Notes - Forgive the very intentional mispelling/bad grammar etc. Also, please imagine this is all written in Spanish…

All from a slightly unusual teenage Spain's point of view.

Open Books and Falling Hearts

Dear Person

I'm sorry, I don't know if you'll be a boy or a girl, but then my big brother is always saying that gender is irrel irreliv* doesn't matter, so I don't suppose it really makes a difference if you're a boy or a girl. Really I just hope you don't mind reading my thoughts because I have so many thoughts and I just want somewhere to put them and it seems like writing them down is a very good idea, but it won't be very long for a while because my hand isn't very used to writing and gets all cramped and spasmy.

And I'm sorry for when I make up words because I'm not really very smart, well not smart-smart like my papa is smart-smart though my brother says I'm a different kind of smart like the creative kind of smart, but I'm not really sure what that actually means… Anyway sometimes I can't think of the right word to say the right thing so I just make up words or add letters to words that aren't really supposed to have extra letters in. I hope you understand what I'm trying to say. Sometimes I don't understand what I'm trying to say myself and my mamá says it's because I talk as quickly as I think so my brain and other people's brains don't get the chance to work out what it is I want to say, but by the time they ask me what I'm talking about I've forgotten.

Ah I think that's what I just did, but I can go back and read what I've written and I can't go back and read what I thought, so this reminds me what I as talking about. So what am I talking about… Oh, yeah. I met a boy. I met this lovely, lovely boy who is smart and funny and a little bit grumpy, but in a really cute way like his nose gets all wrinkly and he gets these little dimples and he goes all red. My hand is cramping up now. I'll write more later.

Love, Spain

Dear Person

Mmmmmm yum, mamá made an amazing dinner. Papa said it was the best she'd ever made and she gave me some to take to school tomorrow. The other kids think I'm weird because I take things like prawns and fish to school when they've got boring sandwiches with cheese and ham and other stuff which I think is weird because we sometimes have that for breakfast and not for lunch but I don't really mind too much when they call me weird.

The boy I met takes weird things to school, too. He's new, right? I saw him for the first time in my English class and I'm not very good at English so I have to sit at the front and all the new kids have to sit at the front too, so he sat next to me and because we were sat together Mrs. Barrows asked if it I would like to show him around school for the rest of the week until he gets to know his way around. He didn't talk to me very much, but I think he's quite shy which is really cute, but when he gets mad he starts shouting in Italian and I think he's swearing because a lot of the words sound like Spanish words but none of the teachers know any Italian so they don't tell him off for using bad language. His English is really good though, better than mine, so maybe he'll help me to learn better English and then maybe I can get a better mark on my English essays. Mamá says it isn't really my fault that I don't do so good in English, because none of the books we have to study are in Spanish so I have to translate what I'm reading before I try and interprit what I'm reading, but then I go off on a tangent about something else again and I can't remember what I read or what I thought it meant and I have to read it and translate it all over again.

The new boy translates stuff super fastly. It's really amazing. I want to impress him somehow.

Love, Spain

p.s. Oh yeah, he brought cannel caneloni in for lunch, but he wouldn't let me try any.

p.p.s what does 'p.s' mean, I'll look it up on googles later.

Dear Person

I was trying to do my maths homework, but I'm really bad at maths so I thought I'd have a nap first and try later, but I can't get to sleep because my brother has his girlfriend over and they're playing really loud music. I know that they're fooling around, so I don't want to knock on his door anyway. They always listen to alternative Indie records if they're doing naughty stuff. Mama and papa are at the cinema so no one is telling him to turn it down and if I tell him to turn it down he just turns it up even louder so I go to the garden shed with my duvet, but I can still here hear it and besides it's cold out there at this time of year. I don't think I want to listen to them doing naughty stuff though.

School was strange today. The boy I met - his name is Romano, by the way. Isn't that cute? Romano~ Roma~ He didn't like it when I called him Roma in front of people, but he didn't mind when we were alone. I think he just got used to it because I called him it all day. We have a lot of our classes together, which makes me pretty happy. It turns out his favourite subjects are English, Art and music, which is amazing because art and music are both my favourite subjects too. He's doing them for GCSE like me, so I asked if he wanted to work together for a duo piece in music. I think he said yes because he doesn't know anyone else, but I don't mind if it means I can get to know him better. He let me walk him out after school today, too and he said he might consider letting me have his very own personal telephone number by the end of the week if I don't annoy him too much!

Mr. Langy (he's my music teacher) said he thinks my guitar playing is excellent. Excellent! I've never done anything that's been excellent before, so that really made my day. Romano plays violin. He knows a lot of sad pieces, so I want us to compose something happy together. I have a great idea for it too, so I'll have to see what Romano thinks about it. He doesn't really talk very much. Sometimes I think he looks very unhappy, like he gets these frown lines across his forehead and he clenches his fists and taps his feet and fidgets a lot and won't look at me when I ask him a question. Papa says I tend to stare too much, so maybe that's why, but I can't help it. I'm not staring, I'm just looking for a long time. Porty says staring is creepy. He's always making fun of me, so I make fun of his terrible love poetry. He always writes a poem when one of his girlfriend's dumps him or if he has a fight with them. It's really dumb and they never make any sense. One time one of his girlfriend's sent it back with a load of notes on it and he cried for a week. He's really sensitive.

Romano has hazel eyes and he has this cute little mole under his right eye. I'd like it if he smiled. Maybe he really is sad. If he is, I'll have to work extra hard to make him happy again.

Love, Spain

p.s It means 'postscript', by the way. You probably knew that already.

Dear Person

Romano didn't come to school today and since I haven't NOT annoyed him for a week, I don't have his phonenumber yet. I tried to dial a random number because I thought maybe fate or destiny would help me, but I ended up talking to a very angry sounding German lady who didn't understand Spanish or English. I used to live next door to a German boy when I was younger, but he never wanted to play together because he was always doing something really boring and 'constructive'. His older brother was a lot of fun though. He used to let me smoke the end of his cigarette until mama found out and banned me from going over to his house. I don't see him very often now, but I think him and his little brother went to live with his dad somewhere and they don't go to my school.

School was boring without Roma there. I wasn't paying attention in English because it was first thing and I was worried Roma was poorly and Mrs Barrows asked me a question and I couldn't remember how to answer it in English so I answered in Spanish and everyone laughed at me. I kinda laughed too, but I think they were laughing at me and not with me, like the saying goes. Some of the boys keep calling me a homo. I didn't know what it meant until I looked it up in the library. It's not a very nice word, but I'm glad I looked it up before I asked papa about it because he gets really mad when I tell him what the boys say to me. They seem to think up a new thing to call me every week. I have to write them down and look them up on the internet but then I get a bit upset. I can't say anything to my parents because then they get upset too but I tell Porty. He just tells me to ignore them, which is what I always do, but that doesn't seem to make them stop.

I remember on my first day, I was really looking forward to making friends with everyone, but the only person who wanted to sit with me said I scared him and so he got moved. I don't think I liked him very much anyway because he used to steal my pens and pencils and then he'd lie about it, but use them right in front of me. It made me really mad. I wouldn't have minded if he asked if he could borrow them instead of just taking them. He used to chew them too, so I don't think I would have even wanted them back after. Yuck! I don't really talk to anyone anyway, except for this one girl in my art class called Bell-Bell. I go to her house every so often on Fridays for dinner and we do our homework together.

Afterwards, we sometimes go to this cool cafe where some really cool people go and play music. I want to pay my guitar there someday and make all the girls and boys swoon~ Bell-Bell's brother is scary though and he always smells weird, not like bad-weird, just weird-weird, I can't put my finger on what it is.

What was I talking about… Oh! I wouldn't mind if Roma wanted to chew my pens . Did I say how cute I find him? Everything he does just makes me all fluttery inside. I hope he's in school tomorrow because I still need to ask him what he thinks of my music piece idea, plus it means I can ask him to come over so we can work on it and he can try mama's delicious cooking! I really want him to meet my parents. I think they were worrying that I was never going to make any friends and I don't want them to worry about me because they're always worrying about me since all that stuff at my last school. I think that, so long as Roma is around, I'm not going to feel like that again ever.

I really hope he comes in tomorrow. I think I'll make him a present.

Love, Spain

Dear Person

Roma only came back to school today and I think he was in a good mood because it was Friday. He didn't tell me why he wasn't in school, even though I asked a few times if he was sick. If he was, he definitely seems better and he wasn't as quiet as he was before.

I was so excited he came back that I forgot to ask him about my music piece idea, but I made sure to give him the present I made for him. It was one of those little flip books where you flick through the pages and there's a little drawing on each page that looks a tiny bit different to the page before, so when you flick through it looks like it's moving. Papa made me one once when I was little and I couldn't stop laughing in that kid fascinated by everything new kind of way. I still have it in a box on my top shelf and I look at it from time to time when I need cheering up, but that isn't very often! A lot of people say I'm a really cheerful person by nature. That's nice, isn't it? I don't like to let things get me down and I don't like to make anyone else feel down either. I get sad sometimes, but not very often that I can remember.

Roma looked a bit confused when I gave him my gift, but he seemed to like it because he kept playing with it through maths, but then our teacher (ay, I like saying 'our' because it means we share something) took it off him and said he couldn't have it back until the end of the day. I drew a little picture of the two of us together and I had a tomato shaped like a heart that I gave to him and it made him happy. I don't know if he went to pick it up because he had to go and see the school counsellor after school. Um, this is how our conversation went after art.

"Why would I wanna walk home with you, idiot?" he said, but he didn't sound mean about it, it sounded like an actual question and not one of those rhetorical ones that you're not supposed to answer. Though sometimes I can't tell if a question is rhetorical and I answer anyway.

"I don't know, I just want to make sure you get back safe," I said and I smiled really hard so he'd know I meant it.

"I've got to see the stupid school counsellor and it might take ages." He must have seen how worried I looked because he started talking really fast. "It's not a big deal or anything, it's just the new kids have to see the school counsellor or some shit, I don't fucking know, but it's probably gonna' take a while because she'll ask me a load of stupid questions about my feelings and all that kind of shit so there's no point in you waiting around for me, okay?"

"Oh…well…I don't mind waiting?"

"Don't be stupid, go home."

I didn't really know what to say after that, but then I remember he'd said I could have his number if I wasn't being annoying so I asked if I'd succeeded! He made this really cute huffy noise and got his phone out and I had to try really hard not to just throw my arms around him and squeeze him tight because he was giving me his number. Romano was giving me his number! I already have it memorised, too but I'm sorry, I can't tell you what it is because it's all mine. Mine, mine, mine!

I text him when I got home to say I hoped his session with the counsellor wasn't too boring and to text me back when he got home. He didn't reply for a few hours but when he did I think I thought my heart was going to beat right out of my chest. I was so happy! He said 'it was so fucking boring AND i have to go back next week uuuugh. Why are you putting kisses on, weirdo?' We've been texting each other ever since then. I sent him a photo of the devil's eggs mama made for dinner and he sent me a photo back of his ravioli with spinach and ricotta. I said I'd bring some of my dinner in for him and he could bring some of his and we could try each others. He said that was dumb, but he'd bring leftovers if I really wanted - which I do! Then he reminded me that it was Saturday tomorrow. I just asked if he wanted to meet up at the weekend, but he hasn't replied yet. I'll let you know what he says.

My belly feels all weird.

Love, Spain

TBC~

*this should have a strikethrough, but I don't know if the html works on ...