On the first day of school

Natara Mansingh sat next to Mal Fallon in class

"Hi," she said to him

"Hey," he said back

And in that moment,

They both knew they made a friend

When snack time around

"Do you want my oatmeal cookie?" she asked

"It's gross, and I don't like it."

"Sure!" he beamed, took the cookie from her

And gobbled it up

At recess time

Natara played alone on the swings

Two girls older than her walked up to her

And called her mean names

"Nerd, bookworm, weirdo"

Until Mal came to interrupt

"Knock it off!" he yelled

"What are you going to do about it?" one of the girls laughed

"My Daddy's a cop, I tell him and he'll put you in jail!"

And Sandra and Cassie ran away

"Thanks," she smiled as her face heated up

"Me and Ken and Blaise are playing tag. Do you wanna come?"

"Ok! I bet it's funner than this swing."

So they played together until it was time to go back to class

Lunchtime

Natara looked for her little butterfly lunch box

But it was nowhere in sight

Until she spotted it in the hands of Sandra and Cassie

She ran over to retrieve it

But they were already munching down on her rice

And sipping her juice

"I'm telling the teacher," she cried

"You do that and we'll put our lunch on your table and say you stole it"

Mal saw what was going on

And gave Natara his cream cheese bagel

She thanked him and gave her a hug

"But you won't have anything to eat!"

"Don't worry," Mal smirked

He pulled out a Ziploc baggie with a sandwich inside and a name written across

"Cassie Eden"

"I have this."

At the end of the day

Natara was about to hop into her mom's car

When she heard Mal's quick footsteps behind her

He quickly handed her a piece of paper, folded in two

On the top, words were written

"4 NATARA"

Inside the card was a picture of bee, the text

"BEE MY FREND!"

written under it

And on the other side

were ten digits

"This is called a 'phone number'", Mal said

pointing to the numbers

"Daddy says if I meet someone I like I can give it to them

and I can talk to them with the phone machine thing

and they can talk to me through THEIR phone machine thing!

Isn't it cool?"

Natara smiled, and put the card into her pocket

"Thanks, Mal! I will ask Mom if I can use the phone to talk to you."

And she got into the car, and drove away