As Sweet as Honey

47




It wasn’t long after that I found Oscar sitting in the garden, in the bower toward the back. This had been Nalani’s favorite hideout, and I needed to think. The monkeys only ventured in if there was food around, and since it was placed among the lemon trees, they pretty much left the area alone. Oscar was quietly reading, but looked up when he saw me.

“You look like you’re in Pooh’s forest,” I said.

“I used to want to be Christopher Robin, when I was little,” he told me.

“How come?”

“He had all his friends around him in the Wood, and he could go home and have his tea, too.”

“I wanted to be Piglet.”

“That’s silly. Nobody wants to be Piglet.”

“I did. First, he was a very pretty pink, and then he sometimes helped Pooh out when Pooh forgot all about him.”

“He was so small.”

I was still getting used to Oscar’s British accent. At five, it had not been as pronounced, being mixed in with a child’s high-pitched half-sentences.

“When I grow up, I want to be even taller than my mum, although it may not happen.”

“I think it helps to stretch.”

He looked at me with doubt, at someone who, after all, had openly declared her preference for Piglet.

“This is a nice place to read,” I said, wondering why he wasn’t on the veranda.

“I like to find places where I’m not bothered.”

“Do people bother you?”

“Not so much here, but sometimes at school.”

Instantly a funny look came over him, and he wouldn’t say any more. I imagined he hadn’t meant to tell.

“Do boys pick on you?”

Silence.

“I used to get picked on when I first moved to New Jersey.”

He glanced sideways at me.

“Girls would call me names, and one boy would regularly steal my lunch.”

“What did you do?”

“Nothing. I thought that’s the way things were.”

“Weren’t you hungry?”

“I was really hungry, especially in the afternoon. One day, I fainted in class, and that’s how it all came out.”

“You told your teacher?”

“And my parents that evening.”

“What happened then? Did the bullies stop?”

“They stopped taking my lunch, but they still teased me. Mum and Dad wanted to move me to a different school.”

I hadn’t thought about this in years. They did want me to change schools, but in a year, I’d be at the new high school, anyway, and things would be different. So, I stayed on.

Oscar seemed to be considering what I said.

“Really, you wanted to be Piglet?”

I sighed. “Really.”

He looked at a lemon tree in front him.

“You won’t tell, will you?”

When I said nothing, he went on. “It’s just that I really like school, and I don’t think the bullies will bother me too much anymore. And I’m going to learn karate to get confidence and an aura of protection.”

“Is that like an invisible cloak?”

“Maybe,” he said uncertainly. “Anyway, if you want to sit and read here, you can. I’ve got another book.”

This is how I came to spend the afternoon reading about Matilda and the library.