoo land like Christopher. I came to the Academy to get away from being bossed by my sisters, but my sisters make me much less nervous than battering rams flying through the air and parties all the time. Can we please have some peace and quiet occasionally!”
James stared at Thomas. “Does everybody think I’m aloof?”
“No, mostly people think you’re an unholy abomination upon this earth,” Matthew said cheerfully. “Remember?”
Thomas looked ready to put his head back on the table, but he cheered up when he saw James had not taken offense.
“Why would that be?” Christopher asked politely.
James stared. “Because I can turn from flesh and blood into a ghastly shadow?”
“Oh,” said Christopher. His dreamy lavender eyes focused for a moment. “That’s very interesting,” he told James, his voice clear. “You should let me and Uncle Henry perform many experiments on you. We could do an experiment right now.”
“No, we could not,” said Matthew. “No experiments at breakfast time. Add it to the list, Christopher.”
Christopher sighed.
And just like that, as if it could always have been that easy, James had friends. He liked Thomas and Christopher as much as he’d always known he would.
Of all his new friends, though, he liked Matthew the best. Matthew always wanted to talk about the books James had read, or tell James a story as good as a book. He made obvious efforts to find James when James was not there, and obvious efforts to protect James when he was there. James did not have many nice things to write letters home about: he ended up writing letters that were full of Matthew.
James knew Matthew probably only felt sorry for him. Matthew was always looking after Christopher and Thomas, with the same painstaking care he must have looked after his father. Matthew was kind.