Author Notes - Wow, this story is not updating nearly as fast as I would like. I've been having a lot of difficulty writing a future chapter (I like to be a few chapters in advance), but I'm finding my way out of my own traps and can hopefully return to this story quickly enough.

So you know how the last Homer chapter dealt with the rather risky topic of transgenderism? This chapter is... not much better. Today, in the second half of this chapter, we're dealing with the topic of racism and segregation in the 50's/60's! Oh, this was a terrible idea. Albeit from the perspective of a fairly young child, so I don't need to get that deep into the topic, but still.

CHAPTER NINE - MOVING ON FROM THE FARM

1960… Homer didn't like change. This year introduced two big ones for him - one so horrible he dreaded change from then on, and another so lovely he didn't even realise it was a change.

Abe and Mona had thought long and hard about this decision. They had consumed their last cow and harvested their last crop. The land seemed to be getting less fertile every day, and it didn't help that they were in a drought. The farmhouse lost more shingles and paint as each day passed. Time was running out to make the decision, before the value of the farmhouse went down so far that they would still be broke after selling it.

Coming to the decision was the easy part - it was the only logical decision considering their financial state. It was explaining it to Homer that would be the difficult part.

Mona sat on Homer's bed, watching him playing with his toy cars. They had recently gotten him a new pink car toy, one he named 'Percy', and it seemed to be his favourite now. Paulina would forever be the only girl car, and she would forever not care. Now, his playing consisted of choosing two cars at random and smashing them together, in 'demolition derbies' that Percy always won. Mona wasn't sure if he was listening, thanks to a lack of eye contact and a massive distraction, but she pushed forward regardless.

'Listen Homie,' She said, placing her hand on her heart. 'There's something I have to tell you.'

Homer glanced up to her for a moment, and then returned to his toys. Mona saw this as a sign that he was listening, and to continue.

'I know how much you love the farm. The farm is a lovely place after all! But, sometimes, your father and I wonder what lies beyond our simple farm life. Maybe, sometimes, we think about what it would be like to live in the big city.'

She had danced around the issue for a good five minutes before Abe just happened to be walking by on his way to his own room. He witnessed his wife doing everything but addressing the problem, and without even announcing his presence he stomped into the room.

'We're movin' to the suburbs, boy!' He declared. 'Kiss the farm goodbye!'

Homer dropped the pink car he was holding, and he stared off into space. Mona buried her face in her hands while her son slowly came to realise the 'implications' (more so statements) of what his father just said.

'We're… we're moving…?' He squeaked out.

Mona got to her feet and put her hands on her hips. 'Thank you so much, Abe. I was trying to bring it up slowly and carefully!'

Abe scoffed. 'You were spendin' so much time dancing around the issue, that our farmhouse would've collapsed by the time you got around to telling him! He's got to learn sooner or later, and the sooner he knows the easier this will be on all of us.'

In that moment, Homer felt like the floor beneath him no longer existed. The walls faded away, and there was no sunny day outside but instead nothing. His world broke apart, fallen away into nothing, reduced to a singularity.

'We're… m-moving…?'

For a few seconds, there was no emotion to be found on his face or in his mind. In the few years of his young life, he had never gone through something so big. This must've been what his father meant when he said 'Stop crying, cos it only gets worse from here', after Homer dropped his ice cream on the ground.

Suddenly, his heart rate increased as if he was in a life-or-death situation.

'Homer…' Mona said. 'I'm sorry that it's come to this, but…

'NO!' He screamed.

Everything went silent. Even the dry winds outside seemed to cease.

'Homer, I-'

'NO! WE'RE NOT MOVING!'

Mona reached out to him, but the moment her hand touched his shoulder he flinched. He tumbled to his feet and ran into the corner, burying his head in his knees and shutting out the rest of the world.

'WE'RE NOT MOVING!' He shouted. 'WE'RE NEVER GONNA LEAVE!'

Mona took a step forward, but stopped herself from going any further.

'I WANNA STAY! I WANNA STAY!'

Abe sighed. 'Let 'im cry himself out. The only way he's gonna stop crying is if we stay, and we sure as hell won't be able to do that.'

So, both parents left their young son in his room to scream and shout. Even with the TV on, they could still hear him screaming until he could scream no longer. With his throat completely busted, he settled with kicking the walls in instead. Abe wanted to demand that he shut up, but he didn't have it in him.

Hours later, Mona found him asleep on the floor. His bedroom was a complete wreck.

Mona and Abe, after spending most of that night discussing it, decided that it was best to move out as soon as possible. There was no need to drag it out, especially since Homer did not seem to be taking the news any better as the days passed.

When the day finally came, Homer was no better than he was when the news was first dropped. Even with everything in the moving van and the jeep all loaded up and ready to go, Homer was still clinging onto one of the porch's pillars. He hung onto it tight, like his life depended on it.

'I DON'T WANNA LEAVE!' He wailed. 'I WANNA STAY!'

Mona stood right behind him, trying her best to pry him away with her words. If she had to be honest, she was worried that he'd pull on that beam hard enough to tear it down, crushing himself underneath the collapsed roof. The house was in poor enough of a state for that to be a real possibility.

'Homie,' She said. 'We have to leave. You'll love our new house, I promise!'

'NO!' Homer yelled back. 'This farm is our home and I'M NOT LEAVING!'

The mother Simpson sighed. It seemed like nothing she did would work. Even reverse psychology didn't work; turns out that saying 'fine then, you stay here' did nothing but set her son up for disappointment. Abe was waiting for his family behind the steering wheel, but his little amount of patience had run out.

'Oh, for the love of…!'

He stepped out of his jeep, slammed the door behind him, and opened up another door to the backseat. The squirming boy holding onto the pillar for dear life was no match for a grown man with military training, and Abe ripped him off the beam without any difficulty at all. Being removed from his home only made little Homer kick and scream out more.

'I DON'T WANNA LEAVE!' He cried. 'LET ME STAY!'

'Quiet down, boy!' Abe yelled back. 'You're not staying here unless you learn how to take care of yourself! And even then, I don't trust ya to go five minutes without burning the house down. You're coming with us, no matter what!'

While all Homer could do was flail his limbs about in a desperate attempt to get free, Abe shoved him into the car and slammed the door shut. Before the kid could scamper away, Abe did up his seat belt and did it up as tight as it would go. Homer kicked and screamed some more, now being reminded of that horrible moment from preschool.

'Abe!' Mona scolded, approaching her boys with her arms crossed. 'What on earth are you doing?'

'What else did you want me to do?' Abe demanded. 'Leave him behind to fend for himself? I'd hate to say it, but this was the only way we could get Homer to come along. If we stay on the farm, we're going to run out of food and money. Life will be much better for Homer if he comes with us to the suburbs!'

With a grunt, he hopped into the driver's seat and looked up to Mona. As she opened the door and got herself clicked in, she couldn't help but wonder. Perhaps if they had moved to the suburbs as soon as Homer was born, they could've avoided this entire mess. In hindsight, their future money problems seemed so obvious. She sighed as she realised that, as obvious as it was now, there was no way of knowing just how quickly their money would drain.

Perhaps, if she had known what she would be putting her son through, if she knew that her son would have obvious developmental problems that she refused to acknowledge, she would never have… no. That was a ridiculous thought. She loved her son through and through, and she didn't need to convince herself of that either. She only wished she didn't have to put him through all this.

As the jeep left the very long driveway and made it onto the road, Homer took one last look at his old farmhouse. He knew that the moment he could, he would come back to this place. He would move in, and he would live there the rest of his life.

This was the life for him, and nobody would change his mind.

It was late when the family finally arrived at their new house, for it had taken most of the day to pack things up in the first place. The sun was just about going down, and Homer had fallen asleep on the way there. He had a smile on his face, perhaps dreaming about his beloved farmhouse, when he was abruptly ripped away from his happiness by his father.

'Wake up, boy!' Abe said, putting the jeep in park. 'We're here!'

Mona gave her son a smile. 'You'll love this place, I promise.'

The little boy fluttered his fingers subconsciously. He really needed an ice-cream at that moment. Or a donut. Or some chocolate. Any treat, really. Delicious treats never changed. They always tasted amazing, and would always make him feel better. Treats weren't like homes - he learnt that homes can change or even be lost forever. He needed a treat.

Mona quickly realised that her son wasn't getting out of his seat, so she lifted him up into her arms. He was already getting a little too big to be carried, and she could already feel her arms struggling to hold him, but she wouldn't stop for as long as she could. In the warmth of his mother's arms, Homer could feel sleep coming back to him.

'You can go back to sleep.' Mona whispered into his ear as he drifted off. 'It's been a long day, hasn't it? It's been a long day for all of us. Lucky for you, I thought ahead, and our furniture should already be in the house. It might require some organising, but you can still sleep in your bed while we worry about that.'

She carried her sleepy child into his room. The furniture was all over the place, looking more like the end result of a tornado more than a child's bedroom, but it was still in a much better shape than his old room. Even his bed was somewhat in shambles, but her tired little boy wouldn't mind it one bit. She placed him gently upon the mattress, and tucked him in with a little kiss to the forehead. The feeling of his mother's love brought a smile to Homer's face as he drifted off to sleep.

Mona sat on the end of the bed, smiling at her wonderful son. Even if she didn't want to admit it, she knew that something was up with him. That didn't matter to her, though. No matter what was 'wrong' with him - as much as she hated that wording - she would adore her little angel until the day she died.

It almost seemed selfish to think about her death. Homer would be so heartbroken.

Homer's dreams of being back at the farm were quickly dashed as he woke up early the next day. This was not his room in the farmhouse, since the paint wasn't peeling and he couldn't hear the mice dancing together in the walls. His parents weren't up yet, so he was free to look around the place.

He stepped out the door, and immediately whimpered. It felt like he had woken up in an entirely new universe to his own. Where was the kitchen? The TV? Or even his parents' bedroom? He walked down the hallway, hoping to find the kitchen but only encountering the bathroom. Was that an outhouse inside of the house? He knew it'd be easier to use it now, but it still felt so wrong.

Seeing as going this way only led to a dead-end, he turned around and went down the other way. In just the next room down from his, he found his parents' bedroom. The door was ajar, and he could see them sleeping together. He never understood why they always went to bed naked, much less why they made strange sounds in there at night.

As he made his way into the living room - which was arranged so differently from the farmhouse's living room, that he couldn't even tell what room it was at first - he couldn't help but notice the scent of this new house. Gone were the aromas of fertile land and corn, yet gone too were the odors of manure and moth balls. It seemed so sterile in comparison, and he couldn't tell if he liked it or not. Sure, it lacked the less pleasant smells associated with farm, but it also lacked what made it so fragrant.

From the living room, he could easily spot the kitchen. It didn't look much like his old kitchen, but yet it looked almost… better. He didn't know why, but perhaps it was because he had more cabinets and thus more room for food. So, there was that at least. He walked into the kitchen, not to grab any food just yet but to find the door that led to the backyard. Strangely, that door wasn't anywhere near the kitchen, but instead at the back of the living room. When he finally found this door, he opened it up and charged right outside…

The first thing he saw was a fence. It was a picket fence, with most of the paint peeling off. The farm had fences too, but they were miles and miles away, and this fence seemed within arm's length in comparison. Instead of those sprawling fields he loved to run through, there was a mere patch of grass and stepping stones implanted in the dirt. There was no corn; only flowers and weeds. The sounds of mooing cows was nothing but a distant memory, and the only thing he could hear were the early workers starting their cars and the neighbour kids playing in their own backyards.

He stared at this backyard for several minutes, hoping that if he stayed there long enough, the sprawling fields and mooing cows would return. Of course, they never did. He sat down on the pavement, stared for a few more seconds, before he buried his face in his knees.

This wasn't his home. The farm was his home. But now, the farm was so far away that he could never reach it again. All there was now was a building, and nothing more.

Mona found him almost an hour later, after she had woken up and gone looking for him.

'I'm proud of you, Homer. You're taking this so well! You're very strong.'

Those were the words that Mona said to Homer the next day, when he tried to forget about everything and watch some TV while eating donuts instead. He wasn't certain what she was talking about, seeing as he hadn't taken it nearly as well as his father wanted him to, but he saw it as a sign that he was doing something right.

By trying to stay happy and hide how much he hated his new home, Momma would be proud of him. So, no more being upset about this situation for him. Until, inevitably, he broke down crying at the slightest provocation.

'Stop crying, Homer!' His father would snap. 'It's just a movie!'

But Momma was still so proud of him. So, he continued to hold it all in. He hated his new home. He hated the new neighbours. He hated the new lifestyle. But he had to make Momma proud.

Just a couple days after the move, he sat down on the front porch and looked over the new neighbourhood. Where were the wide open fields? Everywhere he looked there was a house. To the left? A dozen houses. To the right? A dozen more houses. Up? Well, that was the sky, which was one of the only things that remained consistent. Even then, he couldn't help but notice that the night skies looked very different to the ones above the farm. Less stars, and more dark, something his father blamed on 'light pollution'. As for the ground, there was hardly any grass or dirt left. Most of it was a road or the sidewalk, populated with more people every second than Homer had seen in his lifetime before moving.

And the sounds… oh god, the sounds. Every second there was a car engine, a conversation, a dog bark… not a moment of silence. He longed for the tranquility of his farm, or the blasting tunes from a radio cranked up too high. Those were the best sounds, not this awful cacophony he had no control over.

But he had to make Momma proud, so he put up with it.

Among all the chaos going on, he noticed someone walking by the front yard. It was another boy his age, with brown hair and a green shirt. Since it was still fairly early in the morning, he must've been heading out somewhere instead of returning home. It seemed a little odd for him to have no adults accompanying him, and he glanced around everywhere as if paranoid that someone was following him. His attention fell upon Homer pretty quickly.

'Hey there!' The boy greeted, waving at him. 'You're the new kid, right?'

For a moment, Homer wasn't sure if the boy was talking to him. After a while, he nodded, for he was the only one the boy could've been talking to. This new kid must've liked this response, for he ran across the front yard like he had been invited, and he only stopped once he was only a step away from the porch.

'My name is Lenny!' He said. 'What's yours?'

Homer stared at this 'Lenny' kid for a bit. It must've been the first time in a while that someone actually initiated a greeting with him. The last time he could remember that was 'Barney' from preschool, but he hadn't seen that kid in a while. Lenny didn't seem to mind his silence so much, as he was still giving him a big friendly smile.

'My name is Homer!' He almost added 'what's yours' afterwards, before he remembered that the boy had already told him his name.

'Hey Homer!' Lenny replied. 'You doing anything?'

Homer became silent again. Well, he supposed that just sitting there and staring was 'nothing', because that's what most people seemed to mean when they said they were 'doing nothing'.

'No.' He answered, rather tersely.

Lenny stepped forward, getting pretty close to Homer's face. 'You seem kinda lonely. Can you keep a secret?'

Homer could only shrug.

'Good enough.' Lenny said. 'Do you want to meet a friend of mine?'

A few more seconds of silence… 'Sure.'

Lenny smiled. 'You just gotta promise that you won't tell anyone about him. The adults might not like it so much.'

'Why not?' Homer asked.

Now it was the other boy's turn to shrug. 'I dunno. But they won't like it. So don't tell anyone.'

Homer was a little too young and naive to think about the possibility of this being a trap of any kind, so he got to his feet and followed this new kid over the gate and into the street. This neighbourhood was still so alien to him, since he almost never left the house since the move, and it didn't look any less confronting on this side of the fence. So many conversing people walking by, so many guzzling cars driving past, so many buildings obstructing the sky… he still longed to see the sprawling fields again.

'Don't just stand there!' Lenny called, snapping him out of it. 'Come on!'

Lenny took Homer a little further than he was expecting. While the roads and walkways may as well have been an alien planet as far as he was aware, it made sense to follow the paths with all the people on them. It was still quite a few blocks down the street, and his legs were never made for walking. Already, he could feel his body growing heavily on his legs, while Lenny kept on walking like they had just started.

'How much farther?' Homer asked, a little out of breath already.

'It has to be far away.' Was the reply. 'It has to be a secret, remember?'

It didn't take much longer, thank goodness, for the monotonous and endless streets to finally change from their uniform roads and buildings. Homer noticed the change almost straight away. Except, now that he had witnessed the change after what felt like hours of walking, he wished he hadn't. What had happened to all the buildings on this side of Springfield? Or the streets? Or even the cars?

The paint was chipping. The windows were broken. The roof tiles were falling off. The cars looked to be in a barely-functional state. The air was cold, and everything felt so empty compared to his own part of the neighbourhood. What had happened to this place? What kind of people would've let their own home be reduced to the kind of state that screamed 'crime happens on every corner'?

Lenny continued walking like he hadn't noticed a thing, while Homer began to wish that his parents were there with him.

'I-I don't like it here.' He said. 'I-I wanna go home.'

'Hey, this place isn't that bad.' Lenny insisted, grabbing him by the wrist. 'They're just poor. I hear they don't get much… well, anything.'

'W-Why is that? Are they s-scary?'

Lenny shrugged. 'Nah. Nice, actually! So I don't know why everything is like this.'

They had barely entered this horrible place before Lenny dragged Homer into a nearby grove of trees. The new boy thanked the forest that surrounded most sides of his city, for it gave him an easy way to hide from any adults who wouldn't like what he was doing.

'W-Where are you taking me?' Homer asked, trembling a little.

'He should be here…' Lenny said, not really answering his question. 'Any moment now…' He smiled. 'There he is!'

Homer was just about fed up with being dragged around everything, but fortunately it didn't last much longer. After what must've been hours - or at least felt like it - they arrived at a non-descript part of this untamed forest. Looking around, Homer couldn't even begin to guess what was the big secret here. Some random forest? Was that really so horrible that no one could know he was here?

Then, a kid jumped out from behind a tree. He was another boy about Homer's age, except he was dressed up in messy clothes with his hair a little all over the place. That was fine, cos a lot of kids his age didn't dress up especially well, and if this neighbourhood didn't get much of 'anything' as Lenny put it, it would make sense if this kid couldn't dress very well. It wasn't even his expression, which Homer had difficulty identifying but seemed to say that he didn't appreciate his presence.

No, there was something else about this boy that struck Homer as very odd and new: his skin colour. Unlike everyone else who Homer knew, including Lenny, who had skin as light as could be without being a vampire, this new boy's skin was a very dark shade of brown. It almost looked like chocolate, in fact.

'Why is he all dirty?' Homer asked, without really thinking about it.

'I'm not dirty!' The new boy retorted. 'My skin is just like this!'

Homer flinched. Lenny stepped forward, and waved his hands about to signal for his dark-skinned friend to calm down.

'Don't be mad at him.' He said. 'He's not like… the adults. He doesn't know better.'

The new boy seemed to calm down a little bit, and even gave Homer a little wave. The shyer boy returned it, unsure on what else to do.

'Hi there!' The boy greeted. 'I'm Carl! What's your name?'

'Homer.' He responded simply.

Lenny ran forward and gave Carl a high-five. Though Homer had only known this 'Carl' kid for a few minutes, he didn't seem any different from any other kid he had seen.

'Why is your skin so dark?' He asked, once again not realising that the question wasn't exactly a sensitive one.

Carl rolled his eyes, like he had received this question about a dozen times already in his short life, but his answer lacked any sort of annoyed tone. Well, any tone that Homer could pick up at least.

'I was born like this.' He said. 'So were my parents. So was everyone else in this neighbourhood.'

Homer looked back at the neighbourhood. The trees covered most of it up, but from what he could see it seemed to be in an even worse state than it was before. Most of those buildings didn't even look like they would withstand a single storm.

'Is that why everything looks so bad here?' He asked.

Carl frowned and clenched his fists, and even though he didn't really look like he was about to punch anyone, it still made Homer flinch. He knew he had said something terrible, but he couldn't understand what. It was a connection that made sense to him - his neighbourhood was pretty and filled with light-skinned people, while this ugly and cheap neighbourhood was apparently filled with black-skinned people. Still, Carl did not seem to like it.

'No it isn't!' He yelled. 'We could make our home just as pretty as yours if you white guys stopped giving us terrible things!'

This was the second time that Carl had gotten mad at Homer for asking what he thought was a perfectly innocent question. If the other dark-skinned people were like this…

'W-Why is Carl getting mad at me?' Homer asked Lenny.

'It isn't you.' Lenny replied. 'He gets stuff like this a lot from the adults, and it frustrates him. I don't blame him. I'd be angry too!'

Carl breathed in and out. 'Yeah… I'm sorry. You didn't mean it. But I'm just so annoyed with the things people say about me and my family!'

'But then why do people say or do these things to you?' Homer asked, yet again, seeing as all he could do in this situation was ask questions.

Both Lenny and Carl responded with confused shrugs. It was almost as if there was hardly any difference between a light-skinned kid or a dark-skinned kid, and that kids as young as them didn't see any problem at all.

'You mean they treat you like this for no reason?' He asked. 'That doesn't make any sense.'

'You're telling me!' Carl said.

'And that's why we can't tell anyone about this friendship.' Lenny added. 'If my parents found out I was friends with a black kid, they might do… bad things to him. They might even hurt him!'

'But why?'

'I don't know! But that's the way it is.'

Homer looked back at the dark-skinned boy in front of him. There must've been a reason why the people in his neighbourhood didn't like Carl or his family. Why else would they be relegated to their own terrible part of the neighbourhood? Yet, looking at Carl again, he couldn't see any problem other than his skin tone. Was that really the only problem? It wasn't even a real 'problem' to begin with.

'I don't wanna talk about this.' Carl said, pulling out a little red ball from his pocket. 'Wanna play catch?'

Homer smiled. 'Yeah!'

Carl took just a couple of steps back, and tossed it over to Lenny. The boy caught it by jumping into the air, and for a moment he felt like an Olympic gold medallist, which was appropriate because that year's game started recently.

'Homer, catch!'

He threw the ball to Homer a little more gently than he normally would, and Homer caught it with ease. It only took him a couple of seconds to chuck it at Carl with all of his might, and the new kid only managed to catch it by instinct.

'Nice shot!' Carl said. 'You new around here?'

'Just moved.' Homer replied. 'I miss my farm…'

'So you just moved here, huh? From a farm? Oof. Bet that was hard.'

'Uh-huh…'

Lenny slung an arm over Homer's shoulder. 'Don't worry about it! With us around, you'll be just fine!'

Homer managed a small smile. There hadn't been many of those on his face ever since the move, and he stood still for a moment just to let it all sink in.

'Just don't tell anyone you know me, okay?' Carl requested, throwing the ball back to him. 'Mom and Dad tell me that if I'm seen playing with a white kid, I could get in big, big trouble.'

'Well, you can say you have friends.' Lenny said. 'Just don't mention that Carl is black, okay?'

Homer nodded. 'Easy!'

The young boys played together for a while, blissfully unaware of the problems back at the ghetto. Homer just went along with it, but Lenny couldn't help but feel like a hero for playing with this black boy. It wasn't as if that was the reason he was friends with him - that wouldn't be much better, for he would still be taking skin colour in account - but just simply what it kinda felt like. He wasn't quite sure why he felt like that. He wasn't a hero just for being friends with someone of a different skin tone, as far as he was aware. Not even his parents would think that - he knew they'd just ban him from ever seeing this kid again, while calling him a word that cannot be repeated in any context.

The game only stopped when…

'Oh!' Lenny yelled, realising how much time had gone by. 'Homer, we gotta get back to our part of the neighbourhood! We don't wanna make our parents suspicious.'

Homer tossed the ball back to Carl. 'Come back with us!'

Carl winced, and shook his head. 'Oh, there's no way I can do that. If I'm seen in your neighbourhood… they might kill me!'

The farm boy chuckled. 'They wouldn't do that!'

'Oh, they would.' Lenny said. 'Dad says awful things about black people. A lot of people on my street do. I don't know why.'

They said their goodbyes, and ran back to their homes. Homer watched Carl enter a run-down building and leap into the arms of an equally-dark-skinned woman, most likely his mother. He figured that Carl's family had to have done something to deserve such bad living conditions. After all, why would they be treated so badly just because of their skin tone?

'Can we see him again?' Homer asked when they arrived back in the 'white' neighbourhood.

'Carl? Yeah, I go and see him every week!' Lenny replied. 'It'd be a lot easier if he was allowed to go to the same school as us, but… I can go by your house when I'm off to see him, and you can tell your parents that you're just off playing with me!'

Homer smiled. 'That sounds fun!'

'Just remember, Homer.'

The farm boy nodded. 'I can't tell my parents that Carl is black, or they'll get mad at me for playing with him.'

Lenny's eyes widened and he looked around, checking to see if any of the passerbyers heard those words. Fortunately, none of the adults noticed they were even there, and even if the children heard them it wasn't so bad. The children were hardly ever believed anyway.

'I wish they would get mad at you.' Lenny said. 'But they'll probably get mad at him.'

'Why him?' Homer asked.

'The adults always think the black guys are to blame.'

'And… there!'

Homer stepped back from his creation, twirling the pink crayon around in his hand. He admired that pink cow now prancing around on the wall. It didn't look much like a real cow - thanks to her circular body and toothpick legs - but it was good enough for him. He reached his hand out for her, but retracted it immediately when his hand began to smudge the wax. Under it, he wrote 'Bessie'.

Bessie was always his favourite, for being both the nicest and the tastiest of all his cows.

The yard still felt empty. He still longed for those wonderful fields and clear blue skies. He still dreamt of going back to the farmhouse and living there his whole life. He even still missed the chipping paint and crumbling roof tiles, and a house that made Carl's home look like a shiny mansion.

It had been a few weeks since he had moved. Now, he had gotten used to going to the bathroom inside the house instead of the outhouse, which he had grown to prefer for being far more convenient. The TV had better reception, which was always a plus, and the cupboards were a lot bigger too. They no longer had to use jugs and pots to catch the leaks whenever it rained, and the power no longer went out whenever a slight breeze passed by.

He still missed the farm, and everything about it. No more cows. No more fields. No more empty skies. No more peace and quiet. Yet, he wasn't so sad anymore.

'HOMER!' Lenny called from the street. 'Let's go!'

The moment he heard the voice of one of his new friends, he chucked that crayon down and ran through the house to get to the front yard. Lenny awaited for him by the gate, like he had done the week before and the week before that.

'Bye Mom!' Homer called as he ran out the gate. 'Bye Dad!'

Mona watched her son run off with his new friend from the kitchen window, and she found herself on the verge of tears. It wasn't just because he had finally found a proper friend, but because this 'Lenny' kid must've been so welcoming to play with her son and treat him so well despite their… differences.

If only she knew just how welcoming and inclusive Lenny really was…

Author Notes - If you believe that I am racist after reading this chapter, then you are either one of those people on Tumblr, or I've screwed up massively.

I was actually planning for Carl and Lenny to debut in 'Preschool Daze', but then I remembered the era and realised that it probably wasn't too common for schools to be mixed-race back then, especially in a town like Springfield. And yes, 'The Way We Weren't' seemed to show Homer meeting them at ten years old in summer camp, but I'm playing around with the timeline to whatever I think is a good combination of canon accuracy and interesting changes. If the ages of Patty and Selma didn't make that obvious enough.

I've experienced a few moves in my life. I've lived in every Eastern Australian state except for Victoria for a few years each, and I have to say that Queensland was the most miserable of them all. Tasmania (my current and likely permanent home) is much more for me.