Mathias Kohlar's family moved into Sage Court shortly before his fifth birthday.
His father had decided that the tiny apartment they previously lived in wasn't safe after someone broke into a room down the hall from them. Within two weeks, he had found a nice, three-bedroom house.
They packed up and moved in a flurry of activity, loading their boxes into the back of their car and a friend's suburban, moving all their belongings in two trips. Unpacking was finished quickly too, Mathias sent out into the yard as the adults set up furniture and moved boxes around.
Hurt by his inability to help, Mathias wandered around the backyard, poking among the bushes. There were several that would have sharp leaves as the year went on, but they were still soft in the early spring. Mathias avoided them anyway. Tendrils of a vine clung to the old wooden fence, flower buds slowly developing on the stems. Mathias pulled a few leaves off and tossed them into the prickly bushes.
His mother called him in for lunch – fast food since the pots and pans were still packed. They took an hour long break sitting on the concrete slab that served as a porch. His mother threw the wrappers into a box with "trash" scrawled across the side and Mathias wandered around the house as his parents unpacked clothes and bed sheets. As he passed his parent's bedroom, his father tossed a box into the hall next to other boxes that needed to be broken down.
"Well, what do you think?" he asked, smacking his hands together to get the dust off.
Mathias shrugged.
"You'll get used to it."
His father laughed and ruffled Mathias' hair, going back inside to help his wife. Mathias stared at the box. It would be fun to play in… He grabbed one of the flaps, pulled it downstairs and out the back door, pausing to grab the box of markers off the table.
Kicking it into place, Mathias drew a door, thin windows and a moat around the bottom. Throwing the markers aside, he clambered into the box, pretending to shoot arrows at invaders.
"Can we play?" A quiet voice made him jump and he fell over, the box falling with him.
He struggled out of the box, scrambling to his feet to face the intruder. A pale-featured boy, smaller than Mathias, stood watching him.
"Can we play?" the boy asked again.
"Sure," Mathias answered after a minute.
The boy moved towards the box, revealing a smaller, similar-looking boy left in his wake. This smaller boy cried out and lurched towards his brother's back, clinging to his shirt.
"So who are you?"
"I'm Nickolas and this is Emil."
"Are you brothers?"
"Yes."
Nickolas shooed Emil into the box and started to lift one side. Mathias helped the other boy pull it upright, Emil falling against the sides and bottom with a thump. Nickolas pulled himself in next, legs hitting Emil. Mathias stuck his head in kicking his legs up so he folded over backwards into the box, barely missing the two brothers who had stood to one side to give him room.
"Ha-ha! Alright men! We need to defend out castle against the English! Come on Vikings! Shoot!" He brought his hands together and pulled one back as if he was shooting an arrow. "Pew, pew! Ha-ha-ha!"
"The Vikings didn't have castles and the English wouldn't have attacked them even if they did," Nickolas' soft voice cut through Mathias' noise.
"How do you know?" Mathias demanded.
"My father's a historian. He studies the Vikings." He flicked the side of Emil's head. "Don't eat the box."
Emil stopped chewing on the cardboard and sucked on his fist. Nickolas turned back to Mathias.
"We should be the English fighting off the Vikings."
"No way! The English sucked! The Vikings were the coolest people ever! I want to be a Vikings when I grow up," he confessed to Nickolas, voice dropping from a shout to a whisper.
Nickolas blinked pale purple eyes at him. Mathias grinned maniacally.
"We're the first Vikings to ever build a castle and fight off the English! Pew, pew!"
He went back to shooting arrows. Nickolas rolled his eyes and started firing too, making sure he was using the right noises for arrows. Emil took his fist out of his mouth and jumped up and down.
"Pew, pew, pew!" he shouted.
"Yargh! Take that English dogs!"
Mathias and Emil shook the box, bumping into each other and falling on opposite sides of the box. The cardboard tore apart, spilling the two boys onto the grass and leaving Nickolas still standing. Emil sat up, unsure if he should cry or not. He looked to Nickolas for a clue and decided it wasn't worth it when he saw his older brother walking slowly towards him. If he was supposed to cry, Nickolas would have rushed over. Emil let himself be coddled for a minute before squirming out of his brother's arms. Mathias had picked himself up and crouched mournfully next to the ruined box. His mother opened the glass door.
"Hello! Where did you two come from?"
"We live next door," Nickolas informed her, turning his head to meet her eyes.
"How nice! I hope you and Mathias will be good friends."
"Maybe. We will see." He stood up and grabbed Emil's hand. "We need to go home now. Goodbye."
He let himself out, the gate shrieking open and shut for him. Mathias' mother picked him up.
"Are you hungry? We're almost finished unpacking, and Daddy and I are starving. In fact, I'm hungry enough to eat a little boy!" She nibbled on his neck despite his laughter and demands for her to stop. Sitting him on the table, she waited for his giggles to stop.
"Alright boys. Where do we want to go?"
"Chinese!"
"Fish!"
Mathias and his father yelled at the same time.
"Chinese it is," his mother replied, picking Mathias up again.
"Aww…"
"Don't worry, they'll have fish for you. Now, go get your shoes on."
He ran upstairs, finding his sandals in the closet and strapping the Velcro closed across his ankles.
"Let's go!" he yelled as he thundered down the stairs. He took the last two at a leap, crashing into his father's legs. He was picked up yet again and buckled into a booster seat in the car.
At the restaurant, he held the chopsticks in two different hands and tried to pin the food between them to bring it to his mouth. After fumbling food into his lap for the fifth time, his mother pulled them out of his hands and gave him a fork. Mathias dug in with gusto.
His parents paid the bill and waited until he was full to leave. Mathias tried to stay awake on the ride home, sleepily aware of being carried upstairs and having his mother change his clothes. She laid him down on his bed and kissed his forehead.
"Good night," she whispered.
He thought he responded, but he wasn't sure as he fell asleep.