For the first time in a while, Alfred felt an ever so slight wave of sincerity wash over him as the morning flowed through the window. Having just eaten breakfast together with Peter, Wendy and uncle Jack – and it had been quite a pleasant breakfast too – his stomach was full and his head was clear. Peter and Wendy drawing by the kitchen table had become a usual sight nowadays. Alfred had taken up the habit of reading the newspaper when uncle Jack was done with it, so now he relaxed with his eyes shut in the leaning chair waiting his turn. The breeze carried the smell from the bakery into the living room and everyone released a collective sigh of satisfaction.
This stillness was so peaceful, Alfred thought. He had been longing for it.
"Oh!" Jack quietly exclaimed. For a brief second all eyes were on him before the youngest carried on with their activities. Jack quickly turned the newspaper toward Alfred so he could see, pointing at a tiny picture in the corner.
"Isn't that the girl who lives here in town, what's her name again, the small one…"
"Lily?" Alfred attempted, to which Jack snapped his fingers in confirmation. Alfred leaned forward and squinted, but he couldn't catch a single feature from the picture. With a quick "Let me see that" he reached out to take the newspaper in his own hands, bringing it an inch from his eyes.
With that braided, blonde hair and round eyes, it had to be Lily.
"You're right, it is her!" Alfred lightly gasped and brought the page slightly closer. Then he chuckled, because if there was one person he could imagine who would actively refuse to be in the newspapers, it had to be Lily.
"If I'm gonna guess, it's because she found valuable material that helped fund the town cleanup?" he mumbled as he focused on the letters below the picture. As tiny as the newspaper font tended to be, he took himself in losing focus of what he was trying to read to cursing internally at the company. It wasn't before he gave up, he realized that uncle Jack hadn't answered him, and was staring curiously at him instead. Taking it as a declaration of war, Alfred stared right back at him until uncle Jack broke the eye contact to nod at the newspaper. Alfred returned it. Jack turned a few pages before showing him another page.
"Read that," he said and brought the paper two inches from Alfred's eyes.
"Price of parsnips skyrockets in Liverpool," Alfred read aloud, satisfied with his efforts albeit sounding slightly choppy. Jack brought the page slightly farther away and turned the page.
"Yet another lond- landm- landmine… Found… In Ox-Oxford?" Alfred tried, yet again satisfied when Jack didn't comment on anything. However, the next time he turned the page and increased the distance, Alfred had to clench his buttocks to figure out the words. The only word he was slightly sure of was "Russians'' due to being exposed to the word so many times before.
"So you can't read it?" uncle Jack affirmed, his eyes open and attentive. Not wanting to actually articulate the fact that he was unable to read it, Alfred shook his head.
It was a strange habit uncle Jack had, Alfred noted; The one where he would stare directly into someone's eyes as he was thinking about something. Alfred had been slightly restless the first times, but had gotten used to it. In fact, uncle Jack was not staring at the person, but rather through the person. He was staring into their eyes without making eye-contact, and would not notice if the other person looked away, or even started blushing. Lately Alfred had seen it as a challenge and wanted to stare right back. Not that it enlightened him anything about this habit he had, but Alfred had realized that it was indeed possible to see the gears of someone's mind at work.
A sudden clap made Alfred jump, and uncle Jack got to his feet.
"Grab your coat and your shoes, Alfred; We're going on an adventure!" he announced and glanced at Wendy and Peter, "And you two will be alright here?"
For a second or two, the children exchanged looks before nodding at him. Or, Wendy nodded at him. After having decided that they'd be back around four and that Wendy and Peter were going to make the best dinner ever, uncle Jack slapped Alfred on the back to get a move on. He kept an excited grin all the way from the living room to the entrance, as they strolled down the main street, bought a roundtrip ticket for two Hartlepool and back, waited for the train and finally sat on their seats. And as the landscape passed by, nothing Alfred said could make the man reveal what this spontaneous plan was, this plan so big that they had to go all the way to Hartlepool to execute it. However, Alfred refused to give up and tried all means of re-formulation of the question to get even the smallest hint. About to admit defeat, they were interrupted.
In the second that followed, Alfred found it amusing how similar they were.
"Yo, Alfred!" Mathias enthusiastically greeted, Alfred saluting him, before he turned to Jack.
"Cousin?" Mathias guessed.
"Try again," Jack replied mischievously, before brushing the game off with a handshake seeming so firm Alfred was slightly envious he wasn't a part of it.
"Uncle, godfather, something like that," Jack affirmed, and when Mathias' expressive eyes turned into a question mark, Alfred sighed. It was inevitable.
"The old man kicked the bucket," he said with an apologetic grin. Mathias withdrew his hand with a gasp before his forehead frowned and the corners of his mouth turned downward.
"Man, I'm insensitive," he said before bowing slightly, "Condolences."
"Let's move on before it gets awkward, eh?" Jack quickly said and invited Mathias to sit down with them, and Mathias proceeded to flop down next to Alfred and put his backpack on the floor. It was through the following highly energetic discourse that Jack learned who Mathias was to Alfred, about the farm, and a little bit about Mathias' life as a Danish immigrant. It was also through this that Mathias learned a little bit about Jack. And finally, it was when Jack talked about his and Wendy's stay in Newcastle thanks to a certain Finn that Mathias' ears would have erected like that of a dog, and his blue eyes became even wider.
"Tino?" he asked, attempting to keep his exclamation low-key, "You can't be talking about the Tino Väinämöinen?"
"If he's got really light hair and violet eyes, then that's him," Jack replied. Mathias sat back in his seat and stared at the table for a moment. Again, Alfred could see his mind at work.
"Hold da helt ferie…" he muttered, staring blankly at the table. Suddenly Alfred came to remember that he had indeed mentioned during the lake-cleanup that he was looking for someone. Alfred couldn't remember if he had said whom, but this Tino that he had met in Newcastle must have been one of them.
Mathias quickly reached into his backpack and fetched a piece of paper and a pen, forcefully sliding it in front of Jack.
"Please, if you're willing, tell me where I can find him," he pleaded. It seemed with pleasure that Jack took the pen in his hand and started writing.
"It's a wee chare and a bit hard to find, but it takes two minutes to walk from Newcastle Central," he muttered as the letters came down one after the other, before he slid the paper back, "Even if you get lost like Alfred did, you'll manage just fine."
When Mathias took the paper back in his hands, he seemed as if he were holding back tears.
Finally, after having walked for ten minutes, uncle Jack stopped. Alfred looked at the exterior of the shop they stood before. Judging from what he saw displayed in the shop windows, Alfred felt his chest tingle. A bell went off, much more pleasant sounding than the one at Elizabeta's hair salon, when Jack opened the door. Behind the counter polishing his glasses, stood the supposed shopkeeper and greeted them.
"This young man needs a pair of glasses, but we have no idea what strength," Jack announced. About to confirm whether one could get eyesight tests at an optical shop, Alfred was told to follow the shopkeeper into a backroom which seemed to function as an optician's office.
"Sit down in that chair, please," the optician instructed.
"I haven't been to a doctor's office in eight years," Alfred breathed as he looked around. Admittedly he was slightly spooked when the optician brought forth what Alfred assumed was supposed to be used for eye examination, as it looked strangely… Strange. Like a tool someone would use for torture or in a catastrophe situation.
"What's this stuff do?" he asked, wanting to touch it but his hand was promptly slapped away by the optician.
"It is a Phoropter, but I suppose you won't be able to remember that," he said, and the only way Alfred could describe his voice and manner was posh.
"By the way, you'll spare a lot of time by starting real close," Jack prompted with a chuckle. The optician took a deep breath in and out while staring at him with defeated eyes, before adjusting his glasses and the Phoropter afterward. Alfred joined in when Jack briefly laughed at it, but was soon forced to be quiet so the optician could 'focus'.
Although the testing took some time, Alfred eventually found himself before the counter with a few pairs of glasses to choose from.
"Man, I'm kinda excited," he snorted before he picked up a pair. They had rounded edges and a blue frame, somewhat resembling a bolder version of Matt's glasses. Trying them on, Alfred was not sold yet. His vision didn't change too much through the lenses, so he put them back and tried another pair. They had squarer edges, a plain, silver frame, and were more rectangular. He put them on, made sure they sat properly on the bridge of his nose, and after he let his eyes adjust, he took a step back to keep himself from losing his balance.
"Wait a bloody second-" Alfred gasped and spent another minute adapting to the lenses. He took a quick look at the wooden floor and counted the planks because he could see the lines that separated them from each other. He could also count how many lace holes were in his shoes.
"No way in hell," he whispered and looked at uncle Jack, "I can see your freakin' hair strands!"
"So they work?" uncle Jack asked equally excited.
"You bet they do, and-"
The butterflies in his stomach kept Alfred's legs moving as he looked at every single thing there was to look at; The sign in the other side of the shop that said that all children's glasses were 50% off this month, the postal office on the other side of the street that read Royal Mail on the banner, the optician's name tag which read 'Edelstein'... Looking at his own hands, Alfred had never realized that hands could look splotchy. He could even count the tiny specs of dirt underneath his fingernails.
"Please, don't knock the shelves over," Mr. Edelstein cautioned from the counter, and Alfred immediately returned and examined, optically devoured, the worry-wrinkles in his forehead.
"I suppose this means we'll take 'em?" Jack suggested and started fetching coins from his pocket.
"Is this how you see, uncle Jack?" Alfred asked when he felt the need to take the glasses off due to a tiny ache throughout his forehead starting to tingle.
"I might," the older of them grinned. Alfred watched as he put the coins for the examination and glasses onto the counter.
"Are you sure?" Alfred asked again, "Because I can-"
"You're going to university!" Jack laughed and gave him a vigorous slap between the shoulder blades, "And a student's got to be able to read the syllabus, yeah?"
"Well, I suppose, yeah-"
"So just you sit back and let me help you a bit."
Suddenly Jack softly grabbed the collar of Alfred's shirt between his thumb and index, rubbing the material slightly as he looked at it with that thoughtful gaze of his.
"I see we gotta buy you some student-worthy clothes as well," he snickered, before turning his attention back to Mr. Edelstein to finish the transaction. In the meantime, Alfred wondered if it wasn't time to make up his mind soon. With his new super-vision and soon-to-be-purchased fresh rich-boy clothes, it sounded like a good idea to say yes to the admission offer.
Translations:
- "Hold da helt ferie" Danish, expression of shock. Equivalent to "You've got to be kidding me".