My New Friend

Caterina Valentine sat on the carpeted floor of 'Sunny Days', the local day care centre in her home in Boca Raton, Florida. She was wearing her pink t shirt and some dungarees. She was humming the tune to her favourite song and playing with the zoo set. Well, she had taken all the giraffes from the zoo set and taken them somewhere else to play with them. She didn't like the lions and tigers because they were scary, she didn't like the monkeys because they were mean, and she didn't like the elephants because one had almost trampled her brother when he climbed into their enclosure at the real zoo. So instead, she had just taken the giraffes and was playing with the corner in them. She was playing alone, but she always did. The older kids were mean to her and called her stupid, and then laughed when she cried. She hated being at day care lonely, but she would be at school soon and make nice, new friends. Besides, being in her own imaginary world put a smile on her face and made her feel invincible.

"Caterina? Cat, sweetheart?" she heard Maggie calling. Maggie was the nice lady who worked at the day care, and always put extra sprinkles on Cat's ice cream.

"Yes Maggie?" she replied, walking over to the kind lady, her big, hazel eyes blinking.

"Can you do something for me darling?" she asked, bending down to reach the small girl's level.

"Of course!" Cat flashed her cutest smile at Maggie who smiled back. She then led her to the entrance to the room, where a boy stood waiting. He looked about Cat's age, and had a mop of curly, black hair on his head. It almost mirrored Cat's dark, curly hair that was up in bunches to keep it out of her face. He was also wearing big thick glasses, shorts and a t shirt with a turtle on it.

"Hi!" she said, happily to the boy. He just smiled nervously and waved. "Do you want to come and play with me?" she asked. The boy smiled again and followed her over to her corner, where her giraffes were all set out. They sat down and she smiled at him again, trying to get some response out of him. When she got none, she sighed and picked up the giraffes, giving 2 to him and having 2 for herself. When he looked at the giraffe in his hand, she felt the need to explain herself. "I only like the giraffes because all the other animals are mean. They can hurt you but I think it would be really fun to be a giraffe because you can see up really high all the time. One time, at the zoo, my brother escaped and climbed almost to the top of a giraffe's neck before it threw him off. You know, I have 6 giraffe toys at home and I'm getting another one soon. There's Mr Longneck and-" Cat stopped rambling when she noticed the boy staring at her. "Sorry. I talk too much. You probably think I'm really stupid for wanting to be a giraffe." The little girl looked down at her hands and tried not to cry when she noticed a hand on top of her little ones. She looked up and saw the boy smiling at her. "I don't think you're stupid. I think it's a cool idea" he said, smiling.

She gasped. "So you can talk?!"

"Yeah, course I can. Who can't talk?" the boy said, puzzled.

Cat answered back "My cousin Joey doesn't have a tongue, so he can't talk" she said, matter of factly. The boy just sat there staring at her with his mouth open.

"Really?" he asked in surprise.

"Really really" she replied enthusiastically.

"How did he lose his tongue?"

"I'm not sure, they're not allowed to talk about it in front of me."

The boy was about to ask why when the older kids came over and started teasing Cat. "Hey look who it is. It's the freak!"

Cat looked around frantically to see if any adults were in the room, but they had all left them alone. "You ignoring us weirdo?" they said, nudging her with their feet. They started poking harder, the whole time the boy with the hair just looked at them shocked. Cat tried to hold back her tears, but she couldn't help it. She started crying and pulled her legs up, trying to hide in her knees. She was surprised when the boy jumped up and said to the other kids, "Leave her alone!"

"Aww Cat, got your boyfriend to protect you?" they taunted.

"Ew! I'm not her boyfriend!" he shouted. The older kids just laughed at him and pushed him, causing him to fall, before they laughed and walked away. Once they were all gone, she crawled over to where he was sat straightening out his clothes. "Are you okay?" she asked.

"Yeah, I'm fine…." he hesitated, before continuing, "are they always mean to you?"

She sniffled and nodded. "I don't have any friends."

"Yes you do" he replied.

"Who?" she asked, bemused.

"Me!" He grabbed her hand and beamed at her, making her grin back. "So your name's Cat?"

She nodded, fiddling with one of her curls. "It's Caterina, but only my Grandmother calls me that. I'm Cat really."

"Like the animal?" he said, smiling.

"What's that supposed to mean?!" she squealed, looking hurt.

"Oh, I'm sorry! I wasn't being mean! Cat's are small and cute…and so are you." he said quietly. Both the small children looked at each other before blushing and looking at their feet.

"So what's your name?" Cat said quietly.

"Robert Shapiro. But you can call me Robbie!" he said proudly, smiling.

Cat smiled back happy with her new friend. "Well Robbie, shall we go and play giraffes?"

He nodded enthusiastically and they both went over to their corner.

"Cat sweet, your mom's here!" they heard Maggie call. Cat gasped, not realising how long they'd been playing.

"I'd better go, Robbie. Thank you for being nice to me" she said, standing up.

Robbie stood up too, shrugging his shoulders and blushing. "Thank you for being nice to me too." Both children smiled at each other and hugged before Cat left, looking behind her and waving at Robbie.

When she met her mother in reception, she ran up and hugged her round the waist. "Hey baby," she said, kindly, "how was your day?"

"So good! I made a new friend called Robbie!" the little girl replied, excitedly. They both said goodbye to Maggie and walked out to the car, Cat non-stop talking about the lovely boy she met that day. Little did she know just how much of an impact he would have on her.

AN: Not the best first chapter! More to come, more key points in Cabbie's relationship. Please keep reading and please R&R! I promise to update this one and A Classic Tale, it's just hard with no more inspiration from iCarly ): I'll try my best and I know where I want to go with it (: and I'm on holiday now so I have way more time (: RAMBLING SORRY

chuckyshmucky -xo