The first name I learned to respond to was 'Mattie' – Al's version of my name. The second was Francis': 'Matthieu'. The last was Arthur's: 'Matthew'. I'm not sure why it went in that order, but it did. It happened in quick succession, though. Once I realised they had names for me, even though they were three different ones (I didn't realise they were different versions of the same name until much later), it didn't take me long to learn the appropriate way to respond when I heard someone call me. Soon after, I learned to call others by their names. The first name I learned, however, wasn't someone I lived with, or even someone I knew all that well until two weeks or so after Arthur took me in. I knew others had names, but the first name I ever called someone else was 'Gilbert'.

-Matthew Williams

10 July

I've elected not to send Matthew to school right away. The boys are off for summer now, but I'm thinking I won't send him this year at all. I'll have to wait and see how much he can learn this summer. He is nine years behind the others, after all. I think it'd be cruel to expect him to be able to understand the concepts the rest of the boys can without any formal education. I'll keep him here and teach him myself for a year, then decide what to do after that. I know Francis still wants him to learn French, but I still think it's too early for that.

Francis really has taken to Matthew, though. I know I've said it before, but he really has. He spends more time here than he does anywhere else! He's practically moved in! I don't think the boys have noticed; he's never here for meals or any other time when they might see him. He just likes to watch them play. I've seen him approach Matthew a few times, but I haven't bothered asking what he says. I can't be bothered to care, either. As much as I hate to admit it, Francis is trustworthy.

-A.K.

11 July

Matthew seems to understand when Alfred is calling him. He still doesn't respond to Matthew, but if I need him, Alfred will call 'Mattie' and he'll come running. I'm glad he's realised when we need to communicate with him. He's a bright boy. I didn't expect him to learn that this quickly. He's only been here for eleven days, after all.

-A.K.

13 July

Matthew has started responding to 'Matthieu'! Of all the things we could be teaching him, we have to teach him the bloody frog's name for him? I suppose I should be glad he's been learning. And he's picking up more words, now. He now uses 'poptart' to tell me when he's hungry. He's also learned 'juice', which means he's thirsty, 'room', which means he needs to use the bathroom, and, most recently, 'sleep', which means he is tired.

He is also learning to do things on his own. He sits next to me at dinner, when he gets there first, and watches how I use my utensils. I pretend not to notice, for his sake. He seems to have a kind of pride and prefers to learn things on his own rather than be taught. He doesn't like to be seen making a mistake, so he'll practice something when he's alone until he has it right before showing the rest of us what he's learned. He's more-or-less figured out how to use a fork and spoon, but I still have to cut his meat for him.

15 July

Francis brought Gilbert over to meet Matthew again. Honestly, I expected Gilbert would forget about the lad and move on with life, but apparently, Gilbert has been asking Francis about Matthew's wellbeing since he met him. Matthew seems to like Gilbert's company, and the latter is certainly good with children.

The oddest thing is, though, that when Gilbert and Francis were leaving, just before dinner, I was standing by their car to see them off when Matthew and Alfred ran up, and Matthew was shouting "Gilbert! Gilbert!" Gilbert knelt down and smiled at the boy, gently reassuring him that he would be back soon. Matthew seemed to get the message and he and Alfred ran off again.

Francis and I shared a look that clearly communicated to me that he had no idea what had transpired between the sweet Canadian boy and the albino self-proclaimed Prussian man, but apparently, Gilbert had taught Matthew his name. It was the first time Matthew used an actual name to refer to someone.

-A.K.

I don't really remember teaching Mattie his name, so I'm not quite sure exactly what I said to do it, but I do remember sitting down with him and doing kind of a "you Tarzan. Me Jane" sort of thing until he understood that 'Mattie' meant, well, Mattie. I think that was when the steepest part of his learning curve began.

I remember Francis used to pull him aside sometimes while we were playing. He never pulled him away from me, though. More like, he would just talk to Mattie while we were playing, but he never took him away. He would talk to him in French, slowly, and simple phrases that even I could understand in context. He called him 'Matthieu', the French version of Matthew. Come to think of it, we probably should have stuck to one version so we didn't confuse poor Mattie. But I know for a fact that I wouldn't have stuck to that. I liked Mattie too much and still do.

I know Arthur denied it (and he probably still would if I brought the topic up), but he was jealous of Francis when Mattie started responding to 'Matthieu', but not 'Matthew'.

One day, two weeks or so after Matthew started living with us, Francis brought Gilbert over. Gilbert and Francis are, like, best friends. They have another friend, but I don't know what he was doing at the time. Apparently, Gilbert had been asking Francis almost every day for an update on how Matthew was doing, so Francis just gave in and brought Gilbert over.

I feel like I've been using this excuse a lot, but it's a legitimate excuse (I think) as to why many of my stories are incomplete. I know Mattie would want to hear the full account of how, exactly, he learned Gilbert's name from my perspective, but I just don't remember. To be entirely honest, I'm not even sure I was there. I might have been playing with someone else at the time.

I think, and don't quote me on this, but I think that Gilbert taught Mattie his name the same way I taught him to respond to Mattie. He just took it very slowly and made sure Mattie understood exactly what he was trying to say. Then I think he took it a step further than me and made Mattie repeat it until he could say 'Gilbert'.

Come to think of it, I might have been there, because Arthur's journal says that Matthew and I ran up to Gilbert while he was leaving, so clearly we were together then. But whether we were together or not when Gilbert actually taught Matthew his name.

I know everyone would hate me if I didn't say what exactly happened between me and Gilbert that day. Up till now, I've enjoyed just listening to everyone's confused theories and laughing because some of them are so outrageous. Honestly, it wasn't even that incredible of a story, but now that it's out in the open, I'm going to just say what it was that Gilbert did.

He spoke to me. That's all. He was the first person who ever really spoke to me like I was a human being. Arthur treated me as somewhat below the average intelligence of a human, Francis only spoke to me slowly and using small words, and Alfred rarely spoke to me at all, he just communicated with his actions more than anything.

But Gilbert spoke to me. Alfred was right; he wasn't there that day. He was playing with Tino. It was just me and Gil. Gil just took me away from the other boys, a short distance into the woods, and sat me down by a tree. And the two of us just sat there and he talked to me. To this day, I have no idea what he said, but he told me later that it was mostly nonsense. He talked about the weather, about his girlfriend (who is now his wife), his girlfriend's ex, who wasn't actually that bad of a guy. He talked about how cool it was that he'd met me and how he wished I could talk back.

And, while I don't remember what he said to me, I remember being intrigued. I watched the way his lips moved, and I remember noticing that words sounded differently coming from his mouth, even though I knew they were English (he has a German accent, but I didn't know that at the time). All the while, he just watched me quietly, not caring what I did or how I responded. I liked listening. I liked having him speak to me the way I saw others speak amongst themselves. I had noticed that people treated me differently, but I didn't know why. But Gil was the first person to treat me the same as how he treated everyone.

So when he started trying to tell me his name, I understood almost immediately what he was trying to do. I had, after all, been through a similar conversation with both Alfred and Francis. Except, I knew this was different. He wasn't trying to tell me what he would call me. He was trying to tell me what I should call him. Once I had that concept down, he taught me the pronunciation and made sure I got that right, and the rest is history. Almost immediately after that, I started listening and trying to figure out the names other people wanted me to call them. Once the other boys realised I could understand that they had names, they were more than willing to teach me them and help me learn.

Arthur was the last to catch on. He didn't figure out that I had learned more than just Gil's name until I actually called him by name, but I guess that's another story.

-Matthew Williams

Ah, this is fun.

It's nice to be writing again. I meant to have this chapter out a LONG time ago, but literally everything that could happen in my life happened all at once. I got a job, we moved houses, Thanksgiving and Christmas happened, my new job has all kinds of politics to work through and I work from 5 till midnight almost every day, so I don't really have all that much free time.

But, I'm working around all that and I've managed to write again! So expect more soon-ish. I can't guarantee how soon it will be, but it will be soon! Not six months like the amount of time between the last chappie and this one.

Until next time!

~Maya

PS- it snowed! I had a white Christmas! My first in 15 years! Yay!