As he stood by the pool, looking into the water, reflecting on the fact that the two most lovely girls he’d met were the only two who seemed to reciprocate his feelings, if he was even right about that; he was despondent. He lived with the realization that the demands of school work (his year 10 School Certificate and Anne White’s year 12 Higher School Certificate) had cut off any chances to explore the possibility of whatever was supposed to happen (between a boy who thought a girl was beautiful and the girl whom he hoped thought positively enough about him to have intended the offer of an ice cream or a compliment to his power of expression as a reciprocation of his feelings).

Suddenly he heard a sound behind him, and felt two hands press against his back. He realised that someone was trying to push him into the water for a prank. He was unable to stop his loss of balance, but his hands shot out behind him and grabbed onto the shirt of his jesting assailant. That told him that, unlike Lewis in his swimmers, the other person was still fully clothed. He fell into the water, pulling the other boy with him. There had been nothing malicious in his response, just an amusement at the way the prank had backfired. He turned to face the boy whose clothes he’d just soaked, and they both laughed. It had been a welcome relief from the heartbreak he had been enduring in one form or another all year. Now perhaps, he could enjoy the youth group a little more, and hope to meet someone who liked him.

He got to know the boy, Torin. Torin was only in year 7, and his double size made him a little taller than Lewis. Yet Lewis had been able to grab the lower part of his shirt, and then gravity had done the rest of the process, which had left Torin’s shorts and shirt drying on his person in the midday sun.

“Do you like anyone else other than Marjorie?” asked Torin.

“How did you know I like Marjorie?” asked Lewis.

“Her friends in the group have told everyone about the day you caught her train and walked with her. Most of these girls gossip about you. They say nobody would go out with a midget. I think they’re mean.”

“I didn’t even like girls in year 7,” said Lewis.

“I don’t either, but I like new friends like you. I don’t think they should be so mean.”

The benefits of having just made a new friend were now lost on the news that his size (the very thing that made these girls more exciting than the ones on his own earth) had turned out to be the stumbling block on his developing romantic aspirations all throughout that year. He understood it all now. To the girls in the youth group, he was nothing more than a toy department prop that could talk and move by itself. The fact that he had the occasional crush on one of them was viewed either as a joke or an inconvenience.